/lit/ - Literature

im gonna die oh no

oh no determinism

[insert non-problem] oh no

I wonder who I am within such a grand and vast universe
Oh, maybe some introspection will help
Hmmm, yeah, I think I understand myself within my own hypocrisy and traits
I guess I'll try and be better
yep yep yep

>>3882718
>What was that like?
>was

>>3882718
>prolonged existential crisis
but i was only 16 for a year

>>3882761

>that feel

>>3882718
>What was that like?
meh.

What's it like afterwards?

>>3882780
please bring the doctor in from the rain :(

Yeah I'm in one right now. I'm 24, just graduated college, and I really don't want a 9-5 job. What do?

>>3882863

I can't put effort into a job that I think is meaningless. How do cope?

>>3882863
> Become a freelancer
> Become an artist
> Work in academia 9-3
> Become a welfare bum

>Anyone ever have a prolonged existential crisis? What was that like?

like riding your immaturity well into your adulthood

>>3882950
there is no such thing as maturity mate. only b rainwashed corporate suits believe in it.

Raise a child and hope it will grow up and have answers

>>3883011
there is a such thing as maturity. you'll know once you've experienced it. some of it entails a full time job you have to take seriously because mom and dad aren't going to wipe your ass for you anymore.

>>3883094
what do you buy with the money from your full-time job?

>>3883111
Obviously he buys toilet paper. Read between the lines man.

I'd be more concerned about those who will themselves out of an existential crisis.

I am working myself out of mine.

Basically, an existential crisis is not knowing who you are. Not knowing if what you are doing with your life is right. If it will make a change. If you are just throwing your life away the same you KNOW some people are throwing theirs away without them knowing it.

The real problem is that existentialism leads to nowhere.

And you will never stop being yourself.

Something has to come and take you out of it.

>>3883120
Ha. But in all seriousness, I don't think maturity is really defined like that. It probably means different things to different people, granted that being able to support yourself is a fairly common definition.

>>3883161
you may want to start over

>>3883081
>Raise a child and hope it will grow up and have answers
It doesn't.

>>3882863

Get a job at Keystone, Breckenridge, or Vail. Be a ski bum, find out you love living in the mountains. Spend all your time doing cool things while making enough money to live and drink but not pay off your bills. It's damn easy to find work in the winter and it's fun as hell.

I mean, that's one option.

>>3882950
> like riding your immaturity well into your adulthood

such simple minds exist? wow

>>3883219

Hmm not bad. What about a situation like that, but in Hawaii?

>>3883342
Jesus fucking christ.

>>3883342
hawaii fucking sucks bro

avoid at all costs

>>3883371

No it doesn't.

>>3883391
Do/did you live there? It's an alright vacation spot (if you can take all the fat people in socks and sandals) but I would not want to live there by any means.

i've been having one since I was 16 (20 now)

>>3882863
>I really don't want a 9-5 job. What do?
work the night shift

I've been considering the option of actually being a homeless person.
Asking for food on the trains, sleeping at parks...
The modern times Diogenes.

>>3883943
I think everyone should hobo around at least once. Hop trains, hitchhike, live humbly; it's an enlightening experience.

>>3882863
Invent something.

>>3884023
But that sounds scary.

I have been living one for maybe a year now. It's not crippling, and I am a high-functioning member of a difficult profession.

I decided to start reading philosophy. Seriously. from the Greeks up. Now, I am constantly questioning what to think and do. A man can easily throw off the tyranny of bourgeois meduocrity and rigid values - but why? To do more desirable things? Desirability is just a construct in my neurochemical puddle of goop anyway...

I have gained a high level of self-insight and worldly useful knowledge. All this philosophy has helped me cope with grief and failure more effectively, so it's got pragmatic benefits and isn't all weeping and worrying.

At this stage I am probably more suspicious of an intellectual man who isn't constantly questionong everything. 'The only thing I know is that I know nothing' was said early in the history of Western philosophy and it still rings powerfully.

>>3882718

Towards the middle of my first semester at college I started getting really depressed, and it quickly devolved into a sort of existential crisis.

I ended up dropping out and joining a commune. So far, it's one of the best decisions I've ever made, but I guess only time will tell.

I've been having an existential crisis for 10 years, but it's getting better lately.

I can do a million things, I have some skills and talent.
But I just can't fully commit to anything. I'm always holding back and thinking about something else.
I can't think of any job that would be "truly me". By the time I master it, I'll probably change and want something else.
(Also the fact that life is so short and that I'll never be able to do everything I want is fucking me up.)

Well, at least I realized that part of the problem is emotional and some of it easily treatable.
I found a book on depression that finally made sense.
I decided that I want to live. It's a decision that I don't think I can justify with reason/logic. It's also a decision that I didn't just make once. I'm making it every day and trying to build a solid emotional base, which might also help me think more clearly or at least see things from another perspective.

My recommendations: accept reality for what it is, including other people and yourself.
If there's something that's frustrating you, study it, investigate, don't just respond to it emotionally. Philosophy can help here, don't underestimate the human resources.

A lot of these crises are relatively simple emotional stuff, like depression caused by specific negative thinking. Get rid of it and see what's left.
But if you're looking for a 'logical' reason to live or to live in a specific way, I don't think there is such a thing. I'd love to be proven wrong, though.

>>3884150
Man, my mom was part of a commune for a while and I really wanna be in one for at least a while, how did you join yours?

>>3884174
You've just summarized in words what I've been feeling in emotion for the past 3 years... I love you.

>>3884174
what book is that?

>>3883094

>some of it entails a full time job you have to take seriously

Expand on what you mean by seriously please. I'm interested in what your perspective is.

>>3884174
>I found a book on depression that finally made sense.
What book?

ok man i have the solution please read, i have tje ultra-secret who nobody knows, pls listen and read
please, okay, if you want to stop the Existential Crisis©™® please
do this do the followink
1 step- be sur eyou are wearing white trousers
2strep be sure your mom isnt near
3 stepr- translate binary:
you can use :http://home.paulschou.net/tools/xlate/ 01101011 01101001 01101100 01101100 00100000 01111001 01101111 01110010 01110011 01100101 01101100 01100110 00100000 01100110 01100001 01100111 01100111 01101111 01110100

please follow the steps in order

Existential Crisis©™®: very funny
loledgyxd

"Existantial crisis" is the feeling young bourgeois people feel, that is better described as being "financialy insecure". Only in a post-industrial society can the feeling of boredom arise among young and productive members of a society, who grovel over their first social anxiety and cower at the hostility of the market and employment sector.
Of course social alienation is nothing new, repeating mind dumbing and repetetive jobs with very liitle meaning reduces creativity and strengthens the anxiety of the subject.
the human mind is infiniteley more rich and powerfull than what your average office job offers it, or when boring comercial entertainment tries to numb it.
In other words in this meaninglessness, an existential crisis means little more than boredom and loss of identity in the capitalist world that disintegrates all real joy and creativity.

>>3884177

Three week visitor period and an interview.

>>3884200
>>3884221
David Burns - Feeling Good

>>3884238
retarded marxist detected
>hur dur everything is relations of production and power struggle
enjoy your philistine approach to the world

>>3884174
this.
if anybody asked my what my deepest wish was i couldnt think of an answer.
it is a state of being content while absolutely unhappy

>>3884238

/thread

>>3883094
"Life is fucking tough and only hard assed pricks can make it through a single fucking day."

That is what you sound like, i hope you know.

>>3884250
>barbaroi in charge of calling others philistine
>tfw temporarily embarrassed billionaire

>>3884250
>philistinism
What is more "philistine" than using a bourgeois category of the 19C popularised among English speakers by a philistine like Matthew Arnold (taken from the Germans) in the 21st C to understand the modern world? Marxism, still a part of romanticism, is a thousand times more coherent than its romantic bourgeois counterparts.

>>3884204
i think taking a full time job seriously is only a signifier of maturity and not maturity in itself.

i think maturity is empathy. it's understanding your relationship with the rest of the world in a much larger way than when you were a kid. it's responsibility and priorities. it's self reliance when it has to be that way and knowing when to seek help. it's a lot of things. it's knowing your limits and knowing when to have fun outside of them. it's understanding how very complicated shit is and how language inherently comes up short in explaining it all.

i hate one-liners but i saw a bumper sticker that said everyone grows older but not everyone grows up which i agree with.

>>3883111
mortgage, car note, insurance of various types, phone bills, do my own grocery shopping and buying random shit you never considered buying when you were a kid. it's having to work everyday because you either do it or find yourself in a hole that only gets deeper the longer you put it off. sucks.

i'm sure someone will try to tear this apart because so many of you like to be contrary bastards.

>>3882745
>>3882754

i feel really, really stupid now

>>3884720
are you talking to yourself or are you stupid?

>>3884724

are you retarded? I feel stupid because the 'jokes' or 'ironic shitposting' or whatever you want to call it applied to me. It was really obvious, too.

>>3884746
I just came in and asked you why you felt stupid if you were honest.

>>3884116
Going to try this and take it seriously this time

>>3884228
What you just did is entirely unacceptable.
Didn't follow your link, though

>existential crisis

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sAwCdjccRjM

The cure:

Get a gf

it's funny that the minute you're physically exhausted you forget all about your existential qualms

>>3885527

FOR YOU!

>>3885436
That was pretty interesting and really intense.

Can Jesus microwave a burrito so hot even he him could not eat it?

>>3885527
That guy is the closest thing to a real life Tyler Durden I have ever seen. But I don't think crossing the line to insanity is what I need.

>>3885682
>stupid sexy savior

>>3885682

I is 'avin a giggle at yo omnipotence paradox m8.

I got into some pretty serious trouble, got sued for a shit-load of money and was nearly responsible for my family losing their home.

In the middle of all of that, I decided that I would kill myself before the case went to trial and that I would accomplish all of my goals before that happened.

I lost my virginity, became a performing musician/writer, moved out of my mom's house to a new city alone and got my own place and a girlfriend all within a few months. I re-invented myself completely because I already considered my old "self" dead and decided that my old life wasn't worth living anyway.

My life is very scary now because I know that I have the power to do almost anything I want and, if I can't/won't do it, I am very comfortable with the idea of ending my life permanently. So any time I get bored or feel unfulfilled, I remind myself that my two options are change or death. I am living on borrowed time, so I live pretty recklessly. If I died tomorrow at my own hand or someone else's it wouldn't be much of a loss, since I've already accomplished literally everything I had originally set out to do.

>>3885826
You should go to bed, Raskolnikov

Honestly, I was going through a bit of one for a while, but it got better after I started following Steve Roggenbuck. Yeah he's silly and his poetry sucks, but I find meaning in his videos.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hp_jMCbKTU4

It's like >>3884174 said, you just have to choose to live and go from there.

>>3885839
Is that what that book is about?

My junior year in college a guy I knew from middle school (met and became suitemates in college) committed suicide. This punctuated a deteriorating relationship and lack of focus/plan for post graduation.

The next two years were spent in a sort of fugue. I did a preemptive semester drop and spent an entire semester walking around the city aimlessly. My favorite thing to do would be to indulge in DXM and walk several miles from the school to the state art museum. That and late night walks for food (I remember having a certain fondness for the body's natural requirement for food, hungry can provide focus and direction)

This kept up for a year and half until I started taking creative writing courses. Those courses really helped to provide an outlet for me and help me graduate.

>>3885436

whoa.

like I kinda get it but i dont know

>>3885993
Kind of.
You should read it.

A lot of people ITT are romanticizing their laziness and depression. Not exactly existential crisis material.

>>3885826
this is good.
real good.

>>3884150
How do I find one of these? What's it like there? Do you not have to work?

>>3884702

I generally agree with what you're saying but - speaking from some recent experience here - it seems that in some ways those who climb to the top lack empathy and hence the maturity you speak of. Maturity may be personally enlightening and something to strive for but does our society value those who aren't mature above those who are?

>tfw chasing long lost innocence only known thru clouded memories of childhood
>tfw think i can regain control of my life and enjoy it once more if i just return to the time when i did not think
>tfw want a lobotomy
>tfw reasons for suicide become more complex as i continue to grow thus becoming harder to refute, harder to 'think positively'

For 10 years already... It's just part of my life style by now.

I think I'll always be alone, I'm already 29 and never had a girlfriend. It has been a while since I had friends and I'm stuck in a very religious third world country where I don't have anyone with whom I can speak of interesting stuff.

This may come off as bragging but I try to compensate all of this with my love for knowledge and art.

For instance: I'm studying CS: Just 7 classes left, I learnt English on my own, I can read fluently in French (around B1 level) and I manage by with Japanese (approx. JPLT 4).

I have been doing digital drawing/painting for a while (6 months) and now I consider myself semi-competent.

Last week I started learning the piano.

Who knows... I still have hope that someday I will leave this place for some place in Europe and realize my plastic dream.

quadruplegic retarded black women

>>3882718

y'all niggas need to go outside and play more often. whenever i start seeing red flags for any kind of neurotic (read: dishonest) behavior i just go and do shit I did when I was a child, except with my 'adult' knowledge and then suddenly happiness comes flooding back and bang no more problems.

go to a fucking park and use your imagination to pretend you're a warrior and climb trees and shit. I don't know.

i used to think my problems were complex. they aren't. problems are not complex, your perception of a situation is. you, the person, do not actually "have" problems. you experience a feeling of pain and do not deal with it directly when it happens and then 3 months later it's been festering in the back of your mind and the depths of your body and you wonder why you can't get up out of bed or why food loses its taste or why it's difficult to release words from your mouth.

elliot is thinking on the right lines when he says you have to 'express'. i prefer speaking plainly about it and just saying 'get up and move'- but whatever.

>>3887703
Leave before you die.

>>3884238
This sounds great until you realize that watching butterflies and critiquing life wouldn't put a roof over your head or food in your stomach even in the best societies. Marx was wrong and he knew he was wrong.

>>3887859
same with this post
>>3887743

As much as I agree, yes go to a park and enjoy it.

But honestly? Something like that wont create meaning in a community, a family or an organisation. It wont stop people destroying the planet.

There is only so much you can do on your own life is not meant to be lived alone wasted spent on activities that do little more than keep the mental demons away.

The most important thing about existential crisis is to learn to not take life so seriously, its a game, you just play the hand you are dealt. Win or lose its all the same just a game.

There isn't a lot of meaning in modern life as everything has become a commodity.

As much as I dont worry about losing the game of life I certainly dont stop trying to win and I play for keeps.

We need a new living paradigm. I think everyone here is just smart enough to realise what we are doing as a collective isnt working for us anymore. How we deal with it is the crisis.

>>3887887
Personally I'm putting every waking moment I have into trying to find a new way and demonstrate it.

I dunno about you guys.

drinking drinking drinking

ennui

drinking drinking

weird dreams

ennui

drinking drinking drinking

praying and supplication praying and supplication

atheism

praying and supplication

drinking

ennui

camping and drugs camping and drugs

drinking drinking drinking

privilege check

moment of clarity

rinse and repeat

if life is meaningless then it's meaningless to say "life is meaningless"

ok, life is meaningless.

1) why should I care?
2) why would this make me sad?
3) why would 'thinking logically' help me at all?

Not existential but lately I've been having a lot of anxiety relating to feeling overwhelmed by information. Like things get too complex to grasp, everything going into deeper levels. You know, people are too complex to communicate with, especially as they get older and become more independent, people go online and take influence from so many different sources, it takes me a long time to understand any individual not similar enough in thought and taste to me at a level necessary to interact comfortably with.

I feel like this is something related to 60s postmodern thought, schizophrenia, hyperreality, constructs dissolving, absence of narratives? I don't know, I've slowly been working my way up, but reading things like Delillo or Pynchon feels familiar. Which I don't know what to make of considering they were writing like 50 years ago.

>>3889604
Its that you can say something perfectly logical and beautiful as you have. And no one will remember it after you die.

Live a productive, healthy life
Live to fulfill societal roles within civil society
Live to be a role model, a loved member of family, a good friend
Live to face the potential/ challenge of being a good parent

You can run away from the woods. After time, that look turns inward, and you'll mostly be concerned with individual health and no one else. Your influence, minimized; legacy, forgotten.

You can stay where you are. There you can better the lives around you.

>>3884077
scary is the word, yeah

>>3882794
Well for me, I turned into a depressed nihilist.

from when i was about 21 to when i was about 23, i was about 80 percent nuts.
i wandered around the city in a haze, sometimes all night. my dorm room was a disgusting mess.

my memories from that time are kind of painful.
im better now.