this post was submitted on 21 Sep 2023
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How to you come to terms with the fact that you will eventually not exist?

Rant: This has been keeping me up at night for way too long and every time I think about it I feel like am literally choking on my own thoughts. I have other shit to do but everything seems so inconsequential next to this. I just can't comprehend why or how the universe even exists or how a bunch of atoms can think or that quantum mechanics literally revealed that the world is not loaded when you are not looking like how tf do you know that I am observing something.

Btw I am not looking for a purpose in life although this may be interpreted as me asking for that.

If anyone has the same problem as me good luck my friend just know that you are not alone.

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[–] BolsheWitch@hexbear.net 2 points 1 year ago

Personally? I transitioned but everyone has a different reason for an existential crisis.

[–] ThePac@lemmy.ml 2 points 1 year ago

Repress repress repress!

[–] Barndog53@lemm.ee 2 points 1 year ago

I had an existential crisis when I was probably 11. It haunted me and I didn't sleep for days because I was contemplating, constantly.

My belief now, after many psychedelic trips is very akin to the short novel "The Egg" by Andy Weir. Even if I have no idea what the truth could be, I take comfort in that fun read. It seems right to me

I've always been a fan of, we're the universe experiencing itself.

[–] krei@hexbear.net 2 points 1 year ago
[–] BilboBargains@lemmy.world 2 points 1 year ago

An existential crisis can only occur if we believe that we know what will happen in the future. It's safe to assume that we will one day die and there is no meaning in the universe. However, there is very little utility in dwelling on these thoughts. The important part of life is happening right now, in this moment. Distracting ourselves from this moment robs our lives of meaning and eventually delivers it to the abyss whence nothing returns.

I became a bit of an absurdist.

[–] heisenbug4242@lemmy.world 2 points 1 year ago

A bit of clarification about the quantum might help calm your nerves: to observe something means something such as light must interact with the particle you try to observe, and that very interaction changes the result of the observation. It collapses the wave function, and what you observe is just one of the possible outcomes. It's not as crazy as you may think, but it's very understandable that it may at first seem magical.

Honestly not well.

I've come to terms with the fact that I will one day die, and it could happen at any moment. The hard part is knowing that's true for everyone I love too.

[–] PsychedSy@sh.itjust.works 1 points 1 year ago

Mushrooms and/or LSD.

[–] PaulSmackage@hexbear.net 1 points 1 year ago

"Every man has two deaths, when he is buried in the ground and the last time someone says his name."

As long as i am remembered, i exist. While my physical form may be rotting, i will hope that i made as much of an impact in this world as i did to me, and hope that my memory will never fade. It is for that reason that i keep soldiering on, never looking back, and trying to contribute to a better world.

[–] Braindead@programming.dev 1 points 1 year ago

You keep on existing (at least for now)

[–] xilliah@beehaw.org 1 points 1 year ago

I think it's a positive thing because you've found another perspective.

[–] JK1348@hexbear.net 1 points 1 year ago

I do Shrooms, LSD, or DMT if I don't want to commit to all those hours.

[–] 1984@lemmy.today 1 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

I had a conversation with my girlfriend a few days ago about this. We are fine, everything is good, but if an asteroid would come in a few days, we would both be OK with it.

I guess that's weird to most people.

[–] SwingingTheLamp@midwest.social 0 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

I take comfort from the Good Book. And by that, I mean Vonnegut’s Slaughterhouse Five. The Tralfamadorean take is comforting. My conscious experience may its reach endpoint, but my existence will still have been, so to speak, embedded in the mountain range of time. The calypsos of Bokononism in Cat’s Cradle are good, too. Think of all the mud that didn’t even get to sit up and look around.

Furthermore, there’s a parable about the mountain, the one that a little bird comes along once every 100 years and scrapes its beak upon. When that mountain is worn away, only the first instant of eternity will have passed. Do we ever stop to think about what it would actually mean to exist forever? If it were infinite life, then once you’ve done everything that you enjoy for the billionth time and gotten so thoroughly bored of it, hey, you still have infinite time to go! After the Sun goes supernova and consumes the Earth, what will you do while floating in space for a few trillion years? If it’s existence after death, then a century or so of life will be as nothing compared to the vast sweep of eternity in the afterlife. Any number divided by infinity, and all.

Honestly, I figure that the urge to “live forever” is in actuality a desire to put off the existential crises to an indefinite time in the future. Cosmic procrastination. But living literally forever has its own (probably worse) existential horror. Everything has to end, especially in a universe that will end or at least cease being interesting, and that’s the only way that life can have any meaning.

The existential crisis comes no matter how long the Fates trim your strand, eventually you stare down the end. It’s just the price of admission.

[–] 0_0j@lemmy.world 0 points 1 year ago

Swipe ⬅️

[–] Aux@lemmy.world -1 points 1 year ago

I don't have a crisis, problem solved.

[–] PenguinJuice@kbin.social -1 points 1 year ago

Watch some near death experience videos on YouTube. It's comforting.

[–] Touching_Grass@lemmy.world -3 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (2 children)

Why do you care if you exist. Are you the Queen of england or something.

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