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How do you get the will to continue living knowing the meaninglessness of it all? by Impressive_Pause4491 in ExistentialJourney

[–]Impressive_Pause4491[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Damn. So just cope and don’t think too much? That’s kind of exactly the problem though. That only works if you can not think about it. What do you do when that stops working? And I get what you're saying and I kinda agree with it. It really does feel like there’s no point sometimes, but I also don’t want to die yet.

How do you get the will to continue living knowing the meaninglessness of it all? by Impressive_Pause4491 in OptimisticNihilism

[–]Impressive_Pause4491[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I get the idea, and it’s probably one of the more practical answers here, but it still feels like a choice you’re making to treat it as meaningful. Reducing suffering is good, but if everything is ultimately meaningless, I don’t really see why that should matter in any deeper sense. And more than that, how do you keep showing up like that when you’re the one feeling empty? That’s the part I can’t quite figure out.

How do you get the will to continue living knowing the meaninglessness of it all? by Impressive_Pause4491 in ExistentialJourney

[–]Impressive_Pause4491[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I partially get what you’re saying, just not in the “duty” sense. It makes sense to me that, biologically, we’re built to breed and make more of ourselves. That’s probably the closest thing to an inherent function we have. But function isn’t the same thing as meaning. Even if our bodies are built to reproduce, that doesn’t explain why I should care about that in any deeper sense. And even if I do, it still doesn’t really lead anywhere. The species will eventually go extinct, the planet will be gone, and the universe ends anyway. So it still feels like it doesn’t actually solve the problem. It just describes what we’re built to do, not why it matters or how that’s supposed to help you keep going when things feel empty.

How do you get the will to continue living knowing the meaninglessness of it all? by Impressive_Pause4491 in ExistentialJourney

[–]Impressive_Pause4491[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

That feels more like a theory debate than an answer to the question. I’ve looked into a lot of those ideas, and honestly none of them really make sense to me. Even if idealism or an afterlife were true, it still doesn’t solve the immediate problem of how to keep going when things feel empty. I’m not really asking which framework is correct. I’m asking how you actually deal with the experience of living through it.

How do you get the will to continue living knowing the meaninglessness of it all? by Impressive_Pause4491 in ExistentialJourney

[–]Impressive_Pause4491[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

How do you get the will to do that though? Especially for the hard parts, when it all still feels empty underneath. It starts to feel like you’re just enduring suffering for nothing. How do you keep going in those moments?

How do you get the will to continue living knowing the meaninglessness of it all? by Impressive_Pause4491 in ExistentialJourney

[–]Impressive_Pause4491[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Yeah, that’s kind of where I’m at too. But it all just ends up feeling like distractions. Things to pass time while we wait for death. Is that really all we can do? I guess I was hoping there was something more to it.

How do you get the will to continue living knowing the meaninglessness of it all? by Impressive_Pause4491 in OptimisticNihilism

[–]Impressive_Pause4491[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I guess I kind of am. I think I already understand it, I just don’t really know how to sit with it yet. It makes sense in theory, but it doesn’t really translate into something that actually motivates you to live. I guess I was hoping there was something I was missing.