Existentialist Crisises

[LiddyRules]

For years (probably since I developed into a truly conscious person until present (at 24)), I've kind of been going in this self-crisis. Doubt of who I am, what I can do, what I am, is it worth it, am I going down the right path, etc. And I know people feel this way all the time, I'm not trying to make myself out to be special.

But how often do you think about it? Is it something you never think about, is it something that just comes up rarely on quiet nights or, like me, have you been caught in it so much for so long that it has become ingrained as part of your personality?

How does one "fix" it?

[mikeyboy]

How does one "fix" it?

http://www.astralwerks.com/bjm/grfx/head2.gif

[SHANEFROMGA]

How does one "fix" it?

the real question is can you fix it? doubt and worry are part of the human condition.
at best you can really only hope to content with your situation.

[prothunderball]

How does one "fix" it?

the real question is can you fix it? doubt and worry are part of the human condition.
at best you can really only hope to content with your situation.

that's basically what I was going to say. I think I go through the same kind of thoughts often. I don't think there is a way to "fix" it though, most people just try and dull those thought with drugs and alcohol.

[SatCam]

typically the voices are louder than those thoughts

[cougarjake13]

For years (probably since I developed into a truly conscious person until present (at 24)), I've kind of been going in this self-crisis. Doubt of who I am, what I can do, what I am, is it worth it, am I going down the right path, etc. And I know people feel this way all the time, I'm not trying to make myself out to be special.

But how often do you think about it? Is it something you never think about, is it something that just comes up rarely on quiet nights or, like me, have you been caught in it so much for so long that it has become ingrained as part of your personality?

How does one "fix" it?

i think about it all the time

one would say it consumes me, my every waking moment is focused on this very problem and keeps me lying awake in bed instead of sleeping

[fohat]

typically the voices are louder than those thoughts

Bingo.


There was a great book written once, which I never read, called "Don't sweat the small stuff". I guess I figured since the book was kind of small, I shouldn't sweat reading it. But what that title means to me is, if I get up in my head about something I just keep telling myself I'll be dead one day, and then my parents will be looking through my porn collection. That seems to help.

[Recyclerz]

Existentialist philosophers have answered this problem in different ways:

..to be is to do (Sartre)
..to do is to be (Camus)
..do be do be do (Sinatra)

That ol' gag

Like the others have said, I don't think there's one true path to enlightenment or (especially) happiness that works for everybody. As a sentinent being, its kind of your duty to check everything out (through learning and experience) for yourself and come up with your own solutions or, if not solutions, accomodations that will get you through.

That being said you coud do worse than follow the Gospel of Bennington:

1. Stop worrying about everything and live. Experience everything you can your dirty paws on.

2. The advice to Fez (that he's been unable to follow thus far): You can become who you pretend to be. I think this is as close as you can get to an American ethos and I think it has served us well and continues to do so. Although it can get pretty cheesy in the hands of "motivational speaker" types, consider the power behind the concept - you always have the ability to change your perceptions about your life - which is a lot more hopeful than the determinist schools of thought or the post-modern reductionism of the human condition currently in vogue. I don't think everybody gets a happy ending if they buy into this but just the ability to strive for something that would make you "happy", even if you don't reach it, makes your life suck less.

Don't buy it? Just look where it has gotten our lovable East Side Dave. :wink:

[weekapaugjz]

call these guys...

http://images.salon.com/ent/movies/review/2004/10/01/huckabees/story.jpg

[hedges]

"The gods had condemned Sisyphus to ceaselessly rolling a rock to the top of a mountain, whence the stone would fall back of its own weight. They had thought with some reason that there is no more dreadful punishment than futile and hopeless labor....
You have already grasped that Sisypus is the absurd hero. He is, as much through his passions as through his torture. His scorn of the gods, his hatred of death, and his passion for life won him that unspeakable penalty in which the whole being is exerted toward accomplishing nothing. This is the price that must be paid for the passions of this earth" "Myth of Sisyphus, Camus PP. 88-89).

One can break-out of this "existential dilemma" I believe. And I think Recyclerz had some good words to say about this.