I don't know anything anymore!

HI just a random thought I have been having recently- probably a symptom of going to uni/this stage of life but:

Lately it just feels like nothing has any meaning, nobody knows anything, and no opinions can possibly be valid... Everything is infinitely complex but also meaningless. I don't know who I am, I don't know what my purpose in life is, and I don't think it's possible to truly find it- you just make one up for yourself.

I feel as if I am completely blank and empty; constantly shifting my views but never understanding how society works and how I could ever fit into that. I'm not posting this in a 'depressed' or self-indulgent kind of way; I genuinely just don't understand anything!

Has anyone else experienced this?!

Reply 1

Electronica

I know the feeling all too well. It's as if nothing really has a point because everything just dies away anyway. I fail to understand how anyone could get so worked up about anything because it means nothing. It's like playing a great big video game with a trophy at the end and when you get that trophy you realise it's all just a picture on a screen and has no meaning. To be honest with you, the only solution I can see is just to enjoy the damn game.

Reply 2

098

Original post by Electronica

That's exactly it! I just don't care about anything anymore- but in quite a bemused sort of way rather than a depressive one...

Yeah, I guess you're right- it's just reconciling yourself with the idea of something being so meaningless but enjoyable that's odd to me.

Reply 3

Electronica

Original post by 098

Yeah I'm the same. I'm never depressed but I am just always acknowledging the fact that life really has no meaning other than just to exist, random existence. And that everything our society gives such a great and powerful meaning to, if we took away that meaning, it just wouldn't make a difference to anything. I guess things would be different if I wasn't an atheist. Life is just a great big game.

Reply 4

cormack12

I think everyone goes through some sort of existentialist phase at some part of their life. It can be healthy but it can also plunge you into an abyss of solace.

Probably best to read some books as it helps to read the thoughts of those who have pondered the same but analysed it articulately and objectively.

Reply 5

Martyn*

Original post by 098

What you are describing is perhaps the natural state of the human condition.

Reply 6

InternetGangster

Original post by 098

Are you religious? When did you become an atheist?

Reply 7

wilson_smith

Read Camus' The Myth of Sisyphus. Personally, I take sanity in the fact much can be done to better the world and relieve some of the relentless suffering in it - I find it difficult to call such activities meaningless. I also take some sanctity from such existential depressions in the quite pure happiness I receive from my relationship, and to a less concentrated extent friendships. But there you go.

(edited 12 years ago)

Reply 8

C_G

I think my favorite Carl Sagan quote applies here:

Who are we? We find that we live on an insignificant planet of a humdrum star lost in a galaxy tucked away in some forgotten corner of a universe in which there are far more galaxies than people.

That is to say that, no matter what you do or accomplish in life it really doesn't matter. All humanity is and ever will be is a the tiniest sub-particle in a universe so much more complex and diverse than the greatest human minds can even start to comprehend.

In answer to your question, we are born, we live and we die. But the show, that is the universe, must go on.

Reply 9

James82

Original post by C_G

Entropy and the second law of thermodynamics imply that the universe won't go on. :wink:

Reply 10

~Sanctified

[video="youtube;RJdstQFgoaU"]That's how you must feel[/video]

Reply 11

hitherto

Having read the write-up in wikipedia I agree with a lot of it, if not all, but like a previous poster said before me it is probably wise to not get your head too much into it as you might throw yourself in an even more deeper despair. But I know everything you feel, I feel it every day, I think about it often but somehow I just try and do, that has been my motto for the past year, to just do and bypass why. I agree with what Sartre said that 'it is huma beings who create their own values and determine a meaning to their life' and also Kierkegaard who echoes the same thing by saying that 'it is the individual who is solely responsible for giving his or her own life meaning and for living that life passionately and sincerely'.

Reply 12

rac1

Even when my faith breaks I'm going to carry on trying being Catholic, yes even despite the fact that there are bad priests out there, I still believe in the teachings.

Reply 13

geetar

I think you're asking several questions there. Read some Kierkegaard or something. For what it's worth, I'm at law school and I think it's made me stupider than ever.