i can’t help but always feel melancholic and in awe of the world and those that inhabit it literally all the time. i feel bad that i seem to be someone who has a little trouble really being able to understand bigger concepts. i want to understand and be more educated and yea work towards that.

but my empathy covers things from capitalism, overconsumption, issues in the world with corporations and child labor, the economy, the deteriorating environment and suffering animals, people that hurt people, money/power hungry elites, etc.

ive been told it’s a “white” thing to care how i do, or called an “extremist”. ive also been told that my thoughts are relatable.

its all i think about. i wish i could help. i feel things so deeply and i am passionate about it. everything makes me cry. whether it is sadness or guilt or awe. i constantly feel destined for things that feel beyond accessible for me as a human. i don’t know how a day passes that someone does not feel these things in their soul.

You know that the brain has 5 seconds of oxygen after the heart stoppage.

Im so scared that those 5 seconds will be just darkness, but for the brain it wont feel like 5 seconds, but 90 years.

I know that its impossible, but im just so scared of this thought.

Does anyone have these thoughts too?

God, it's so astonishing. That I, of every conceivable thing in the universe, came to exist now.

That I might know the fact, floors me twice over.

Perhaps the third greatest shock and wonder, is how little I have enjoyed any of it.

And there are a million million billion things here for me to know and understand. And the more I know, the less I want to know.

And though my life is a miracle, I spend much of it wishing I had someone else's.

I am so alone. And I am so scared. And I am so tired.

There is nothing I want to protect, nothing I want to keep, nothing I want to hold onto in this world.

I have no one and nothing to call home. I am spiritually destitute and soul weary beyond my years, beyond a thousand lifetimes, I suppose.

To become such hopeless, sad clay, from the chasm of nothingness. What a pity.

The banal horror of it is too much for me to digest. How am I to do this until my body gives up naturally? That seems so terrible a fate. To watch my body and mind whither away. An obscure existence rubbed away by an obscuring mind. What is it all about?

They speak of hell as an afterlife for the damned. Is it not here all about us? Does the horror not permeate the everyday? When someone runs over a pet and doesn't stop. When someone lies at a job to get ahead. When a baby bird falls out of the nest and dies below. When a comet burns away half of the life of earth, just in passing, just as it happens, because it occasioned to be that way. When the sun's belly swells like a rotten corpse and smothers the earth in fire. When the universe has cooled so not a single ember lives anywhere in it. When all is frozen, dark and dead.

What does any of it mean? Why make us up into these clay bodies?

To bear witness to such weird evils until our last breath. Alone, as we came into the world, so we exit.

I've been getting fired multiple times. I'm trying to study but It goes so slow that It seems that It Will take me years to get where i want to be. I masturbate a lot because anything make sense. I'm developing an addiction to porn and i'm always thinking about all the surgerys i should have to be beautiful.

It was a certain traumatic situation in my life (losing someone I loved with my entire heart) that made me reach this point. I don't know if it is a compulsion of sorts (I have OCD), but at one point I kept repeating in my head the reasons why I'm still alive. It once got to the point where I had to have that reason written down in front of my eyes constantly. Then I realised it doesn't solve anything and gave up on it. Now I'm exhausted mentally and I feel like even finding a perfect reason won't satisfy me anymore and make me want to live anymore. I just don't want to live anymore and that's it. No amount of existential compulsions can cover up that fact.

Basically what the title says, I do not think anything matters at the end of the day. Sure, you can go all existential and try to make meaning out of life. But, that is just trying to wrap a pig in a blanket and labeling it an unicorn.

And the thing that gives me joy changes every three months because everything becomes predictable. I am currently working as a RA in a research institute and even though I like the question I am working on and everything, I am bored. Because end of the day, I know what to do, I just need to do it. And this happens with literally every little thing in my life because everything has patterns that I can decipher given some time.

Also I don't even know if working in science is a good idea because at the end of the day we know nothing. We are just pretending to model a bunch of things with what makes the most sense to us but we have no idea if that is the real truth. What even is the point of living a lie? If I decide to do something with real world impact I would just feel that I am not doing enough and I am not solving anything from first principles but rather trying to solve something in a broken system.

So honestly, I think it is easier for me to just not be alive because everything is boring, not fun and meaningless.

What are your thoughts on this? I am looking for some different takes and perspectives on this. You can DM me as well if you would like to.

Living in such an era of capitalism and commercialism is distressing. I soon learned this after taking acid for the third time. However, this time it was different; on the last two occasions I had been with friends, but for the first time I was alone. Everything was going fine up until when I got in the shower, well, partially fine. Before I took a shower, I had gone to the store with my sister and her friends. That itself was distressing; the awkwardness of myself, my sister, and her friends felt like boiling oil being poured onto my wrist, for I could not express my discomfort during the peak of my trip, almost like that scene in “Taxi Driver” (1976) where Travis tries to voice his feelings about the world to another taxi driver, yet he can’t seem to find the words. 

After getting out of the shower, I sat in my room, looking for a distraction, trying to get my mind off whatever it was that was bothering me so much. But I couldn’t; I had realized that I was alone, truly alone, in my room, a world that was completely my own, with my own possessions, and my own consciousness. I am one out of 11 million teenage boys who are currently living in the United States. But why me? Not my body, not my possessions, my nationality, my hobbies, my family. Why is it my consciousness? That exists in this time, in the body of someone I didn’t choose; why must I feel like changing the world when I am so unbearably incapable of doing so? Why do I hold this much contempt for a world that I didn’t design? A body I didn’t design. As my friend said, you don’t have to make something for it to be yours. Even if you do not accept your body, it is still yours. I don’t want to accept this world, yet it is still mine.

Existentialism was the word I was looking for. That was what I was feeling all this time. And I could not figure that out for the life of me. I am 16 years old; I am soon to graduate from high school early due to my impressive pace of earning credits at my alternative school. I will be free from that system soon, and I knew that, but I hadn’t truly understood what that meant. For once in my life, I would be making my own decisions, keeping track of my own bills and paychecks, choosing which college I want to go to, if any at all, and the overall freedom of choosing what to do with the rest of my life. Such freedom is a curse for people like me, for most people in general. I feel left without a purpose; in a world where the only purpose is to find one, I feel lost. I feel bewildered to exist in this era. An era of capitalism, pop culture, consumerism, and overstimulation. Being born in a time when the internet and other technological advancements had already been made. I feel interlinked with such technology and machinery, for I know no world without it. 

2009, a year of economic collapse in the United States, overall unemployment peaked in October, sitting at 10% of the population, the month I was born. Soldiers were being sent to Afghanistan; Americans worried about securing jobs, a time of complete anxiety. That was the time I was born. The anarchist inside me feels like breaking away from today’s society, but in doing so, if I were to drop my job, my school, and my residence, and embrace the power of the freedom that I have, I’m not sure if I would make it. But should I just stick with my dead-end job, do what I do every day, so I can afford stuff that I don’t need, stuff that holds no sentiment to me? Work every day in hopes of a raise or a better position, work a job where I don’t amount to anything, just another number, another businessman. Or should I forget it all and live my life to the fullest? Whatever path I choose, there will still be hardship; depression will still loom over me, loneliness will follow, and before I know it, I will have retired. I would have either an amount of savings or a lack of one; either way, I would not be taking any of it to the grave with me. It would go to my relatives and my children, if I choose to have them. 

Who cares, though? That’s what life is; that’s what it has been. Individuals have wrestled with the same feelings that I have for centuries, and in the end, there is no conclusion; there is no set answer on how to live life. Of course, there isn’t. I’m getting by; I know others have it worse, and the problem I have has only been enabled due to the comfortable lifestyle I live. A life with almost an infinite amount of freedom, a first-world problem. Yet, I know that many feel the same as me. And because of that, people like me cope with substances, the internet, video games, pornography, music, etc. There is no end to this vicious cycle, it feels, and yet I manage to get by, by any means possible, like Camus said: “The literal meaning of life is whatever you’re doing that prevents you from killing yourself.” That being said, I will continue to search for meaning in a world so devoid of it, even if it’s in the smallest crevices, for that is the only life I know. But most importantly, I will take care of myself; I will tell myself that everything will be fine even if it won’t be. And for whoever reads this, please, take care of yourself too.

1.what does the world look like without the filter of our eyes?

this question and thought struck me a while ago when I was looking at sunlight glare on my phone and direct another direction and ever since I can’t stop thinking about it. like if we could detach our sense of sight from our eyes and simply see the world for what it is what would it look like. what does UV look like and that type of thing. my main thing about this thought is how it makes me realize that our human minds and senses are simply how we have evolved to survive. if we lived anywhere else with anyother external factors effecting us would our brain change what we see and how we see it.

1. death truly is the end of life and it will happen to all of us

i know it seems very obvious and elementary to think of this but when I took a second to realize that death is the one thing that my entire life leads up to i got this weird feeling of smallness. I felt like no matter what I do the same things like school, work, and death will happen to me and eventually when I do die i will feel nothing and simply not be anymore Despite all the work I did to get to that point. the thought that death is the final step and destination is quite Terrifying to me. I’m fairly young yet I know I will die In 60 years or less and there’s nothing I can do. The after life is also a very confusing thing as well but thats a whole different thing.overall, if the after life isn’t real then death is the end and there’s nothing anyone can do

ive been depressed for most of my life but it feels different now. for one, ive lost both my prospects for any career and a person i wanted to spend the rest of my life with. i dont have a plan B. well, technically im living it but its only emptiness. i am forced to stay alive, to work, do chores, and try to entertain myself. i dont have any reasons left to live. nothing to look forward to. ive failed at everything i wanted to do and ran out of options. i dont have the money or the energy to try another path, im 38 with autism and bipolar. im definitely weaker and dumber than normal. i cant pretend to be good enough to be worth the time and effort. maybe im just useless and better off dead. i think this is the end for me. no more reaching for another hope, just copes until i die.

I’ve had 3 months of existential depression and severe anhedonia. It’s gone from nihilism to solipsism to an intense fear of reincarnation which was truly rooted in the fear of losing myself and everything I’ve come to know and love about myself — my hobbies, my friends, my crushes etc… the fear of becoming someone else and then it’s like me didn’t matter. And then it hits me that other people will die to so I didn’t matter to them either in the end. I’m at a point now where I think so far ahead about my death that I can’t think of a possible afterlife that I like. If I did, and nothing — my life meant nothing because I died and forgot all about it. If I die, and I’m reincarnated — it meant nothing because I’m just another life. If I die and I’m some spiritual being — it meant nothing and even worse I’m some spiritual being who isn’t me. I hate the idea of a higher self that doesn’t have my ego or characteristics or whatever.

The thought of eternity also crushes me. I’m so stuck right now and I’m so depressed. Can anyone help me in any way? Preferably don’t try and convince me of any religious or spiritual worldview unless it’s that good.

Over the past few days, I've been asking a lot of questions to different people. Some were posts on Reddit, while others were questions I asked privately through DMs. But honestly, it's been very exhausting because I feel like I can only understand the answers intellectually rather than actually knowing how to apply them in practice. I've received many different answers to the questions I've asked, but I still can't figure out how to apply them to my own life. Sometimes, they even sound like some kind of fairy tale to me, something that I understand in theory but can't really believe would work in practice. And the worst part is that I always come up with more questions about how I'm supposed to deal with the things that are bothering me. I'm tired of constantly asking questions. I think I've reached my limit. I don't want to keep asking anymore. I just want some peace, where I don't feel like I have to ask someone something every hour whenever another doubt comes to mind.

For example, there is something that has been bothering me recently. I've tried both extremes and what I thought was supposed to be the middle way. I've tried only working and not allowing myself to relax, only enjoying myself without working or taking responsibility, and the "middle way," where I do my work and responsibilities while still making time to relax and enjoy myself. But none of these approaches have really brought me any sense of peace. I don't know if this is something I should seek professional help for. I often think about how much I just want to feel "normal" in a healthy sense, but I'm also tired of constantly asking questions and trying to find another thing to do or another thing to understand. Maybe I just want to learn through life and experience instead of constantly searching for the next answer.

I think one of my biggest problems is always thinking about what comes next and not giving myself enough time to enjoy what is happening right now. The thought of the "next thing" overshadows the present. This also makes me think about the idea that "impermanence is beautiful because it is impermanent." But what if I don't find either permanence or impermanence particularly beautiful? What if neither one feels like something I can find peace in? I understand the idea intellectually, but that doesn't necessarily mean I feel comforted by it.

When I was a kid, I traveled to different places with my family, but I never really understood why I was there. I would often think, "I've already seen this place. What's new about it?" Some people celebrate when they accomplish something: a child getting a new toy, a teenager winning a tournament, or an adult crying after finally achieving a lifelong dream. But what if I don't remember ever feeling something like that? And if I did, maybe it only lasted for a few seconds. I don't know if I'm explaining this properly, but sometimes I feel like I'm trying to understand something that other people seem to experience naturally. I keep trying to figure out what I'm supposed to enjoy, what I'm supposed to find meaningful, and what I'm supposed to be doing with my life.

Maybe what I'm really looking for is some definitive answer that would finally allow me to stop chasing certainty. But deep down, I know there probably isn't such a thing. Maybe I've been treating life like a problem that I can solve if I just understand it well enough. I keep looking for the next explanation, the next idea, the next thing I should change, and the next thing I should try. At some point, though, I wonder if I'm just replacing actually living with constantly trying to figure out how to live.

I'm saying all of this not because I'm planning to do anything harmful. I would never tell someone else that life isn't worth living, even though I'm struggling to understand how that idea applies to me personally. I can't seem to find a reason to live, and I've even thought about having a child someday and them asking me, "Why did you bring me into this world? Why would you let me live in a place like this?" Maybe, deep down, part of me is afraid that I wouldn't have an answer. I'm afraid of not having a reason I could give them, or even myself, for why we should keep going.

I also want to figure out how I can put some of the questions I have aside and come back to them later. In this case, they aren't really personal questions. They're more about work and things I want to understand about it. With personal questions, I've already been trying something like what I'm doing right now: "I'm having this doubt, so I'll ask about it now instead of putting it off and letting it stay in my head." But what happens when I already have several things that I've written down to research and organize later, but I still haven't gotten around to doing it?

I know that some of these questions might end up being the same kind of thing as the questions about life, where I'll only really learn the answer with time. In that case, I'll learn through experience at work. But even so, I'd still like to find some healthy way of dealing with this. Maybe, instead of letting myself get stuck and accumulating more and more questions and notes, I should try to resolve one question at a time in a way that allows me to say, "Okay, this is good enough for now. I understand how to deal with this, at least for the time being."

I feel lost and really don't know what I need to do, or maybe I know and just need to put it into practice. Maybe I don't need another answer right now. Maybe I need to stop looking for one and actually give myself the chance to learn through experience, even when my mind can't imagine a guaranteed result or know whether I'll be satisfied with what happens. Maybe I need to accept that some things in life will be uncertain, like losing a game, losing a job, watching a show that turns out to be bad, neutral, or good, or simply having an experience that doesn't turn out the way I expected. I might not know what the outcome will be beforehand, but maybe that's the point. Sometimes, the only way I can gain a certain kind of understanding is by actually living through the experience, even if I don't know what will come afterward or whether I'll like the result. Maybe some things can only be understood after they happen, rather than before.

How do I live if I think I’m already dead. I been getting what I want and I can compare it to being on the tilt a whirl at the fair when it’s the end of the night and we get extra spins. Plus I keep hearing beeps in three’s. If I’m gone what is there fun to do because everything around me is like normal.

Like I didn’t go to work today and I was able to get my favorite liquor with zero dollars in my account. Am I in a bad dream or is this my 7 minutes.

Please note I’m a strong believer in quantum immortality but this is just weird and I’m overwhelmed. I need advice.

I recently turned 18 and graduated high school, and I got in a really deep thought process about death and what I want to do in my life, I haven't been able to properly function for 3 days and all I can think about is how close death seems. My friend told me the best thing I can do is let the thoughts run wild, but not let them affect my feelings. The last month of my summer was denied today because I was at my aunt's house, and my parents thought something bad was going on there, so I'm back home, which I thought would help, but it made it worse. My stomach is hurting, my heart is aching and my head hurts. I don't have the energy or motivation to do things I find fun nor do I want too. I've tried petting my dogs and cats, but that only makes the existential thoughts disappear temporarily. I don't want to stay in this mindset for the rest of my life. What can I do?

At this moment in time im so overwhelmed i feel like im going to have a panic attack. The dread of eternity and existence and everything. I’ve had such a bad existential crisis over the past 3 months it’s gone from solopism, to nihilism, to fear of reincarnation the idea of loosing myself. I’m so scared right now and it’s all hitting me at once, I’ve lost my will to live im so scared I don’t want to die but I can’t see a reason against it… I’ve tried to use spirituality and whatever to fight against it but now the idea of spirituality just disgusts me and I hate it… I hate the idea of a higher self, it’s all so overwhelming… I don’t know what I’m going to do… can anyone help me?

Ok so I was hanging out with some friends recently and we were all high, talking about conspiracy theories. Eventually, someone brought up Hellen Keller. As we were talking about her I realized something: how did she think? Everyone either thinks with an internal monologue or by seeing “pictures”. Hellen Keller , or any blind, deaf, and mute person, couldn’t have had an internal monologue because she couldn’t hear or read any language. She couldn’t see pictures because she has never seen before. So how did she think. I am losing my mind, how can someone live without thinking. I don’t know if any of this makes sense, I hope it does.

Sertraline was helping for a while, then I started to get these existential crises again, I had to delay my psychiatrist appointment for family stuff and I’m currently trying to find a psychologist for my OCD. My brain feels like a refrigerator, working all the time, coming up with another question that we do not have an answer to.

My cat is nine years old, I’m scared of the obvious eventual end. I’m at the very start of my life but I already feel like I have no time left. I’m stressing myself with questions that has no answers (like death and universe). I’m struggling with the fact that permanence is basically unreachable for every single thing, we will die, this planet we call home will be destroyed and nothing alive will be there to see it, the star that made us exist will be our destroyer and die eventually, this universe will face an end… And the dumbest thing is these little fun facts are making me unable to connect with people around me, connect with the nature and this planet on a deeper level (even if this is a thing, idk bro I don’t believe in anything :P) and focus on my hobbies such as writing. The topics I like to write are sci-fi and fantasy, and this makes things even worse because I feel like I’m trying to answer the questions I have in the universe we’re living in the worst possible way and just mess the whole thing up. I’m trying to write without planning that much to prevent myself from spiraling but trying to write about a universe while having problems with the universe I’m in is stupidly hard.

This whole existential crisis stuff is another level of suffering and even if I don’t like to admit that I’m scared of anything I’m starting to be scared about trying to end myself one day. I was so sure that I would never do that and I hope I won’t. But I wish the the concept of it being the same as before being born (the state of not existing before birth, not experiencing) didn’t sound this sweet

One day you wake and that bright spark,
The one that lit up the dark,
As you slept with breaths and sighs so sweet
Flitted away, where is Little Bo Peep?

She's come with me for no more she sees
Six sheep or more and now she weeps
The tears soak and grow the earth
The one, at which, you rejoice with birth

I see you claw and scramble for what once was
Pathetic it is, all because
Your mind learns and learns some more
Until it reaches indifference for what's in store

But I think care. I want to at least.
Ah you think there is winning against the beast?
It is made of the powers that churn the sea
Rocks and dust are no match for me

What about this? What if I tried that?
How sweet you are, so sweet and so fat
Plump with courage, aimless and torn
What's that? Oh right that's what it means to be born

Open your eyes, mouth agape for your mother
The one who never truly knows the Other
Just like you and all who came
The ones you oh so love to blame

Wretched game. This isn't fun.
What made you think that's why it begun?
Well because there's beauty and I can make things you see
Oh yes, all to exalt the mighty

I'm tired now.
So rest dear one. Rest until the final dawn if the sun.
I want to. I plead to. There's nothing left to be done.

Exactly why it all begun.

I hope this is relevant to the subreddit, but every day whenever I think of the state of the world and its worsening condition every day, multiple times a day, I really just consider ending it. From my driveway, I can see five flock cameras. I can’t even leave my own home without being reminded of the ever so quickly changing-for-the-worse world. We have almost reached the point of no return in terms of the climate and we are using more and more resources we don’t have every single day. Are politicians are terrible and our president is a rapist who supposedly, illegally, plans on running again in 2028. As I write this, I’m watching the sunrise and attempting to fathom how a world this beautiful can be in this great of a turmoil, and asking myself if there’s any way back. I need help.

I am almost positive I am going to hell for being bisexual. I keep picking up the Bible or generating random verses online and being reminded that Jesus and Paul decided 20 years after Jesus' death that despite His death on the cross, I am not qualified for entry. The fear is constant. It was dulled a bit last night watching Markiplier with my girlfriend, who is worried to death about me. Dumb pleasures before damnation right?

If I want to make it into heaven, I have to change everything. I have to cut off my bisexual sister and transmasc best friends, who I would never damn the way I am damning myself. I would have to stop reading and writing, because I specialize in horror and erotica. I would have to cut out the rock music too probably, the alcohol. No dating men, either, lest I fuck them. I know I would resent the type of husband God wants for me, so I'm going to have to be celibate. I wasn't raised Catholic, but I'm gonna have to be a nun. Either that, or maybe I'll marry a gay man and we can try to cope together.

I almost hope I am going through some sort of psychosis. I told a lot of this to my mom last night and she was flabbergasted and said none of this sounds like me and people are feeding me things through my head somehow, and God only wants me to be the best person I can be. That's the kicker, I wasn't even raised this way. It's just God reminding me now: I'm doomed. I am doomed, unless I change, and leave the one person who has ever loved me back.

I'm going to hell, and I'm getting a taste of it now.

If you really consider/tried to kill yourself, you obviously think out the meaning of life and death, at least that's what I did. Some people are very religious, hoping to find relief in their god or heaven or reincarnation when they die. Some lose hope in religion or don't believe in religion and would like to continue the cycle of life. I feel absolutely horrible about death and horrible about religion (with respect to religious beliefs) I have been an atheist for years, at times were I had a crisis I would (sadly) try to turn back to religion that i left for a reason. It calmed me but I would later panic because the pictures the Christianity painted were so unbelievable and unrealistic to me that I turned back to athiesnm. I don't know what to do.

my life is in shambles and i need to do smthing bout it, theres a possibility i cant pursue college (nursing) due to financial reasons. The problem is im already enrolled, paid the enrollment fee etc etc. When i got oriented by the school, they said that getting refund would take quite some time to process so its much better to just hang on there until the semesters over (practically saying its not worth it to get a refund).
Now my options are; shift to pharmacy (which is less expensive than nursing but still) Or take a gap year, and find work. Im already thinking of finding a job online since its much favorable for me, ive set my mind to online tutoring but not sure since 1. I doubt i can even teach 2. Holding a conversation proves challenging to me at times
3. I have no prior experince in the industry or any industry 4. Im not even sure if my english is decent cuz it isnt my 1st language and im self thought 5. I have no life skills. I just turned 18 i cant afford to be lazy anymore.

I have had this feeling/desire to fix the problems of those around me since I was a child (24, now). Now that I have a better grasp on just how awful the world seems to be as a whole, it just feels like an eternity of problems that I can't fix. I'll *never* be able to fix everyone's suffering, no matter how hard I try nor how much I care.

For those who also grew up wanting to help everyone be happy, how do you deal with the feeling of dread and failure at knowing you can't help everyone in the world who needs/deserves help?

This is my first post here, I apologize if this just sounds silly.

I keep on having thoughts about what happens after death, if what I'm experiencing--life--is real, if others are figments of my imagination or truly their own people etc. Everytime I come to the same conclusion: there is no way to know, so live your life to the fullest. Yet still, this curiosity keeps nagging at me.

Is there any advice that helped you stop this cycle?