"What brings me joy"...is this what "depression" feels like??

Boilermaker

Master Don Juan
Joined
Nov 3, 2010
Messages
1,332
Reaction score
76
iqqi said:
PS, squirrels, you sound like the male version of me SOOOO much, except I have a little bit more of a sunny outlook than you.
Don't flatter yourself.
 

iqqi

Master Don Juan
Joined
Jun 27, 2003
Messages
5,136
Reaction score
82
Location
Beyond your peripheral vision
Boilermaker said:
Don't flatter yourself.
I wasn't talking to you. :whistle:

And I don't know what anyone would find flattering about being unmotivated and unable to relate to people.

I think you just miss me and wanted to talk to me. :) (now you can say "don't flatter yourself", and have it make sense. )
 

Danton1975

Don Juan
Joined
Sep 17, 2009
Messages
69
Reaction score
5
It's okay to question everything every now and then. Camus has written brilliantly about your frame of mind. Once in the book "The Stranger" which describes you...and another in a more philosophical work called "The Myth of Sisyphus" A person from Greek Mythology who was condemned by the gods to roll a boulder up the hill every day, only to have it drop at the base when he was done.

All our experience Squirrels does not provide us with an answer to "Why?" When you ask "Why" what you are really asking is "How am I immortal?"

Well...we are not. And what we do today...will matter absolutely nothing in the next 2 million years and completely forgotten. Fine. If we can't live with meaning at least we can live with dignity. Life is a debt. The men of 4,000 years ago kept spearing the fish, and climbing the trees, and making the tools, and kept grunting and F*cking their women...and because they didn't question but did it, or maybe did it in spite of their questions you and I are now alive. So pay the debt if you wish and know that as YOU are getting better...a part of you is helping improve MANKIND in a small, very very minute way...and though you are MORTAL the human race may well never be.

When I was 5 years old I locked myself up in the bathroom and thought of all the people I loved best dying, one after another...I cried for what seemed like hours...and then the most terrifying thought hit me: "I, the Danton that everybody should love and that I loved most, I...was Mortal too. How could my hands which were so perfect stop moving at some point...how could my eyes not see anymore...how could my feet not have any blood and disintegrate like pieces of charcoal" I couldn't help it...I cried and cried just sitting there on the toilet and my Mom kept knocking on the door to make sure I was Okay and when I shared with her what was wrong with me she broke through and Smacked me hard...the slap still stings to this day. I am 35 now...not much has changed...but the moral of the story is we all need a slap every now and then.

Set up some goals to grow...and shake it off man. And keep shaking it off for the rest of your life...because your life will not provide answers...not on this...not on this...the most important of all.
 

Pandora

Master Don Juan
Joined
Nov 11, 2008
Messages
3,402
Reaction score
3,292
Age
39
I can totally relate to the OP. It makes you wonder why one should suffer in trying to reach lofty educational goals just for the sake of achievement. Or why we suffer in a job we hate just for the accumulation of more stuff. There is no inherent merit to extra degrees or extra possessions. Why not just live for pleasure. There is no real point to it all, and the people that we are trying to impress wont matter in 100 yrs.

It seems foolish to realize how caught up in the rat race we all are. It really doesn't matter one bit in the grand scheme. Even though we know that its pointless, very few of us have the courage to live for today. Instead we delay gratification for years in school and in jobs we don't enjoy as if we are going to live forever.
 

The_411

Master Don Juan
Joined
Feb 20, 2005
Messages
964
Reaction score
150
Well if you feel depressed then read Sartre's Huis Clos and you might just hang your self. Existentialism is the great dilemma of life and it can get really heady when you stop and start thinking about your mortality.

The happiest people I know are those who can take each moment and focus on it and not worry how that moment isn't some other moment.

Essentially what I'm getting at is that while you need to plan and think about the future when you live you should look at time as frozen snapshots and you can make or break those photos with your actions or inactions. That being said when you're depressed you feel like you need to get somewhere or be somewhere else than where you are temporally or spatially. However, that is pure projection. Sure there are "better places and times" those better places and times are enhanced by the fact that we all suffer through difficulty, heartbreak, and loss.

Get yourself checked out you may be depressed and need some medication. Start thinking how in a certain moment you can experience the moment and not focus on how you are feeling but rather what is transpiring in that moment of time. Once you can think about what's transpiring without adding too much emotional judgment you can then start to add feelings and to better understand how a certain moment relates to you and your happiness.

Yes, I know this comes off as some new age crap, but when I was having a terrible time of things from the fallout of My BPD ex this was literally how I was able to pull myself out of a lengthy depression. It's taken a while but eventually you begin to realize that once you don't think about consequences from an existential perspective you can actually relax and just accept things as they are.

Just stop thinking and experience
 

runner83

Master Don Juan
Joined
Feb 22, 2010
Messages
1,098
Reaction score
47
Location
Australia
The_411 said:
Just stop thinking and experience
^ ^ This is gold!

It sums up what needs to be done.

I can sympathize with the OP since I do (as someone who can prone to thinking) sometimes find myself approaching a similar state.

Fact is, thinking about things is never going to help.

Keep yourself busy and live your life.
 
Top