“Existential frustration is in
itself neither pathological nor pathogenic. A man’s concern, even his despair,
over the worthwhileness of life is a spiritual distress but by no means a
mental disease. It may well be that interpreting the first in terms of the
latter motivates a doctor to bury his patient’s existential despair under a
heap of tranquilizing drugs. It is his task, rather, to pilot the patient
through his existential crises of growth and development.” ~Viktor Frankl
The quote above is an important
statement for someone to consider before diving into this blog post. And the
following is a philosophical vent intended to get my thoughts out in a coherent
manner so that I can see them and think about them further. They are not what I
hope will rule my life going forward. I am looking for a way to be propelled
forward. Don’t call an ambulance, I am not suicidal. But I am in need of help.
Because, you see, I can’t move. How
many times have I said this as if speaking it to the wind? And what will the
wind do? It is a helpless statement, though others don’t see it as one. They
see it as an excuse. As a mindset. As a poor attitude.
Well, I can tell you that I don’t
like excuses. But I like explanations. I have always been one to push myself.
How is it that people who have known me practically my whole life can look back
on my life and see a determined person in the past, bent on self-improvement,
and they think my problem currently is laziness and a poor attitude? Do they
not know me? Do they not know me well enough to think that maybe I need help?
To those who wish to help me but don’t know what to do, I am sorry that I don’t
have a clear answer. It’s not an easy thing for me to understand or express my
needs. So how can you help me? But then again, how can I help myself either
since that is the case? Either way, I appreciate your efforts! Please don’t
give up on me.
I can’t move for many reasons, some
of which I have tried to express, many of which I have yet to discover, though
I am trying to express them very desperately right now. There is one
reason that has occurred to me right now that I am trying to put into words for
myself so that I can understand in a practical sense why it makes me paralyzed.
I can’t move because I don’t see a purpose to my life. I just googled “prove to
me that my life is worth living” just to see what would turn up seeing as I
know I’m not the only one to have had an existential crisis. (Though it really
felt weird googling it.) A stupid song came up from that search that was
annoying as crap. Don’t listen to it. I won’t even post a link to it. After
that, I googled, “prove that we are better off than if we had never existed”.
From that, I came across a Yahoo post here.
Someone asked the question, “I know a similar question has been asked asking,
"What would earth be without humans?" The answer that was given
that was labeled “Best Answer” was...
You've
got some kind of Walt Disney disease in how you think about nature. How could
the earth be better off? Its a big ball of rock, dirt and water. It has no
feelings. It is only better or worse because humans attach those values to
it.
Animals would eat each other as often as they could. Forest fires would kill them off by the millions. Ice ages would come and go. Who would care if aliens landed, Bambi and Thumper?
Animals would eat each other as often as they could. Forest fires would kill them off by the millions. Ice ages would come and go. Who would care if aliens landed, Bambi and Thumper?
Blunt.
Straightforward. It made me think. True. Oh, Yahoo answers. So then, is my
purpose to find meaning in the world and tell it that it is worth it? But if without
us, it didn’t matter if the earth was “good” or not, wouldn’t that mean that we
are just doomed creatures? Forced to either lie to be happy or accept reality
and hurt? Aren’t our feelings irrelevant then? If I can really just choose to
be happy or sad, don’t those emotions lose their validity? So what’s the point
of feeling either at all? Or caring about what I feel? Suddenly I understand
the lack of self-awareness and empathy in some other deep thinkers that I know.
I don’t wish to be that way, so my thoughts can’t end here.
I
feel pushed to move forward and embrace life. I am told I have to keep going. I
can’t die. I am told that would be a loss. A loss of what, may I ask? I fill no
place that another can’t fill. There is not a single thing I can do that
another cannot do. There is no purpose for me. There is no need. There is no
place. Why should I continue living? Why should I care? If I am not needed, why
should I care?
What
others want from me is really nothing. They want me out of their hair. They
want me on my own. They want me enjoying life. They are telling me to enjoy
something on my own, that they say is worth it. I kinda feel that
those are just words sometimes. That people feel some sort of obligation toward
life, though they can't say why life is worth living. I feel this obligation
too, and it pisses me off; it just makes me angry, so I try and ignore it.
People
tell me to create or find joy on my own depending on where they think this joy
comes from. They are not showing me the world, and showing me what there is to
love about life. They are not grabbing me by the hand and sharing it with me.
People aren't willing to do that. I’m sick of our culture claiming that no one
should “need” another person to be happy. I need community. I need a companion.
For me, there is nothing in this world that is good enough. Nothing. I am not
materialistic. I am not driven to money or worldly success, but my value in
this culture is judged by my worldly “harvest” or lack thereof.
I am
told to stand on my own two feet. People want me to “be an adult”, which to
them means being able to survive on my own. The truth is, I don’t want to stand
on my own two feet all alone. I mean, I don’t want to “mooch” off of people
either. I hate that. It causes deep distress to me and anxiety attacks. But I
do not have a reason to stand on my own two feet except to
get out of peoples’ hair. I don’t have a reason for myself. I have never really
wanted anything. My whole life, really. I’ve only wanted someone. I’ve only wanted
companionship. For me, that is of the utmost importance. And I have been
lonely.
I am
alive out of duty, not because I want it. I don’t want to die, but I sure don’t
like living. I’m living because others want me to live. And yet they don’t want
me taking their money. Explain to me why I should continue on? I have nothing
to offer them. What I have, they don’t want or they want something that I can’t
offer them. When they say they see good things in me, I don’t think they are
seeing me. They are seeing someone that they want me to be. It is not actually
me.
I
don’t know how to make someone enjoy life. I don’t know how to make someone
happy. How can I try to help someone enjoy something that I don’t enjoy myself?
Why choose one thing over another? Perhaps if I had feelings of like or dislike
of something, I would know what to pursue. But those seem dead to me in my
paralysis.
Do
you know what I wish? I wish I were an engineer or a mathematician or a scientist
or a politician. I wish I could invent. Because then I could change the world.
But I am not an inventor. And I do not have the ability. And I do not have the
brains of many I know. I want to change things. I want to be smart. My gifts do
not match my values. But why should I want to make the world better? Why do I
constantly seek to make the world better? That’s a good question. Why do I pick
up garbage on the side of the road? Why do I care about the way that parents
treat their children? Why do I fight for these things if I just don’t care?
Part
of me ignores the tornado-like feelings I express right now. And I think that’s
the part of me that picks up garbage on the side of the road (literally). It’s the part that has faith in nothing as
if it were something. I think I pick up garbage because it makes me feel like
I’m doing something that’s positive. Maybe I’m proving to myself that I’m worth
something, anything at all. Though sometimes, when I pick up garbage, I feel
like a terrible person. Like just a despicable person. I think part of it makes
me feel like others will hate me for it because in the past, people have not
liked it when I have picked up after them or corrected their errors. Part of me
feels like I have no right to alter the world around me. But why shouldn’t I
have a right? It’s my world as much as anyone else’s! But somewhere along the
way, I was taught to feel that way.
I'm pretty sure another reason that I feel crappy sometimes when picking up
garbage, is that it feels like I’m focusing on things that don’t matter
(according to many others) because I’m not getting at the root of the issue,
I’m just touching the surface of it. Like putting a band aid on an infected
wound without cleaning it out first. Maybe I’m just a surface person sometimes.
But I don’t want to be a surface person. I want to be a person that digs out
the roots because that’s what others want.
Actually, correction: that’s what others
want in certain areas. But not areas like relationships and community like I
do.
I
see roots. I just don’t know how to change them. I don’t have the knowledge, I
don’t have the skills, and even if I did, I couldn’t change anything alone. And
I can’t make people care.
Back
to that care part. Why should I care? And how can I make other people care? And
why do I care when I don’t really care?
Or is the real question why I should continue existing in a world where I feel
that others don’t care. And back to my thought on the roots. Maybe I’m not a
root person. At least not in every aspect. I mean, you damn well won’t find me
brushing crap within relationships under the rug! I like to get to the root of
the problem, no matter how difficult and no matter how long it takes me
contemplating. But maybe sometimes my role is just to do things like pick up
trash. It’s okay to pick up trash. It’s frustrating that I have to keep telling
myself that. I know people that would find that a waste of time and pointless
because the trash just keeps reappearing. But unlike those people, it doesn’t frustrate
me. I don’t know why, but I like picking up trash. There’s a small part of me
that would be disappointed if it were gone. Which is ironic considering my
purpose in picking it up.
I
feel like there is something wrong with me for that reason. Or maybe, I just
like doing simple things like that rather than going to school because I’m not
smart or something, and people that know me just don’t want that to be true or
believe that. But if I could get paid for picking up trash, I would do it. I
like it. I freaking like it. Even when I don’t like it, I like it. Even when it
makes me feel kinda crappy and anxious when someone drives by, I like it. If
anyone was to ask me what my calling was and what makes me feel good, I’d say
picking up trash. Does that make me money? No. And in our culture that values
self-sufficiency, not making money just makes me look like a terrible person,
doesn’t it?
Funny
how our culture could value self-sufficiency so much and then go and take
advantage of less economically privileged people around the world; the
hypocrisy is shameful. I’m supposed to be self-sufficient and contribute to a
culture like that? And only do what I can to change things when and if I have
the money and the power to do so? I’m telling you, I can’t work the system. And
again, I can’t change people. I can’t work the system because I really feel
that I don’t have the skills. And because I feel like I would be required to
lie.
I
try and think about my skills. What are my skills? My skills seem to be things
like making things that are beautiful. This is in some ways okay with me. I
also have always liked the idea of making something that was once beautiful,
and is now ugly, beautiful again. That’s probably why I like picking up trash.
That being said, I’m pretty naturally good at the things that a woman in the
Victorian era was expected to do...besides shutting my mouth and allowing
people to order me around. She should be able to paint, play piano, sing, etc
in order to entertain. Well, I can do all those things, but entertaining scares
the crap out of me. And I despise it.
Because
for whatever reason, entertaining people, manipulating them to feeling of any
kind by doing something that they request of me, embarrasses the poop out of
me. And whenever someone tries to influence me in the same way, I’m embarrassed
as well. You can see why I suck at relationships. This exchange of making each
other happy is not comfortable for me. I never wish to “move someone to tears”
at their request by a beautiful song or make them laugh upon their request. By
my own ideas and free will I love to make people laugh. But the minute it is
requested or expected, I can no longer perform.
To
get anywhere in the business world, I have to be able to please people. When it
comes to very straight forward tasks like algorithms (I was learning about
algorithms at khanacademy.org today and then from my mathematician of a
brother), I can do that for people. Without the subjectivity of personal
preference I am much more comfortable and much more in my element. But very few
things are strictly algorithm. Life is just too complex. And also very lonely
and scary as a result when you are me.
I
feel like I will never move forward until someone who understands me holds my
hand and guides me. Throughout writing this, I’m realizing that I’m very
scared. That the problem doesn’t seem to be the world itself for me, but the
people within it. I’m stuck with this paradox that I am absolutely lonely and
feel no purpose without people, but I cannot trust people and I cannot bring
myself to make them happy. I feel that I cannot make them happy, and I’m not
sure that I want to. I mean, I don’t want to make them sad, but I also don’t
necessarily want to make them happy. This isn’t meanness, just…I don’t even know
what it is. If I knew, I probably would have fixed it.
And
when it comes to finding a purpose, where I must put my own meaning into the
world as there doesn’t seem to be an objective purpose for me that no one else
can fill, I am lost. Because I hate the subjective in this sense. I hate it. I
hate it.
I.HATE.IT.
It’s
funny that I fight structure so damn much, because I want it so badly. But I
don’t want us to have the same structure. Because we were not all built the same.
We may all be purposeless, but we aren’t all built the same.
Right
now I feel a sense of relief getting this off of my chest. A sense of power.
Maybe even freedom. I feel sorry that I have let the world down. People look at
me thinking I am rebellious, and lazy, and self-entitled, and immature, and out
of touch with reality. Believe me that thinking those things about me only
crushes my being and humiliates me and paralyzes me further. I am not out of
touch with reality. I think the problem is that I am far too in touch with
reality in some ways. A reality that others don’t want to see. So I am alone.
I feel scared asking for help from
people, even when they have told me to. I have been trying to push myself out
there as of late, even when I feel like I am imposing. I have a hard time
believing that people want to be my friend and remain my friend after
interactions with me. I believe that their opinion of me and their willingness
to help is bound to change at any moment.
And addressed to many people, sorry
that I’m almost 25 and a failure. I don’t wish to taint your reputation by
walking into your life and reflecting badly on some image you’ve worked on
creating and upholding. To be honest, I don’t have a lot of empathy for you in
that regard, but it makes me feel real shitty to know your thoughts. If I could
move forward, I would. I would! And maybe instead of a lot of people telling me
that I can and that I have no excuse not to,
perhaps if they got off of their damn high horse and legalistic trips and
helped me out as an individual I’d get somewhere. Maybe.
It’s hard to help move someone
toward a path that may be what is beneficial for them when it wasn’t what you
hoped for them. It’s hard to guide someone toward a life that is different from
yours. Why help someone toward their own aims? I feel that it is me against
many in that way. I am required to find a way, though I don’t feel capable, on
my own toward the things that I and a few others value and are willing to sacrifice
for. Or I am required, somehow, though I don’t feel capable, to work toward a
specific way of living that the majority of others want. And I just don’t know how to go
about my day feeling anything but just plain shitty, which doesn’t exactly help
me move forward.
I’m not blaming anyone. I think
blame is something that is hard for people to let go of. I have a hard time not
blaming myself. And others seem to find it very easy to blame me. Life is
complex. And as far as finding me a proper algorithm to move me forward…that
hasn’t proven to be a very easy task. What do you do when you feel as if you
were surrounded by a crowd of people, some with fire pokers and others with
their backs to you, telling you that if you’d just get out on your own you’d be
acceptable, but you can’t get through the crowds of people, and you haven’t
grown the wings to fly away?
