The gentle art of being constantly down

To feel unhappy.

What does that mean?

Well, we should know what is to be happy to know what is to be unhappy, shouldn’t we? I think no. I do not know what is “to be happy”, I have never known any form of happiness in my life. It seems that I am simply cursed. Sadness is my curse. And I can’t run away from it, it doesn’t matter how much I try. I think most people feel like me. In fact, what kind of joy can modern life bring us? What kind of joy could ancient life bring to ancient men? Most of them were slaves, mad or insane people. Which kind of “happiness” did they find in their lives? And we? Which kind of happiness can we find in our lives? Raise children? For what purpose? Won’t they be as unhappy as we? Won’t they think of suicide? Won’t they be drug-addicts? Won’t they be rapers, killers, robbers, thieves?

What bothers me is not the fact that I am unhappy now, but that things will never be different. I have seen everything I could see. And I haven’t liked it. If life is just what it seems to be, so life is nothing. What bothers me is that other people deceive themselves, they try to pretend that everything is fine, when we can look at their eyes and realize their pain and their emptiness. You could argue: O, but I am intelligent. I read good books. I know a lot of things about Philosophy and Psychology. And so? What does that matter? Do knowledge and Philosophy or even Psychology help you when you are really down? Do these things make life meaningful? Do these things solve any of our problems, when we are trown in a mad world, when we are lost among a lot of people, when our dearest friend has just died? No. So, what are these things? Illusions, other illusions. Everything is an illusion. Even our lovely Philosophy, because it can’t solve any of our real problems (finding a meaning to life, finding a reason to not commit suicide).

So, it seems to me that to be down and upset, to be unhappy (always and everywhere), to feel lonely all the time is my curse. Not because I like those things, not because I want to be depressed. But because I realize that life- all lives- is simply not what people want us to believe it is, that life is always empty and could never be different. It doesn’t matter where we are or what we do. Life is simply pointless, meaningless and empty. Being upset and down is not a choice. It is just the most honest option for a rational guy.

Hello Fabiano,

About a year ago I was in a similar situation as yourself – far from as serious, but similar. I had just given up on my religion, having been an active christian for all of my life. I was in the process of analyzing every belief system I held, and they were falling like bricks. In the end I was left with virtually nothing – there were no meaning of life, no free will and no absolute morality. I felt empty and sad. So I made up a silly saying just to keep me going: “The easiest way to happiness is ignorance, the surest way to pain is truth – he who is able to know truth and be happy, is the greatest of all men”. I decided that I was going to find ways to stay happy, and the results came quicker than I ever dreamed of. Today I can say that truth is probably not the simplest, but definitely the best way to happiness.

You try to find a meaning – and I agree, it does not exist. You can try as hard as you like, but you will never find it. Stop searching, accept that it is not there (as you might already have done). People around you pretend that everything is fine – you’re right, that’s what they do. But, my friend, that fantasy world is more real for them than any external reality – and it keeps them happy. Why do you think people created religion? Because there are no meaning of life, and therefore they had to create meaning – you would have been better of as a religious man than the one you are today.

However, you do have something that most religious people don’t – a better understanding of reality. You understand that there are no meaning, and therefore you should also understand that you can define your meaning to be anything you’d like. You don’t have to please God, or even other people – if you don’t want to. You can choose your own pleasure and happiness as the meaning of life. If you do, you have greater potential for happiness than any religion or fantasy could ever provide you with.

I agree with Russiantank (from another thread) that you probably gain a weird sense of pleasure from thinking as you do, and that’s why you do it. This may sound strange, but I’m sure things like that are not unheard of in the human psychological realm. Analyze your own thinking, and see if this may actually be the case. It may be very hard to let go, but your life would be much better if you did.

Fabio,

First, I’ve read a few of your posts and can understand where a lot of your thoughts on the matters you’ve discussed come from and I certainly share many of your sentiments. Now, Adlerian might take up on the theme celox mentioned above–I think that would be a good path to explore. But I HAVE to reduce my time here, so I’ll simply add that I’m not sure how your feel about family, but from MY personal experience, my life and my world perspective changed incredibly when my first girl was born. I wasn’t depressed or doing poorly or anything like that before she was born, but seeing the pure innocence and love of a child every day did something to me. I’ve written elsewhere that when she was born, I was doing so much work (school and career) and sleeping 0-3 hours/night. But as soon as I was a few minutes from my home after a long day of whatever I was doing, I got this incredible burst of energy, knowing that in a couple of minutes I’d be in the presence of this magnificant creature. As corny as it sounds, she was my little “miracle.” She is the first person I’ve ever loved completely. I’ve “loved” others before and been in love often, but no words can describe the LOVE I felt for my girl, and the sense of [insert appropriate word] I felt just giving her my love…my everything. Knowing that I would do ANYTHING for this child…this blessing (and I’m not religious at all…a bit spiritual…so I’m not just throwing these words around). She’s still my (not so) little angel, who is also the most amazing big sister anyone could ever have (we had another girl a few years after–same results!).

Anyway, just a thought…no matter what happens in this world, I can focus on making sure I give myself to my girls and help them “do some good” for themselves and their tiny corners of the universe…

Fabiano and Celox

I found myself getting a bit down on things after I read the work of Hans Vaihinger and his book called the philosophy of “As If.” This was an incredibly difficult book to get a hold of and I must say that it cost a pretty penny. That’s why I had my girlfriend buy it for me! Actually, it was a surprise on her part (by the way that made me happy, briefly).

If you have not read Vaihinger, and I know no one that has, then you should. He points out how many, many things are just constructs that humans make to create, I suppose, order. The idea of free will is necessary for the judicial system and the construct of averages is needed to make statistics. He even goes on to explain how the circle computation is actually made up of lines in order to compute it.

His ideas are described as neo-Kantian. I suppose that is because Kant suggested that we pretend that something is true in order to make it true. On a personal note, I think that this is what created PC-type people. Vaihinger seems to dismantle Kant’s inspiration.

In my opinion, the book is a must read. Please have whiskey and pills handy per chapter, because I did not.

The bottom line is that he convincingly dismantles every major concept from the social to the hard sciences.

So, I tend to agree that nothing is real. Almost everything is a construct. However, those constructs really have effects on people and the world. For instance, I don’t believe in free will, rather I think that humans are programmed to respond in different ways base on their environment. However, this fact did not save the many people that I knew in prison that were turned from a cute kid into a misanthrope.

Stuff is real, but it’s people that decide on making it real. The unfortunate fact is that most people forgot that it was human that made most of our institutions up. It can be maddening to be around people that can’t even explain why or how people do what they do. Perhaps this is almost like a defense mechanism against becoming hopeless. Who knows?

Anyway, I’m wondering just what you are expecting. What did you think was supposed to exist? Also, what is happiness and how long is it supposed to last. You speak of happiness as if it were a car part or something. I just can’t find a 57 Chevy ashtray! Isn’t happiness a state. States ebb and flow, right?

Additionally, different people have different expectations of happiness. Some people look only for BIG happiness and some find MINUTE happiness in all kind of things. So, please tell me what you think happiness is.

From my perspective, I agree with the famous quote (can’t remember who) “Life is constant anxiety with moments of happiness,” and this is opposed to the unfortunate expectation that life is filled with happiness and just a little anxiety. Also, Happiness, to me, is a decision and an attitude that you can choose. One day you can be mad at children for misbehavior and then tomorrow you can decide that misbehavior is really just the kid developing and exploring, and then it’s kind of cool and cute.

So, that leads well (in my mind) to the subject of meaning. Meaning that exists outside of yourselves can only exist if a god exists. This is why gods were created, in my book. They tend to back up systems of ethics with an outside, sometimes frightening, meaning.

If one does not have this outside agency to watch over you, then what! Well that means that you have the responsibility to create meaning. That is one of the major ideas behind the philosophy of existentialism.

Ok, so why should I follow through on my responsibility? Well, we do know a couple of facts about life. Life is finite. A person’s timeline is unknown. A person’s life can last a hundred years or it can last a few days. Misery and suffering are things that we know to be true. It can be argued that extreme suffering on an individual level is not good. Thus, not following through on your responsibility to others can cause misery and suffering. Also, not doing something about it means that you are a passive accomplice to suffering.

The philosopher Sartre talked about all of this stuff in relation to WWII. I can’t find much wrong with the idea unless you believe the miserable shrieking of a person getting murdered to be ok once they are finally killed. Perhaps a starving kid is just another biological unit in atrophy. Most people don’t look at things this way.

It is worth talking about what you think about this stuff.

Finally, here are several things that existentialists believe trouble people when they come to grips with a life that is not controlled by some outside agency:

  1. Death.
  2. Freedom
  3. Existential Isolation
  4. Meaninglessness

Going into these ideas would be lengthy but I will if you want.

I think that the most difficult concept up there is number three. That means that we are trapped in our heads but desire contact with others and we have to deal with that. The rest just tend to freak people out mostly because they are trained to act and think like children.

Anyway, let’s have some feedback.

Fabiano,

I think that we spend too much time worrying about ourselves and thus become saturated with isolation. Even if we find great friends or great lovers we are isolated still if we refuse to see a bigger picture in our existence. Call it God, or Love, Peace, even Hope, but if we stand alone without it, giving nothing, expecting the worst, never seeing a glass half full, but empty – life can, and will, drain us until we are so parched from its misery that we might as well give into the pain – wallow in cynicism and loneliness and see our death as a relief and not something we fear.

There is joy to be found, I assure you. It comes from within, but telling someone that is like saying “snap out of it,” or “take a pill.” Sometimes you have to practice being happy – sounds stupid, but they say if you start to physically put a smile on your face, it makes you feel happier. I am a musician, so that is a great healer for me… as is dancing or any art form for that matter. Doing what I adore in life has fed my soul so that I am more whole than I used to be. I, too, searched for years to find what would fill that emptiness – that void. Bad relationships, alcohol, anorexia, pills, and (did I say bad relationships?) I found myself drawn towards people who dragged me down reinforcing how I really felt about myself. It is a cliché, but I wish I knew at thirty what I know now at fifty because it is much simpler than I had thought – It is about giving. Not getting. When you understand that, you will wake up one day and feel a happiness that overwhelms you.

I spent my life worrying about being happy and felt like life was going on without me – everyone seemed to have a life but me because mine never felt fulfilled enough, happy enough, meaningful enough. Then one day, after raising five children it hit be what I had done in my years (and years) of giving with very little taking – and it felt good.

There IS pain and suffering everywhere, which makes us cynical towards it all. I am not assuming that you spend your life void of a good deed or two, but do this: give for the sake of giving without the thought of getting anything back. The more you give of yourself in this world – even something as small as taking a grocery cart back for a young mother or elderly person, the more you will benefit. It will be far beyond what you thought happiness could be. Do it in your job, do it for your neighbor, your family, a stranger. It won’t happen one time at a parking lot, but count up to a hundred and fifty times and eventually it will change who you are, how others perceive you, but most of all how you perceive yourself:

a person who deserves to be happy.

.

TheAdlerian,

Thanks for pointing me to Hans Vaihinger, very interesting. I agree with him that we can’t ever know the underlying reality of the world. All we can know is our own perceptions, and never the reality behind them. Useful fiction, as he calls it, is really the best we can do. So our aim should be to make our fiction as useful as we possibly can. A problem arises when we completely forget, or do not know, that the fiction is not reality itself. When this happens the fiction stalls, as it is no longer worked upon and improved. Also the fiction becomes absolute, even in cases when it would be beneficial to make exceptions.

To me life is largely a happy existence, with moments of anxiety. I think part of the reason is that I look at life as a game. I can do nothing about the programming, I can only act in the limited ways I’m allowed to by the rules of the game. So I analyze the rules, and try to make the best decisions for my own advantage. If I fail, at least I tried the best I could, and probably learned another lesson about the workings of the game. I don’t worry at all about what I can do nothing about, and the rest is just a matter of doing the best I can – no blame if I fail, only a lesson. And the goal of the game? My own pleasure/happiness – it doesn’t get any plainer than that.

I agree.

Why should I care about the misery and suffering for others, if I am myself not affected? I believe, and experience (trough emotions/empathy), that it usually does affect me – but when it doesn’t? The reason I ask is because you seem to define the misery and suffering of other people as reasons in themselves.

  1. Why should I care about the misery and suffering for others, if I am myself not affected? I believe, and experience (trough emotions/empathy), that it usually does affect me – but when it doesn’t? The reason I ask is because you seem to define the misery and suffering of other people as reasons in themselves.

I was referring to the idea that there is no meaning and was countering that with the idea that humanity provides its own meaning. Humans should consider not making one’s own and others limited lives not too miserable. Even when others have to watch you be miserable they may suffer. It’s an interactive world and you always have something to do.

On the other hand, a person could never even leave the house and still find meaning in life just by thinking about these issues.

TheAdlerian,

We define our own meaning. But there is one meaning that stand apart from the rest as almost(?) self-evident, because it is part of us – our own pleasure/hapiness. It may go against our sense as to what meaning “should” be, but to me it’s a winner. All other meaning is secondary. “Do not kill”, “be nice to other people”, “work for a better world” are all things that I follow, but just because following them will generally benefit myself. If I’m ever in a situation where going against those principles will be of benefit to me, I will have no problems doing so for the sake of my primary meaning in life – myself.

Selfishness is really an inherent property of all beings, it’s the only way we can act (because we are only ourselves). We can fantasize about altruism and absolute morals all we want, and it may benefit society in general, but to me as an individual it is detrimental to think of them as absolutes.

I’m simply honestly admiting who I am, a being who cares only about himself.

Well, I don’t believe in total altruism and find nothing wrong with getting a thrill from being a helpful person. If you are feeling good and I’m feeling good, because of you, it’s a win/win kind of situation.

Generally, I have been thinking about people that have lost meaning in their lives because they have abandoned the traditional concepts that supply meaning. The human race supplies meaning.

Anyway, I recall that Sartre said something like, “You do as you would have the world do,” and that means that you (anybody) acts in a way that you must believe the world should act. So, a person that is self-serving is implying that that is ok for everyone. The question is: what if everyone was self-serving and pleasure seeking? It could be argued that such philosophies lead to mass murder and suffering.

Additionally, it can be the case that the more the pleasure seeker seeks pleasure the more that he might take from others, thus creating anger in those others. This can result in others seeking to take his pleasure in revenge. So, I believe that even the pleasure seeker must be aware of how he is impacting others.

Is this the kind of pleasure seeking that you mean or were you talking about the pleasure that one gets from doing things for others?

How can helping someone else not make you feel better? How can living an unselfish life that focuses your attention or others NOT give you meaning? And in that newfound meaning, tell me how in the world does that not make you happy?

I don’t mean to be disrespectful, but tell me, doctor - how these philosophical platitudes of yours reach real people?

Bessy,

I’m not sure what you mean. I’m saying everything that you just said. The other posters mentioned that they have lost meaning, so I said that thinking about the state of humanity can provide meaning. Then, Celox mentioned that all that he thinks about is his own pleasure, so I responded that this can cause one to hurt others and make them gang up on you. So, the pleasure seeker must think about others to some degree or they will be defeated.

I’m not following your post.

I am not sure if you are asking me this or another person in the thread, so it is confusing. I know it is hard to remember but when answering a thread we are addressing several people not just the last post (right?) celox did mention “pleasure seeking” and I mentioned “doing things for others,” so I was puzzled. A perfect example of the confusion in your posts is when you wrote “I think you are insane.” Sorry honey, I thought you were telling ME that.

I didn’t mean to be rude, but it came off that way. Words can sting far more on paper because you cannot see faces or body language. My last question sounded like an attack - we’ve had enough of those, n’est ce pas?

Bessy,

1.What does this mean?

I was speaking to the previous poster that said there is no meaning. I agree that there may not be cosmic meaning, but the human condition supplies meaning because it is real.

  1. This sounded like you agreed and then contradicted yourself. Maybe I am reading it wrong. Anyway, why does helping people have to be just for seeking pleasure for yourself. I did say that it is a product of that behavior, but not the sole purpose of it.

Some people like to argue that altruism is not real because people feel proud or good for helping. I do not think that this matters. So, I agree with you. I say that if you like helping and it makes you feel good them it’s a win/win.

Is this the kind of pleasure seeking that you mean or were you talking about the pleasure that one gets from doing things for others?

No I was asking Celox to clarify what he means.

The whole spirit of what I’m saying is that although the initial poster may have lost his meaning gained from traditional belief systems, life on Earth provides all the meaning that one could want. Something like suffering is clearly bad and life is clearly limited and unpredictable, so why not find meaning in trying to make life better? It’s like the importance one might find in preserving artwork.

So you WERE agreeing with what I was saying - I think I will stay out of the serious forums. I haven’t had my coffee yet and some of this stuff begins to sound like convoluted double-talk to me.

See you in Mundane, doctor… a place where convoluted double-talk makes sense. :wink:

Well that’s because it almost is double-talk! Ha, ha!!!

Really, I do feel for people that lost their religion and stuff, but they have been trained to ignore real life for fantasy, and can’t see what is right before them.

I agree. I always tell young people that finding who you are is right in your backyard. The happiness and fulfillment are there for the taking… using their gifts that they are given will delight them in a way they never imagined. It is sad that many never search hard enough to find those gifts when sometimes they are very, very simple.

Have a good day.

I’m all for win/win…in general.

Only in the sense of the individual as far as I can se. In that we try to gain pleasure and avoid pain (our own personal pleasure and pain).

It could be that the best thing for me would be to pretend not to be entirely self-serving, in order to protect myself from the selfishness of others – but I don’t believe so. My ideal existence is not as a dictator or a ruler of the world, nor is it living as a strong individual in a world of anarchy (in which cases I would keep my “secred” hidden). My ideal existence is a life among equals. People I can challenge intellectually, and who can challenge me in return. People I can have a good time with, and in general, people with whom I can share a mutual win/win relationship.

Without other people I’d be living in a forest hunting wild boars, perhaps eating them raw because I haven’t discovered fire. I need other people if I am to live a good life. And I need those people to be as accomplished as possible, because then they will be better able to fill my needs. In return I help them, because that’s what they demand. I want those people to know reality, and I want them to acknowledge that they are selfish beings. Why? Because I want our relationship to be as honest and stimulating as possible.

Yes it’s a potentially dangerous philosophy, but that depends upon the individual (also see comments below). For instance, I really don’t think of myself as a danger to society. In fact I plan to do my part in making it a better place. And believe it or not, my philosophy is part of those plans.

Absolutely. If the pleasure seeker is not a thinker, he’s better of blindly following establised ethics. Why? Because they have been found to work, most of the time. I see the problem, and I don’t think my principles should be taught in kindergarden. They require someone who’s able to look at life from all angles. For the untrained eye, such a thinking egoist would probably look both moral and altruistic – morals can be excellent general guidelines.

I agree.I think to contend something else is to deny reality. It has proved true in my observations of myelf and of others.

Celox, Bessy and Psyque:

Thank you for your encouraging and -most important- sincere words. I am sure that your words cannot change things, I know that there is nobody who can help me but myself. But I kow what is your intention, and, believe me, that really matters to me.

Celox, you’ve mentioned a pleasure. Maybe I feel some form of weird pelasure when I am unhappy? Maybe you are right, maybe you are wrong. I don’t know for sure. All I know is that feeling worthiless, feeling useless and feeling empty is definitely not good. All I know is that look at a bridge thinking of jumping from it is not pleasy. But our minds work in a very strange manner, I can 't understand it at all. All I know, Celox, is that sometimes I feel completely lost and destroyed- a man with no god, no goal, no reason to wake up or to go to sleep, a man with no past and no future. In other words, nothingness. I look at other faces and see the same emptiness. Maybe that’s just the way meaninglessness affects us. Who can know how much harm can be brought by the fact that we are useless and meaningless? Our bodies may not reflect that, but and our minds? I see that most of us are unbalnced and sad, as unbalanced and sad as me. You try to point out that waht affects others don’t affect me. As I have already said to Russiantank, that is not true. If you really believe that you could ever live in a sick world without being sick, you must take at reality a more honest look. There’s no exit for us, Celox. That’s the way I feel. I feel like giving up not only life, but existence. I think that we all ought to do that, that would solve all our problems. Of course, everything becomes easier when we can reduce life to a philosophical problem. But reality is not so simple. Reality does not give a damn to Philosophy. So, I can bear life if I take a philosophical look at it (I can chose the best way, will I look at it like Spinoza, Marcus Aurelius or Kant), but I can’t simply bear life if I look at what it really is.

Adlerian,

“Happiness”?

I don’t know if I can define this word. I have said that I could only say what is unhappiness if I’d know what is happiness. That’s not the case. But as I think I am unhappy because I know that life is always full of endless and useless suffering, I think that happiness is simply the absence of suffering…non-life, death, Inexistence. That’s all I can say. Happiness would be not being here, not being anywhere.

“Most things which affect us are constructions of our minds”. Sure. If I am in a church and suddenly see Christ before me, that’s surely a creation from my mind. Every kind of hallucination is surely a creation from our minds. But if I say yo you that my mother has just died, you can’t say that this is a creation of my mind. She’s dead. There’s no way of denying that. There’s no “relativity” or “representation” whcih could change the fact that my mother is dead. So, a lot of things are creations of our minds, but a lot of things are not. Suffering, pain and despair are not created by us because they hurt us. We could never consciously create things to hurt ourselves. I don’t know the author you talked about, but I have some interest in Sartre’s existencialism (which is just a consequence of the thinking of other philosophers, like Heidegger, Husserl and Kirkegaard, not a system created by him), simply because it is a bit more realistic than other systems.

You said that you don’t believe in free will. Well, I think I am here to show you that it unhappily exists- at a certain extent, of course. If there wasn’t any free will, I wouldn’t be here writing that, I would be at a sunny beach with some fake “friends” living my “life” the way it’d pleased me. My environment (which should control me) tells me I must be a “proud and happy” citizen. I am not proud nor happy. My environment tells me I should be a conformist. I am everything but a conformist. So I thik that there is some form of free will, because I chose to be here in this site, while other people chose to be talking at chat rooms. There’s no reason for me to do that, nobody told me that I should do that, I am doing what I want. So, it is obvious that there is free will.

You talk about “existencial isolation” as something more important than meaninglessness. Indeed meaninglessness makes EVERY SINGLE THING WE DO not only useless but also…ridiculous. Please, DON’T DENY THAT. Quoting Sartre: “Man is an useless passion”. All of our acts, all of our words, Adlerian become simply…well, vain, when there is no meaning to life. And it doesn’t matter if you say that we can “create” meaning for our lives because we can’t. If life is meaningless, life is nothing. If there is no absolute by which every man is related to evry other man, than man is nothing. There is no liason among things, there’s no liason among facts, history itself becomes a farce. Everything is destroyed. Rememeber the reason why Schopenhauer denied history itself. There is no god= there is no meaning= all is vain=suffering is vain=all the children who cry cry in vain. Conclusion: if they cry in vain, wouldn’t it be better if they weren’t here? Wouldn’t it be better if nobody were here? Why do we pretend that there is a reason for them to cry? Why do we pretend that there is some form of consolation for their suffering? “You are suffering in order to become a “better” person”, “You are suffering for your land”, and so on. In fact, we had to tell them the truth: you are suffering in vain. I am telling you that in vain. I am writing that in vain.

What is existencial isolation compared to meaninglessness? I could bear living alone if I’d know that my life was meaningful. But if my life is meaningless, what does it care if I am alone or not? Nothing matters. Nothing matters.

The suffering of other is our suffering. That’s the reason why we can’t avoid being affected by it.

I think nothing can provide meaning. Nothing. Because we can think of the suffering of other, we can become hurt by it, but we can’t avoid it. We can’t avoid it because we’re also victims of it. When I try to say something beautiful to a person in order to help him/her, that doesn’t change anything. Because if he/she will be happy today, tomorrow they will be sad again. Meaninglessness is our damnation.

Fabiano,

I wish that you could see the light at the end of this tunnel you are in. I believe that writing these things out for others to read can be of help to you. I don’t think that there are any easy answers, but I do see happiness as a choice you make and misery will surely find you if you let it. We all have our own cross to bear. Yours is the loss of your mother leading to unhappiness. Mine is never having one that cared about me.

I chose a more positive path than I was given. You can choose that too. I encourage you to write to people here. Read others’ problems and mentor those who have a similar plight. You can be of great value - much more than someone with a PhD.

No offense meant to all the “docs.”