Asklemmy

I actually had comfortable morning. I thank you for yet another fun experience of existential crisis.

So much happened before you opened your eyes for the first time, so much will happen after you close them for the last time.

You just replace that anxiety with a different fear.

I don’t fear oblivion, I fear it will keep me waiting. Not existing is a silent matter, living past your due as a broken, diseased husk or a person is a torture to you and those you cherish.

Death is a promise of rest, there’s no need to fear it. I’m a bit sad that I won’t get to witness most of the things I want to witness, but so be it.

Remember what it was like before you were born? It's like that

Absurdism - How to party at the end of meaning:

https://youtu.be/Jv79l1b-eoI

How to you come to terms with the fact that you will eventually not exist?

I don't. I think it's fucking unfair and I would rather live for a much, much longer time. But I can't change anything about it, so I try not to think about it. Fortunately this world is full of wonders so there is a lot to distract me. Just looking at clouds - they`re fucking huge and diverse and constantly changing and have so many shades of different colors.

I don't really care, and I don't really enjoy existing

How to you come to terms with the fact that you will eventually not exist?

I struggle with what happens before that. That's the only relief I have, knowing that this shit parade will one day end and not matter at all.

I sit inside a dark closet and listen to whale song. I also sometimes say that the awareness of our inevitable death is the only reason for why we enjoy life. While I'm still here, I want to leave my mark in this world, and that's why I make art. I can't avoid death, so I taught myself how to embrace it.

You are wired to think that you currently exist and that you should keep doing that at all costs, but those beliefs cannot be explained or comprehended in terms of logic, so for all purposes they are false, and acknowledging that has been useful to me.

Anyway, if your existential crises are very short and intense, accompanied by intense fear and feelings of impending doom, feelings that you can't breathe, then they probably have a physical component to them. It is very important that you understand the difference between regular intrusive thoughts of death and panic attacks that express themselves as feelings and thoughts of death that you might already have interiorized. The former can be managed, the latter cannot, and are usually self-reinforcing and need a combined therapy.

If you think you might be having the latter (I did for a couple of months), avoid alcohol for a while, and talk to a doctor; you may be advised to take a low dose short-acting anxiolytic drug whenever you feel like you're going to have one (I started with 0.5 mg lorazepam sublingual, then switched to 0.25 mg).

Have you tried therapy?

I choose to not die.

How do you deal with a existential crisis?

I bring in the heavy guns... that's right, the Ghost Busters.

""My philosophy is that worrying means you suffer twice." - Newt Scamander

The Book of Ecclesiastes might be helpful here. "Everything is meaningless!"

Its conclusion is to find stuff you enjoy doing and do it because you enjoy doing it.

What works for me may not work for you. I've found comfort and freedom from my existential dread on Epicurus' Four Remedies (tetrapharmakos), especially the second one. These are:

Don't fear gods;
Don't worry about death;
What is good is easy to get;
What is terrible is easy to endure.

In his Letter to Menoeceus, Epicurus writes:

Get used to believing that death is nothing to us. For all good and bad consists in sense-experience, and death is the privation of sense-experience. Hence, a correct knowledge of the fact that death is nothing to us makes the mortality of life a matter for contentment, not by adding a limitless time [to life] but by removing the longing for immortality. For there is nothing fearful in life for one who has grasped that there is nothing fearful in the absence of life. Thus, he is a fool who says that he fears death not because it will be painful when present but because it is painful when it is still to come. For that which while present causes no distress causes unnecessary pain when merely anticipated. So death, the most frightening of bad things, is nothing to us; since when we exist, death is not yet present, and when death is present, then we do not exist. Therefore, it is relevant neither to the living nor to the dead, since it does not affect the former, and the latter do not exist.

The gist of this passage is that worrying about death is misguided. Death is not a state of being. As such, our sense of self only exists while we're alive. In this Principle Doctrines, Epicurus says:

Death is nothing to us. For what has been dissolved has no sense-experience, and what has no sense-experience is nothing to us.

To be you have to experience. And death marks when we no longer have any sense-experience. This understanding of death is like a dreamless night from which we never awake, says Socrates in Plato's Apology. Seen in this light, Epicurus is right that it is a bit foolish to suffer in life from fearing a state of being where there won't be anybody to suffer whatsoever. The existential dread is precisely this misguided fear.

Once you recognize the truth of this statement, just like magic, poof, that existential dread disappears. Of course, if you have a religious view that postulates life after death, with all the subsequent very human drama entailed by that belief, you're now dealing with a different kind of fear. And that fear is precisely what Epicurus addresses in his first remedy, Don't fear gods. His reasoning is also clear cut here.

By definition a God is perfect. It's immortal and has no needs. Because of this, any god has no worries. As such, gods, by definition, don't care about us. Caring about us implies they have some sort of need, thus rendering them less godlike.

This ties with the second remedy. The cherry on top is to simply remember this: just as we never worry with the time before we were born, it's also silly to worry about the time after we are gone.

1. gratitude is very important

Not just existentially for a chance at being, but just muster as much of it as you can for the people around you, for every kindness shared with you, and for the beauty you get to experience. Even for bad shit that teaches you a lesson you can say thank you. It's literally free.

2. helping others

If your own shit is fucked, you might get a little humility, space, and grace by thinking about others. Check in on your friends, find an opportunity to volunteer, donate if it's in the cards for you.

3. hydrate and get enough sleep

When in doubt, these two might help

4. spend some time in nature

It should feel good to do this, so I wouldn't prescribe an amount of time, but at least 30 minutes of touching grass

After you have those four settled, I think it's worthwhile to start thinking about how you put your life together. In my mind, if you reach for things that resonate with you and you pursue it by doing things that you enjoy, you'll maximize your enjoyment, miss out on things that aren't for you, and meet the right people along the way. The consequences of your actions aren't permanent for you, sure, but if you live authentically and kindly, you'll affect others positively so that they'll have a better trip hurdling through space. Being as joyful as possible will have costed you nothing to help and, on the contrary, gotten you as close as possible to having your struggles be worthwhile.

I suppose I just spend less time thinking and more time feeling - smoking life like a loose cigarette from God on a balcony overlooking meaningless and the void. Alan Watts has a very romantic view of being the universe observing itself that never quite landed for me, but you should check out his lectures. They're very entertaining while being existential. Eckhart Tolle is a and is a little more self-helpy, but is still a fantastic source of knowledge about ceasing to create your own unhappiness.

I've heard you get used to the thought with age. Not much thinking going on if you are stuck in it. I do revisit the same thing from time to time, and sometimes it seems true that as time passes the perspectives change a bit.

The same nagging notion sometimes claws at my brain as well.

The notion of consciousness not existing is especially troublesome for me to wrap my mind around. Logic says that no consciousness means nothing to perceive said lack of consciousness, therefore no loss there (for the subject, of course). That somehow... does not make it any better.

First time I've been through general anaesthesia I was wondering what it'd be like and a bit fearful of it. Happened in an instant, and I woke up what felt like immediately. Afterwards my conscious mind fixed that with perhaps artificially introducing passage of time to make everything fit. If I think back now, I certainly know some time had passed. But had it? And how much? No idea. Clock said around 3 hours, so I'll go by that.

Shortly thereafter I had a massive bleed and lost about 1/3 of my blood (by looking at amount of hemoglobin before and after the event). The more I lost, the less coherent I was and the less anything mattered. By the time I got to the ER, I had tunnel vision and survival mode on. But I wasn't scared for some odd reason... nothing mattered much. Not sure how close I came to actual death then, but it felt pretty close.

What I can advise... enjoy what you can, and don't waste your hate on anything. It's pretty much not worth it. Unless your life or the life of loved ones is in immediate danger, screw it. Guy cut you off in traffic? Fuck'em. It's not worth shortening your life for some rando with not enough respect for himself or others as to break the social contract. Just choose your preferred intensity of sustainable (for you) hedonism and go from there.

I also hope it gets easier with age, but the prospect of becoming more jaded that I am now is not appealing. Though if it makes everything easier...

I will say this, though. Not existing was (probably?) fine. But being brought into existence just for it to be taken away after a blink of an eye (in terms of billions of years of non-existence vs the average lifespan) seems like cruel and unusual punishment.

I don't struggle with it. When the end finally comes it will bring peace the likes of which I've never experienced. Life's been hard and as I age, my body is breaking down in little annoying ways that add up into a larger annoyance. The only thing I fear about the end is dying in pain.

An existential crisis can only occur if we believe that we know what will happen in the future. It's safe to assume that we will one day die and there is no meaning in the universe. However, there is very little utility in dwelling on these thoughts. The important part of life is happening right now, in this moment. Distracting ourselves from this moment robs our lives of meaning and eventually delivers it to the abyss whence nothing returns.

Mushrooms and/or LSD.

The fear of death is kind of an evolutional necessity. Otherwise our species wouldn't have survived. Without the fear of death we probably wouldn't be here. In some ways it's a crucial companion of existence. idk why, but seeing it as a condition of existence helps me put it in perspective. Like being alive is great and I guess this is the price I have to pay. Most of the time it's worth it.

I became a bit of an absurdist.

Repress repress repress!

Most of what happens in the world would happen regardless of whether I existed or not, so even while I’m alive, the impact of my existence is negligible. I don’t believe in an afterlife, so I won’t know or care when I’m gone, either. It seems futile to waste any of my short life worrying about the inevitable.

Camus!

I had an existential crisis when I was probably 11. It haunted me and I didn't sleep for days because I was contemplating, constantly.

My belief now, after many psychedelic trips is very akin to the short novel "The Egg" by Andy Weir. Even if I have no idea what the truth could be, I take comfort in that fun read. It seems right to me

I've always been a fan of, we're the universe experiencing itself.