Every day I try to do one thing to make the next day a little better

Beer works pretty well. It takes back in interest, sadly. Ain’t no existential crisis like a hungover one.

“everything we do is really just an excuse to keep our minds busy for our inevitable end.”
if you believe this to be a hard fact instead of a viewpoint among many others it’ll be harder to change things up. especially if you consider that to be a negative thing.

The same way I deal with my OCD, try to distract myself with horror games and movies.

I’ve just kind of grown comfortable with the idea that there is no real point. I’m fine just floating through my time here seeing neat shit and hearing cool stories, and doing what I can to make things a little better for the people around me. Sort of a cozy or optimistic nihilism, though I’m probably misusing that word.

Joss Whedon is problematic in a lot of ways, but nevertheless this scene from Angel has always stuck with me: If nothing we do matters, then all that matters is what we do.

Excapism: Watching TV shows, movies, anime,

Writing… my life story… sometimes fiction… sometimes poetry…

Watching youtube videos about random stuff, sometimes gameplay, sometimes educational, sometimes irl stuff (the less depressing stuff fun stuff)

Just to let you know, I have double the normal existential crisis since

1. I wasn’t even supposed to be born. I was during the One Child Policy of China but I was the second child… its a rare chance that I’m even alive

2. As an immigrant, I have constant identity crisis. Not American enough to be American, not Chinese enough to be Chinese. I want to embrace my language but I keep getting traumatized by it. I keep thinking about the alternate timeline where I had to live in China behind the stupid firewall bullshit.

3. I also nearly got kidnapped since I ran away from home when I was 6 years old due to a fight with my brother so I got scared and ran. I keep reliving that memory and just think what a horrible life that’d be to be trafficked somewhere.

I don’t think it really goes away, you just have to deal with it.

Watching movies that makes me cry is very powerful, endorphins feels SOO GOOD. Its hard to explain. Endorphins is the best natural drug there ever is.

everything we do is really just an excuse to keep our minds busy for our inevitable end.

Everything ends eventually. The point is to find joy in the moments you have, it’s only really a distraction from boredom. You either do something or you don’t, but no matter what we’re all heading towards our end. Dwelling on it not only serves very little purpose, but it can actively take time away that you could have otherwise been enjoying.

I personally find meaning in doing what I can to make the world in general better. I view being a “steward of the earth”, as it were, as being enough of a meaning to my life. Not for religious reasons, but because any bit of help I can do makes a difference to people and causes I care about.

In the era we are in now, with me being in the US, I am describing this feeling as being like a nurse in hospice. Several of my family have been either hospice nurses or patients, and it informs a lot of my view. Even if the little things I do don’t “cure” or “fix” anything, it makes life more comfortable for someone who needs it. I do more when I can, but this helps me not feel useless during times I can’t do more.

Contemplate the thought for a bit, then continue doing whatever it was i was doing. The world goes on

Do you have an Internet Archive account

I’ve found setting an unrealistic goal (retirement at 45) but realistic goals that lead up to the unrealistic one so that accomplishments are made. Humans get a dopamine hit when we “check a box” or complete a task. Lean into that a bit with things you do. Small things help towards the efforts of larger things.

Other than that, escapism through keeping myself busy too.

Un-ironically this.

Also if if makes you happy, it’s not just a distraction.

P.S. This also applies

I try stoicism in between bouts of panicking and crying.

I hate my life.

I asked myself what was important in life over a decade ago, what is both fulfilling and pleasant (the former without the latter is not viable, the latter without the former is pure, empty hedonism, which wasn’t an answer for me but it might be for the more beast-like among us) and my answer has been pretty much the same ever since: each other. Making meaningful connections with other people, the deepest and most unique ones being the ones made with your partner and children.

So, if you don’t really believe in anything besides the “certainty” there’s nothing after death and God has no plans for us after our short time here (or doesn’t exist at all), I think you should focus on the practical aspect of life and just enjoy your lovely interpersonal relationships. If you want to go through the philosophically pointless effort of trying to give your life a deeper sense/meaning without an objective determinant that precedes the universe and existence itself and created it all for real but unclear/unknowable reasons, you’re more than welcome to try but you’ll end up in absurdism or hedonistic nihilism, neither providing a sufficient alternative (Nietzsche recognised this in his society about a century and a half ago and things have only gone worse since then…).

Finally, remember Solomon (and “Solomonic” means “very wise” for a reason) and his “Ecclesiastes”. Everything being meaningless has been known for a looooong time, with a prophet dedicating a whole book to it. And it ends simply in “fear God and keep his commandments”. God gives our existence context and meaning, being a good slave of God gives us peace and happiness (keeping good relationships with your peers and being generous and helpful is a big chunk of being a good slave of God, ofc). And, without accepting the possibility of God, you can’t even hypothetically leave the realm of the subjective. This might sound bizarre if you think faith is just something you can put on and take off like a t-shirt, or compartmentalize while you think and behave however you want when it feels convenient, but if you understand it as simply the background to one’s ideology, the framework everything rests on (Godlessness being the other alternative), you can better comprehend how and why its effects can be so large.