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Tell HN: Turned 44 today and I'm lost

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Re: Tell HN: Turned 44 today and I'm lost

#361

I'm in my late 20s, but I noticed that people live as if they are forever. They spend half of their life working for survival, preparing and planning for their (!) future. Some people die in the process and never live to see that future, but some people reach that point and become aware of the finite time that just elapsed. Having physical needs met is trivial in our society. Everything beyond is self imposed sufferi…

"I sit in my cubicle, here on the motherworld. When I die, they will put my body in a box and dispose of it in the cold ground. And in the million ages to come, I will never breathe, or laugh, or twitch again. So won't you run and play with me here among the teeming mass of humanity? The universe has spared us this moment."

-Anonymous; Datalinks, SMAC

OP's piece and the SMAC quote really remind me of this art at the Met:

The Angel of Death and the Sculptor from the Milmore Memorial

https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/10909

If you get a chance to see it in person, the faces, man, the faces. They are perfect for that piece.

Re: Tell HN: Turned 44 today and I'm lost

#362

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Repeating what others have said, but as the person in question. I'm incredibly depressed in the sense that I struggle to find motivation to achieve fairly basic tasks such as laundry, feeding myself, etc + extremely numbed emotions, but I am high functioning through a combination of anxiety and force of will (I'm graduating with a decent GPA from a state school with a job lined up). It can be highly invisible; in fac…

Are you diagnosed, need to take medicine, is it chronic, do you need to visit your doctor frequently and have a lot of problems, even social issues...? If not, then you don't have depression, you are just sad/bored like most of the people in this world and is misusing a word and kind of downplaying on depression.

Yes, I am diagnosed by two different psychiatrists and have been taking medication and been in therapy for over 7 years. It impacts my life daily and has caused a great amount of harm in my life. This includes self-destructive behavior and (long ago) suicidal ideation.

Don't make assumptions about people you don't know.

Re: Tell HN: Turned 44 today and I'm lost

#363

At the end of the day we're all monkeys who have been biologically incentivized, since the first cell to ever exist, to survive long enough to pass on our genes. As Dawkins covers in The Selfish Gene, sometimes this can manifest in abstract ways, like helping pass your genes by supporting your nieces age nephews (or even more abstractly, helping humans in general live on). You haven't mentioned anything in your life…

There are people suffering everywhere, no matter where you are in the world, you never need to travel far to find people who are way worse off than you.

Re: Tell HN: Turned 44 today and I'm lost

#364

I'm in my late 20s, but I noticed that people live as if they are forever. They spend half of their life working for survival, preparing and planning for their (!) future. Some people die in the process and never live to see that future, but some people reach that point and become aware of the finite time that just elapsed. Having physical needs met is trivial in our society. Everything beyond is self imposed sufferi…

I am glad that you are in your early 20s and understand this fundamental life truth - I am in my mid-40s, met some friends this past weekend, friends since elementary school, some more successful than others, in the capitalist sense of the word, although all of us are pretty well grounded. One of my buddies, who had more fun than the rest of us was complaining how his 20's and early 30's were all about experiencing l…

"The grass is always greener" seems to be a fundamental human condition.

Your friend wished he had focused on his career while the people who focused on their careers wished to have lived more experiences.

Married people wished they were single to enjoy the freedom and live a simpler life. While single people wished they met a SO to be less lonely.

People with stable high paying jobs like many developers, daydream about financial independence and quitting their jobs. While most other people dream of just finding a stable high paying job.

People from 1st world countries complain a lot about their own countries while most people in the rest of the world would literally die crossing the border to get there.

Young people wish they were rich. Rich people wish they were young.

And the list goes on and on. This seems to be something very human... Why do we think so much of the things we lack/didn't do but seem to forget what we have/have done?

Re: Tell HN: Turned 44 today and I'm lost

#365
post #252

A lot of comments have said "stay in therapy" or "quit therapy", but my immediate reaction is that maybe you have the wrong (ineffective) therapist and need to switch . My spidey sense went up when you mentioned what "you told your therapist", full stop. I was at least expecting "what my therapist responded" or "what my therapist told me that didn't work". That really (spidey sense, no evidence really) implies that y…

This is not a problem of therapy, but a question of meaning. We need meaning in live. And for a long time religion gave that. But we threw that out. We now try to get "profesional therapy help". But it hardly has any scientific backing, and no one but religion has been able (even though it fails often) been offer te give any deeper answer to the question to "whats the meaning of it all". The best solutions people lik…

>We need meaning in live. And for a long time religion gave that. But we threw that out.

This is pretty much what Nietzsche was getting at in his often misunderstood quote about 'God is dead', which is actually part of a larger 'Parable of the Madman' - see here if you've never read it, it's pretty insightful IMO: http://www.historyguide.org/europe/madman.html

Re: Tell HN: Turned 44 today and I'm lost

#366

Lookup a mystic by the name of "Sadhguru" on youtube and watch his videos, also check out jason gregory. It's totally eye opening and life changing. You NEED this. I can't possibly explain it all in one post. but, to give you a hint: everything we strive for in the outside world is all for naught. At the end of the day, what matters is your internal state of mind, how you process inputs. we keep trying to rearrange t…

Sadhguru is literally a fraud who swindles people in the name of religion. If he really cared about spreading his teachings, he wouldn't be taking thousands of rupees for his isha yoga courses. Ironically he's right now biking across two continents to spread awareness about pollution.

Re: Tell HN: Turned 44 today and I'm lost

#367

A lot of comments have said "stay in therapy" or "quit therapy", but my immediate reaction is that maybe you have the wrong (ineffective) therapist and need to switch . My spidey sense went up when you mentioned what "you told your therapist", full stop. I was at least expecting "what my therapist responded" or "what my therapist told me that didn't work". That really (spidey sense, no evidence really) implies that y…

He could also try Internal Family Systems (IFS). It's way better than cognitive behavioral therapy, IMHO, because it's about understanding the parts of the psyche. This includes the helpful, not so helpful, and parts that make us do negative behaviors and coming to terms with them instead of suppressing them. I feel like my IFS trained therapist is actually a professional doing skilled work helping me explore and und…

I'm starting to have success with IFS. It's a bit weird at first. But I like how it actually listens to and tries to understand the various parts that make up your psyche, rather than just convincing them that they're wrong, like in CBT. I find CBT exercises helpful, but at some point we need more than just pointing out cognitive distortions.

Re: Tell HN: Turned 44 today and I'm lost

#369
Stop complaining. I am the same age as you, plus or minus a year. I am homeless, destitute, and broke. No assets at all, no retirement at all. Not even a car, or even a bicycle. I don't have a bank account. I was top of my class in (engineering major at a t{1,2} uni). Failed startup, sabotaged startup, victim of crimes and false criminal accusations. Now, no wife, no future. I fight suicidal urges constantly and keep a method handy in case things get bad enough. My means to survive are limited to none, and my future is bleak.

I write this comment to you from a public library with no clean clothes, food stamps that will run out well before they refill, a disability that cannot be properly treated, and a totally ruined career trajectory.

Stop fucking complaining. Cherish what you have. Focus on your physical health. Go walk 10 miles a day -- EVERY DAY -- for a year. Yes, that is over 3,500 miles. Get good shoes and stretch often; eat clean. Flush those damn meds in the process. Then report back.

Re: Tell HN: Turned 44 today and I'm lost

#370

Lookup a mystic by the name of "Sadhguru" on youtube and watch his videos, also check out jason gregory. It's totally eye opening and life changing. You NEED this. I can't possibly explain it all in one post. but, to give you a hint: everything we strive for in the outside world is all for naught. At the end of the day, what matters is your internal state of mind, how you process inputs. we keep trying to rearrange t…

I dunno if Sadhguru is the best guide when it comes to depression: https://www.altnews.in/depression-the-myths-falseness-of-sad...
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