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I remember visiting the planetarium once, and there was this IMAXy presentation about the birth of the universe narrated by Tom Hanks. You are meant to be swept away with awe and inspired, clearly everyone in the audience was and part of me was too, but part of me was also thinking - Earth is so tiny and insignificant, and the universe is so indifferent to my struggles, and for what? No light at the end of the tunnel, just vast oblivion.
I was raised Roman Catholic. It's funny, I can remember believing in Santa Claus, but I don't think I ever believed in God, even at a young age. I was a precocious kid and there were too many questions with nebulous answers, and nobody seemed to want to bother to explain anything to me, but I did want to believe. This became a major source of depression when I was a teen (I'm 31 now) because I wanted to believe so bad, but deep down, I just... didn't, and moreover I couldn't no matter how hard I tried. Faith is just a concept that seems like such an easy sell to some but I couldn't wrap my head around it.
I'm far from the person I was as a moody teen, though I've dealt with depression on and off over the years (and currently off, this isn't a cry for help or anything like that, more curious inquiry), but sure enough one way to begin spiraling is to begin thinking about the inevitability of death and the fact that nothing waits. I don't know how it can never not depress me, and I've heard many ways people have tried to spin it positively, but it doesn't stick. I cannot shake my permanent existential crisis. I think I'll always want to believe.
Anyone ever feel like this? How do you deal?
The fear of oblivion has probably caused me more fear than anything else. What has stomped that fear pretty much into the ground has been to tell people about it. What worked particularly well was doing it sneakily. I wrote a short story about a fictional god that will die someday. It's body is formed from the universe, and it will die when the universe ends, and it's quite irritated about this. I submitted it to a place where other people could read your short stories. That way I can complain while not sounding like I'm complaining. That's not me complaining. It's the fictional god complaining.
I also like the sense that there's a benevolent, or at least non-hostile, being that is aware of humanity that I used to call a god. I think that's real though. I revere at least two of them. One of them is my super ego. It is the pure-hearted perfect being that keeps track of my victories and failures and is the reason I am never truly alone. The other is my Id. It is voracious, and greedy, but it protects me like a mother wolf defending her cubs, and I protect it in turn. It can be an evil, disgusting thing at times, but it's childlike innocence and impulsiveness and honesty makes it downright cute at times.
So, I would say the type of god that watches over us, that judges us, that keeps track of our victories, is perfectly real, if it would benefit a person to see things that way. Now...the magical stuff about flooding the Earth? That's not.
Sorry I can't offer you another rep Mordant... the system strikes again.
When I hear your story and others like it, I always have to wonder, why is it that some people seem to be handed a less fair deck than others? But as you say, it's just life. I realised that the first week with my 18 month old son in hospital facing 3 long years of chemo and a 6 day old daughter diagnosed with a heart murmur, the same day as my son had been diagnosed with Leukemia. I vividly remember chatting with a nurse who said that all the parents who come in - their first question is "Why? Why us?" and she said - there is no reason why. Nobody is being picked on, nobody is being singled out, it's just life and just the way it is. There is nothing to be gained in asking 'why?'. You will never get an answer. Just accept what is.
Spending all those years at the hospital was sobering too. No matter how ill my son was, there were always other kids so much worse off that had to undergo even worse treatment or live with lifelong conditions or kids that suffered the chemo and still didn't make it.
It's a real eye opener. You realise that probably most people at some time have been handed a pretty ****ty deck somewhere along the way. All you can do is push through it and look ahead to the times where the world actually does have something to offer and be glad to be alive. It can be ****ty but it can also be wonderful. We don't have long on this earth. We have to be grateful and make the most of it.
Have to? Why? I'm not "grateful" for my life at all. Grateful to who? I wish it never happened.
I don't get the whole grateful thing and can't see that life offers anything. I view it as a chore. Being stuck in a job that I hate and at my age and can't find anything else is not helping. My life is crap and I wish it was over. I continue because there are a few people who care about me, and I do mean a few. Well, maybe a few more if it includes City-Data.
Except for brief moments here and there (mostly in the 1970s) I did not enjoy it.
Life started badly with very religious parents and a mentally and physically abusive father. I still have the mental scars from seeing my father beating up my mother right in front of me and my brother. He beat me up too, many times and I was a good kid. It took me 4 years to get over the nightmares I used to have almost every night as an adult. I cured myself of that after a long talk with me.
Religion stole my childhood. He had it is his sick and twisted mind that he could do what he wanted because according to (a) god he was the boss. My mother confirmed that and she failed to protect me. I was fooled until shortly after I became an adult. No god ever did squat for me and it took me far too long to realize how foolish I was to have once believed.
Truly sorry for the pain you went through regarding your children. Regarding situations like this it amazes me why people believe.
Sincere best wishes. I'm sure you are a better parent than the ones I had.
Have to? Why? I'm not "grateful" for my life at all. Grateful to who? I wish it never happened.
I don't get the whole grateful thing and can't see that life offers anything. I view it as a chore. Being stuck in a job that I hate and at my age and can't find anything else is not helping. My life is crap and I wish it was over. I continue because there are a few people who care about me, and I do mean a few. Well, maybe a few more if it includes City-Data.
Except for brief moments here and there (mostly in the 1970s) I did not enjoy it.
Life started badly with very religious parents and a mentally and physically abusive father. I still have the mental scars from seeing my father beating up my mother right in front of me and my brother. He beat me up too, many times and I was a good kid. It took me 4 years to get over the nightmares I used to have almost every night as an adult. I cured myself of that after a long talk with me.
Religion stole my childhood. He had it is his sick and twisted mind that he could do what he wanted because according to (a) god he was the boss. My mother confirmed that and she failed to protect me. I was fooled until shortly after I became an adult. No god ever did squat for me and it took me far too long to realize how foolish I was to have once believed.
Truly sorry for the pain you went through regarding your children. Regarding situations like this it amazes me why people believe.
Sincere best wishes. I'm sure you are a better parent than the ones I had.
Sorry to hear about your story John. I think many of us have to deal with adversity one way or another.
I do get it. It can be hard to see the light. I think I've only truly been depressed once in my life and oddly it wasn't really when my kids were ill. Well I was very down then don't get me wrong, but I felt I had valid excuse then, so I didn't think of it a true depression. No I really discovered depression when I moved to America. I suddenly understood what everyone was talking about. It's like a black cloud hanging over you that you can't shake. I just couldn't see the light. It lasted probably 2 years or more.
But somehow I dug myself out of it and made some changes in my life. I focussed on the things I enjoy and set myself some goals. Our purpose is what we make it. It might be something simple like starting a hobby or taking up cooking , something like that. I think we have to carve our own paths. Once you have something to achieve it helps you focus on the positive and a lot less on the negative.
It's never too late either to set yourself some goals - make some time for yourself. I'm 48 and just started on a project I've been wanting to do all my life. Sorry I didn't mean to preach or anything I'm just trying to say I think life is what you make it.
When life gives you lemons, make lemonade as they say.
I think I've only truly been depressed once in my life and oddly it wasn't really when my kids were ill. Well I was very down then don't get me wrong, but I felt I had valid excuse then, so I didn't think of it a true depression. No I really discovered depression when I moved to America. I suddenly understood what everyone was talking about. It's like a black cloud hanging over you that you can't shake. I just couldn't see the light. It lasted probably 2 years or more.
I am sorry and embarrassed for my country that the only thing that really took you down is the American Cloud of Self Loathing and Suspicion (tm). There are times when I would really like to move abroad, perhaps to one of the Norse countries. At this point if it were just me I would be super tempted to try it despite my age, as the mere fact that someone like Trump can gain enough currency with our electorate to have even a fighting chance to win the presidency ... that he has damaged civil discourse more than it already was ... that the opposition candidate is better only by comparison and I once again have to hold my nose to vote ... that IS depressing and I would like to go somewhere where there's not a stigma to being ill or old or needing the social safety net, where people get value for the taxes they pay, where education and healthcare are basically by comparison not anything to worry about as some reasonable level of those things are basic human rights.
I could do it. I could keep my current contracts and operate from abroad anywhere there's decent Internet service by the simple device of working "2nd shift" so I'm available to my clients during US daytime hours ... and absorbing the cost of the trans-Atlantic leg when I need to do a rare in-person business trip.
However ... I think the culture shock is more than my wife wants to put up with and I still have a daughter and grandsons here in the States and I am a WASP who probably doesn't have much to worry about from any Gestapo-like police state that might evolve out of this volatile situation. So I will probably tough it out.
To your point about "having an excuse" to be depressed, that is just reactive depression as opposed to depression falling upon you like a wet blanket with no particular provocation. In that sense you were just reacting to moving to what once was the land of the free and the home of the brave and the Promised Land, so it's all reactive depression. I am glad that you appear to be a fundamentally positive person, likely more so than I am ... I hope you ultimately find living here a net positive over the long haul. And I hope I do too [sigh].
Have to? Why? I'm not "grateful" for my life at all. Grateful to who? I wish it never happened.
I think gratitude is probably not the best term. It is more appreciation for what you have than angst for what you don't have that is at issue.
Gratitude requires someone to thank and there IS no one to thank for your actual existence or the positive happenstances that have come your way.
Appreciating what you have is just a more generalized and less specific form of the proverbial "attitude of gratitude" that is commonly hawked.
Now I fully recognize that, for all the troubles and scars of my existence, I did have the good fortune to be born into a loving, stable, affirming and ultimately intact family of origin. I can only imagine how much harder it would be for me if I had gone through the sort of childhood you describe. I know that it's far easier for me to focus on the positives in my life because I have a good solid base to lift myself up from. So I'd be the last person to trivialize the challenge that represents. And I am well acquainted with the additional challenge that people's mental / emotional constitution can present all on its own. Not everyone is that resilient and invulnerable.
That said, for better or worse, it still comes down to whether the settled past or the potential future will control your enjoyment and perception of life, or whether you can extract what you can from the present with a minimum of expectations and preconceptions.
I wish that significant swaths of my life had never happened too, just not the same ones as you necessarily. But neither of us are afforded the privilege of reliably controlling how the story arc of our existence unfolds and how pleased we are with it, nor do we generally get "do-overs". So ... I don't appreciate my identity as a former evangelical, a widower, a surviving father and brother and son, unchosen roles that they all are, but that is water over the dam. I CAN however appreciate that my health and mind are mostly intact, that I have interesting things to occupy myself with, modest personal needs, being debt free, etc. And I intend to enjoy those.
Yes the time may come when having more experiences won't interest me. I wouldn't want for example to experience the rest of my life from a bed with chronic pain or something. But until then I intend to sate my curiosity about how the human enterprise will lurch forward, and I intend to be present for the people I love who are still alive to respond to me.
If that's "gratitude" then I'm guilty as charged, but I view it more as just being choosy about what I dwell on. YMMV, etc.
Can't find it because it doesn't exist, for me anyway...
I don't believe in some big, existential, objective purpose either. More like little stabs at happiness. But I find my own individual, subjective purpose just in simple things...making music, sharing joy with loved ones, laughing at the absurdities of life and existence itself, learning about things I am interested in and curious about, hobbies, etc.
Might sound pale, but it is good enough for me.
I have had my own battles with mental health and some hard knocks in life, and I don't believe in an ultimate god, purpose or afterlife, while I acknowledge I could be mistaken about any of those things.
I don't see any reason to believe we are any more cosmically significant than a pile of carpenter ants. That hasn't prevented me from seeking out and frequently experiencing happiness. Profound happiness even, at times.
“Man surprised me most about humanity. Because he sacrifices his health in order to make money.
Then he sacrifices money to recuperate his health. And then he is so anxious about the future that he does not enjoy the present; the result being that he does not live in the present or the future; he lives as if he is never going to die, and then dies having never really lived.”
I am sorry and embarrassed for my country that the only thing that really took you down is the American Cloud of Self Loathing and Suspicion (tm). There are times when I would really like to move abroad, perhaps to one of the Norse countries. At this point if it were just me I would be super tempted to try it despite my age, as the mere fact that someone like Trump can gain enough currency with our electorate to have even a fighting chance to win the presidency ... that he has damaged civil discourse more than it already was ... that the opposition candidate is better only by comparison and I once again have to hold my nose to vote ... that IS depressing and I would like to go somewhere where there's not a stigma to being ill or old or needing the social safety net, where people get value for the taxes they pay, where education and healthcare are basically by comparison not anything to worry about as some reasonable level of those things are basic human rights.
I could do it. I could keep my current contracts and operate from abroad anywhere there's decent Internet service by the simple device of working "2nd shift" so I'm available to my clients during US daytime hours ... and absorbing the cost of the trans-Atlantic leg when I need to do a rare in-person business trip.
However ... I think the culture shock is more than my wife wants to put up with and I still have a daughter and grandsons here in the States and I am a WASP who probably doesn't have much to worry about from any Gestapo-like police state that might evolve out of this volatile situation. So I will probably tough it out.
To your point about "having an excuse" to be depressed, that is just reactive depression as opposed to depression falling upon you like a wet blanket with no particular provocation. In that sense you were just reacting to moving to what once was the land of the free and the home of the brave and the Promised Land, so it's all reactive depression. I am glad that you appear to be a fundamentally positive person, likely more so than I am ... I hope you ultimately find living here a net positive over the long haul. And I hope I do too [sigh].
Thanks Mordant. The initial culture shock was far more than I anticipated I could deal with. The gun crime, the mass shootings of little kids, the state of healthcare and the homelessness, combined with the apparent apathy about same was more than I could get my head around for a long time. But eventually, after making some really good friends here, I learned how to deal with it and eventually I got my mojo back. I much more back to myself since moving to New York too, which is a much better fit for me than California was. Not that any of the things I mentioned that got me down no longer existed, but I have other things to focus on here. Yes, overall it is a net positive.
Also the things you speak about (Trumpism) unfortunately seems to be a phenomena happening in Europe too, so the grass isn't all that greener over there. Brexit stemmed from exactly the same fears that a lot of Americans are having and most European countries are no better.
Also the things you speak about (Trumpism) unfortunately seems to be a phenomena happening in Europe too, so the grass isn't all that greener over there. Brexit stemmed from exactly the same fears that a lot of Americans are having and most European countries are no better.
Yes I am aware of that too, plus, if the US goes down the tubes in a big way we'll tend to pull everyone else down along with us. Plus, there is always Putin's adventurism to be concerned about if you're thinking of living in Scandinavia or Europe. I like Finland a lot, for example, but it was only 3 generations ago that they were coping with a Russian invasion. And the other Nordic countries are just next door to that.
Finally there are the complexities of how you deal with taxes and retirement accounts. The US is one of only a couple of countries (the other, I think being Estonia?) that tax its citizens even if they live full time abroad, so you have to renounce your citizenship to deal with that issue, and I'm not sure what happens to your retirement accounts in that event.
So yes, I realize my fantasy of moving abroad is mostly about making a statement, and judging from how few people have actually become protest expats in the past generation or so, it would be a largely impotent statement. Inertia tends to keep people where they are, and there's a reason for that.
But a guy can grouse, can't he?
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