Is Life Worth Living?

[Marshall]

Life and disinterest go hand in hand for me. I don't want to live it, because I know it will never bring satisfaction. I know life isn't about this, life is about being responsible and there are people who are worse off, but why can't I be happy? Why is everyone so content and satisfied with some aspect of their life when I can't find any? I know I may be coming off as self centered and whiney, okay but still. I know not to think that there is something more out there, but to relish in the moment, but it's almost impossible for me. I don't want to live, it brings nothing but disappointment and sadness. I'm not suicidal, I just have a longing that doesn't seem to go away.

I had this dream the other night, where no matter where I went I always ended up in the same place, there was no escape from the immediate environment. My only interactions with people were orders to be executed or a hostility towards them. I want to like people, but I can't, I want to like my life, but I can't. I'm unable to overcome this stagnant, disappointment they call living.

Anyone have advice on how to get over this? How to find interest in people and life again? Has anyone been through this before?

 

[Cherry Cola]

Fuck if I know.. but if you stop living you hurt a ton of people around you

You're wrong in assuming everyones happy and content though, few are.

Finally, you don't have to like people. It's enough to know that they can feel pain, pleasure; fall in love, hate; see beauty and be disgusted. By virtue of their sentience they are worth caring for and about. You sound like you're really depressed. Depression makes you see the world the way you're doing right now. I'm not saying you're wrong or that things will somehow change fundamentally, it's just that the facts are weighing down on you the way they are because you aren't at your best.

 

[Assassin]

I feel like life is probably better than the alternative.

 

[Marshall]

It's more than emotion however, walking through life not knowing, not wanting, not anything. Emotions are pointless fucking side effects my fucking brain won't get rid of. I hate them, they need to go away. I just fucking hate, that's all. Hate and pain, that's all there is to life. Women are shallow, men are assholes, authority is corrupted. Nobody is worth a damn thing, neither am I. Sorry to unload on you, I'm sure you've got more going on than to read about some stranger's problems.

 

[Cherry Cola]

It's more than emotion however, walking through life not knowing, not wanting, not anything. Emotions are pointless fucking side effects my fucking brain won't get rid of. I hate them, they need to go away. I just fucking hate, that's all. Hate and pain, that's all there is to life. Women are shallow, men are assholes, authority is corrupted. Nobody is worth a damn thing, neither am I. Sorry to unload on you, I'm sure you've got more going on than to read about some stranger's problems.

You are feeling a bunch of negative emotions and a lack of positive ones (not knowing, not wanting, not anything). You can't let your own personal state of mind depend on that of the world. Those who fall prey to depression are those who are prone to making global judgements and putting too much weight on their own sentiments of things.

Yes the world is cruel but you can carve a place for yourself and enjoy what life has to offer nonetheless, meanwhile pondering the mystery of being. You just can't expect too much out of the world. Used to be humans saw nature as alive in itself, filled with spirits; meaning inherent in all things. That phenomenology is long gone now and of course it's left a vacuum of sorts. It doesn't make things better that you're lied to throughout your childhood and then left to realize things on your own once you have the means to. But when you've come to terms with what is, you can start working with that as a premise.

 

[Rook]

This is all quite intruiging. I am no psychologist, but perhaps it would aid you to find the fundemental flaw you have with existence. The way I look at it: existence can be a shitload at times, where human interaction and unwanted emotions muddle everything up. In the end, though, what elso do we have? Is it not better to do what the hell you want in an impartial universe, than not to exist at all(most probable state after death). I would rather sit through a shitty commercial about gym-products than face the unknown void.

 

[just george]

add a "yet" to your question and have a think.

 

[DrGregoryHouse]

Life and disinterest go hand in hand for me. I don't want to live it, because I know it will never bring satisfaction. I know life isn't about this, life is about being responsible and there are people who are worse off, but why can't I be happy? Why is everyone so content and satisfied with some aspect of their life when I can't find any? I know I may be coming off as self centered and whiney, okay but still. I know not to think that there is something more out there, but to relish in the moment, but it's almost impossible for me. I don't want to live, it brings nothing but disappointment and sadness. I'm not suicidal, I just have a longing that doesn't seem to go away.

I had this dream the other night, where no matter where I went I always ended up in the same place, there was no escape from the immediate environment. My only interactions with people were orders to be executed or a hostility towards them. I want to like people, but I can't, I want to like my life, but I can't. I'm unable to overcome this stagnant, disappointment they call living.

Anyone have advice on how to get over this? How to find interest in people and life again? Has anyone been through this before?

Have you had a chance to review this yet?

http://intpexperience.com/

Some answers to your deep questions may lie therein. Many an INTP either has been or is presently in the mental situation as you describe it.

Cheers. <--granted, not worth much from a fellow stranger on the internet but yet there it is!

 

[kvothe27]

Go skydiving. Seriously. It's cathartic.

I've been through what you're going through continuously throughout my life. As a result, I've made a number of high risk decisions in a desperate attempt to outrun that feeling. These high risk decisions made me feel alive for a little while, but that sense of disappointment eventually catches up. What I've been left with is the fallout from these decisions. eh Life is a joke. Act accordingly.

The safest way to overcome that feeling is to increase your mental health. You can do this via exercise, medication, meditation, community activities, setting goals, etc. Making high risk decisions isn't a good long term solution, but long term solutions are boring.

 

[Cherry Cola]

Its not some kind of unique INTP problem ffs : /

That page turns ivory tower reasoning into categorical generalizations which pigeonhole human issues into INTP ones. I know plenty of people including myself who have thought and felt what the OP is describing (as far as I understand it) which are not INTPs

 

[Reluctantly]

Anyone have advice on how to get over this? How to find interest in people and life again? Has anyone been through this before?

I don't know, but money is freedom, so if you're going to be miserable anyway, why not make lots of money in the process? Then maybe with the added freedoms you obtain with the money, you might be able to experience things differently, maybe even positively...well, that's what I'm doing anyway. Maybe I'll die before amassing wealth, which is actually kind of funny, but I have only to gain in doing so in any case.

 

[Lot]

It's only worth living if you want it to be. If you spend all your time focusing on the negative, you will only see negative. Has there ever been a point in life that you felt happy? Go back to that moment. Think about why you were happy.

I'll get back to you if/when you respond.

 

[John_Mann]

Life it's like a Mario Kart game, you win nothing at the end but the meanwhile is very enjoyable.

Life is a journey without a destination. An infinite curved path.

 

[Brontosaurie]

life is like a bowl of nut granola with nashi pear, blueberries and oat milk; it's tasty and refreshing, has you yearning for more and doesn't leave you bloated.

non-jokes aside: however logical your analysis may appear, perspective is influenced by emotion and you're in a state of despair that wouldn't exist if it didn't have mechanisms to conserve, protect and justify itself. the reason why you think life isn't worth living is that those mechanisms have seized your perception and turned it into their vessel. in other words, you're very busy trying to make sense of why you're feeling shit and this makes you feel even more shit. i'm in this shit too so i can't really judge but i dare guess that a reasonable healthy perspective would be something like: "those feelings do not make sense because they do not facilitate your progress and well-being. you're in a trap of spiral recursion. that happens, for some odd reason". a more productive and thus more realistic and thus more sensible feeling, then, could be pride of having endured this torture so far without succumbing to the latent temptation of full-blown psychotic lunacy. you don't have to feel that pride right now but you ought to take the possibility seriously.

sorry for not really saying anything, sorry for assuming stuff about you, sorry period. just get well. i think you can.

 

[Duxwing]

Marshall, though I'm not a mental health professional, constant sadness, disinterest, dissatisfaction, disappointment, suicidal ideation, and anehdonia, especially when seen together, indicate that you're severely depressed:

--"[life] will never bring satisfaction"
--"[life] brings nothing but disappointment and sadness"
--"to relish in the moment is nearly impossible for me"
--"I want to like people, but I can't, I want to like my life, but I can't."

Life may seem not worth living at the moment, and if I were in your shoes, I'd probably feel the same; letting your thoughts and feelings out here when you're in so much pain is anything but whiny--it's an acknowledgement of a problem and a search for a solution. How have you been trying to cope with your experiences?

-Duxwing

 

[Kuu]

It's not.

If you don't want to live, why are you still living? Take yourself out of your misery. Why wait?

 

[Milo]

If I remember anything about your type of thinking, I'd say that your mind has been programmed to have certain expectations in life because of the causations of your upbringing from childhood, movies you've associated with real life, and so on and so forth.

Your expectations carried onto people's actions--by expecting other people to act in an a manner in which you expect them to act (a mirror image of how you expect yourself to act as if you were put in their situation--only you hadn't taken into consideration that your perception of the situation is not necessarily the same as everyone else's perception of the situation).

You then realize that it is your expectations of other people (along with other things) that is the cause of your rouge emotions, so you try and correct your expectations to better control your emotions--with your ultimate goal being the rise of your happiness and/or to be able to take control of any situation in order to get whatever it is you want or expect to get.

So you set out to understand yourself, you dig deep into your own psyche--you figure out how environmental things influence your general feeling until you figure out that your own thoughts about the world around you (or even thoughts about an imaginary world you create in your mind) are the root of all your emotions.

The deeper you get, the more you understand yourself the more control you have on your emotions--until finally you understand yourself completely and your emotions are hardly intact. Instead of an emotional roller-coaster of highs and what seems like lows that last forever, you reach an equilibrium--where everything just seems bland and the same everywhere. You become completely free, but this time you've lost some other things...

Your dreams, ideals, romance, conscience, the voice that's always in the back of your mind--all constructs of your intuition/inherent faith in the world/self-perfectionistic drive.

When the cognitive dissonance between your ideals/hopes/dreams and your knowledge is too great for your intuition to deal with, you fall into a sea of self-doubt and then rationalization takes over in order for you to feel good about not following your ideals to the point that your ego is so big, that you don't care to do anything. Sadly, this means you have to shrink how much things matter to you until you are in a pit of meaninglessness.

In short, you are experiencing the slow and steady crash of all of your hopes and dreams into a reality check until you find something to be excited about once again.

 

[Marg]

I am so grateful to have found this site. If I can be grateful right now about anything...it is finding this site. My heart goes out to the OP. I could have written this word for word. *hug*

 

[Marg]

If I remember anything about your type of thinking, I'd say that your mind has been programmed to have certain expectations in life because of the causations of your upbringing from childhood, movies you've associated with real life, and so on and so forth.

Your expectations carried onto people's actions--by expecting other people to act in an a manner in which you expect them to act (a mirror image of how you expect yourself to act as if you were put in their situation--only you hadn't taken into consideration that your perception of the situation is not necessarily the same as everyone else's perception of the situation).

You then realize that it is your expectations of other people (along with other things) that is the cause of your rouge emotions, so you try and correct your expectations to better control your emotions--with your ultimate goal being the rise of your happiness and/or to be able to take control of any situation in order to get whatever it is you want or expect to get.

So you set out to understand yourself, you dig deep into your own psyche--you figure out how environmental things influence your general feeling until you figure out that your own thoughts about the world around you (or even thoughts about an imaginary world you create in your mind) are the root of all your emotions.

The deeper you get, the more you understand yourself the more control you have on your emotions--until finally you understand yourself completely and your emotions are hardly intact. Instead of an emotional roller-coaster of highs and what seems like lows that last forever, you reach an equilibrium--where everything just seems bland and the same everywhere. You become completely free, but this time you've lost some other things...

Your dreams, ideals, romance, conscience, the voice that's always in the back of your mind--all constructs of your intuition/inherent faith in the world/self-perfectionistic drive.

When the cognitive dissonance between your ideals/hopes/dreams and your knowledge is too great for your intuition to deal with, you fall into a sea of self-doubt and then rationalization takes over to in order for you to feel good about not following your ideals to the point that you ego is so big, that you don't care to do anything. Sadly, this means you have to shrink how much things matter to you until you are in a pit of meaninglessness.

In short, you are experiencing the slow and steady crash of all of your hopes and dreams into a reality check until you find something to be excited about once again.

Thank you so much for this.

 

[DrGregoryHouse]

If I remember anything about your type of thinking, I'd say that your mind has been programmed to have certain expectations in life because of the causations of your upbringing from childhood, movies you've associated with real life, and so on and so forth.

Your expectations carried onto people's actions--by expecting other people to act in an a manner in which you expect them to act (a mirror image of how you expect yourself to act as if you were put in their situation--only you hadn't taken into consideration that your perception of the situation is not necessarily the same as everyone else's perception of the situation).

You then realize that it is your expectations of other people (along with other things) that is the cause of your rouge emotions, so you try and correct your expectations to better control your emotions--with your ultimate goal being the rise of your happiness and/or to be able to take control of any situation in order to get whatever it is you want or expect to get.

So you set out to understand yourself, you dig deep into your own psyche--you figure out how environmental things influence your general feeling until you figure out that your own thoughts about the world around you (or even thoughts about an imaginary world you create in your mind) are the root of all your emotions.

The deeper you get, the more you understand yourself the more control you have on your emotions--until finally you understand yourself completely and your emotions are hardly intact. Instead of an emotional roller-coaster of highs and what seems like lows that last forever, you reach an equilibrium--where everything just seems bland and the same everywhere. You become completely free, but this time you've lost some other things...

Your dreams, ideals, romance, conscience, the voice that's always in the back of your mind--all constructs of your intuition/inherent faith in the world/self-perfectionistic drive.

When the cognitive dissonance between your ideals/hopes/dreams and your knowledge is too great for your intuition to deal with, you fall into a sea of self-doubt and then rationalization takes over to in order for you to feel good about not following your ideals to the point that you ego is so big, that you don't care to do anything. Sadly, this means you have to shrink how much things matter to you until you are in a pit of meaninglessness.

In short, you are experiencing the slow and steady crash of all of your hopes and dreams into a reality check until you find something to be excited about once again.

wow. this is good

post of the year good

 

[Milo]

wow. this is good

post of the year good

Thank you so much for this.