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Man, this is the WORST place to ask for advice. A quick scan of the suggestions: * Have you tried medicating these feelings away? * Have you tried drugs? * G

Man, this is the WORST place to ask for advice. A quick scan of the suggestions: * Have you tried medicating these feelings away? * Have you tried drugs? * Get on a plane! Travel and "find yourself!" * You have money, why aren't you happy? * How about you do everything again that brought you to this place... But in a different career field? About the only real suggestion here is to exercise, find a hobby, or start a family -- but even those posters have an absurdist take that it is a meaningless pursuit. The Mr. Peanutbutter take: "Life is about occupying yourself with pleasant nonsense until you die." What an indictment of this culture. Their solution is either to therapy this feeling out of existence, distract yourself from it, or ignore it. (Or alternatively, utterly fail to comprehend why you could possibly feel this way when you have money.) I'm of the opinion that these feelings must be confronted directly. When I was in a similar position, I read the book of Ecclesiastes. I'd start there.

gbjw 5y ago
Completely agree. I'd like to also recommend another book in the spirit of Ecclesiastes: Tolstoy's Confession. A Confession was published shortly after Anna Karenina and at a time when Tolstoy (in his fifties) was widely considered to be one of the world's preeminent writers. He had vast wealth, fame, and a large family. Nevertheless, he was so overwhelmed by the vanity of existence that he was convinced suicide was the bravest, most reasonable course of action. Apart from pure cowardice, he writes that what stopped him from taking his life was a vague intuition that his own logical reasoning about life's purpose was sound but somehow incomplete. His eventual insight is as follows: life is not meaningless because logically it must be so. Logic cannot 'negate' life because it is itself a byproduct of life. If one reduces life to a form conducive to logic, one reduces it to a cold, dead simulacra that may indeed not be worth living. Instead, Tolstoy argues, the life that is worth living, and the one that so many of the peasants around him lived, was one guided by (potentially unconscious) faith. He concludes that this faith in the transcendent must be the source of life ("God is life") and that life is a logically impossibility save for this faith. His post-Confession writings are all dedicated to his interpretation of the Christian scriptures. I'll also note that his advocacy and envagelism of Christian pacifism was a direct influence on Gandhi and MLK Jr. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Confession https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Confession [2] http://www.arvindguptatoys.com/arvindgupta/confessions-tolstoy.pdf http://www.arvindguptatoys.com/arvindgupta/confessions-tolst...
dmarchand90 5y ago
I'm not sure what your background with therapy is, but, it's certainly not an opiate. In fact a good therapist will help out and encourage one to confront one's problems directly.
- bjt2n3904 5y ago
  Oh, absolutely! A GOOD therapist will encourage you to confront your problems. The problem is finding a good one. My experience is that the vast majority are on the wrong side of the couch, or assist you in suppressing the problem instead of confronting it.
amznbyebyebye 5y ago
Absolutely this is a great comment. And good marketing for Ecclesiastes, now I want to read it. Definitely go at these feelings head on, meditate on them.
kgin 5y ago
Can you say a bit more about what happened when you confronted these feelings?
- bjt2n3904 5y ago
  Absolutely! Primarily I was disillusioned with my college education, but that feeling spread to encompass many areas of my life. Everything seemed arbitrary and pointless -- and reading the first few chapters it really was comforting to hear someone else from a completely different time saying the same things. It was like -- I'm not alone here. Many people seemed to feel this way with Bojack Horseman as well... Though I find Ecclesiastes much more satisfying at the end. In fact, knowingly or not, many people are echoing the same sentiments here: everything is the same, nothing is new, history repeats itself -- things are bent, and there's no straightening it. But where the rubber meets the road is this: all the suggestions people told me didn't seem to be of any help. "Just do a hobby, exercise, or travel!" is a hollow suggestion when you think everything is meaningless, "a chasing after the wind." The author talks about the futility of work, wisdom, pleasure, relationships, even gardening! But then he even talks about miscarriage of justice, and government corruption. "Why do bad things happen to good people?" It's like he's tugging on this weed on human existence, and the more he pulls, the deeper the roots of the problem go. I'll leave with just two verses that stick out to me: Better to spend your time at funerals than at parties. After all, everyone dies— so the living should take this to heart. Sorrow is better than laughter, for sadness has a refining influence on us. A wise person thinks a lot about death, while a fool thinks only about having a good time. Ecclesiastes 7:2‭-‬4 NLT Especially as a young man, that impacted me. Much of life seems to be an effort to avoid suffering -- to the extent that suicide is seen as a viable option. But I look at Joni Eareckson Tada, and the impact her life has had on so many people, in spite of her terrible suffering. But the jewel on top is the final chapter. It's a direct rebuttal to nihilism and absurdism. There is a meaning and purpose in life to be found in your creator. This feeling of meaninglessness was hole that only Jesus could fill. Once he was there, I found the meaningless imbued with meaning and purpose. This is my Twitter handle as well, feel free to reach out if you'd like to chat!

gbjw 5y ago

Completely agree. I'd like to also recommend another book in the spirit of Ecclesiastes: Tolstoy's Confession. A Confession was published shortly after Anna Karenina and at a time when Tolstoy (in his fifties) was widely considered to be one of the world's preeminent writers. He had vast wealth, fame, and a large family. Nevertheless, he was so overwhelmed by the vanity of existence that he was convinced suicide was the bravest, most reasonable course of action. Apart from pure cowardice, he writes that what stopped him from taking his life was a vague intuition that his own logical reasoning about life's purpose was sound but somehow incomplete. His eventual insight is as follows: life is not meaningless because logically it must be so. Logic cannot 'negate' life because it is itself a byproduct of life. If one reduces life to a form conducive to logic, one reduces it to a cold, dead simulacra that may indeed not be worth living. Instead, Tolstoy argues, the life that is worth living, and the one that so many of the peasants around him lived, was one guided by (potentially unconscious) faith. He concludes that this faith in the transcendent must be the source of life ("God is life") and that life is a logically impossibility save for this faith. His post-Confession writings are all dedicated to his interpretation of the Christian scriptures. I'll also note that his advocacy and envagelism of Christian pacifism was a direct influence on Gandhi and MLK Jr. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Confession https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Confession [2] http://www.arvindguptatoys.com/arvindgupta/confessions-tolstoy.pdf http://www.arvindguptatoys.com/arvindgupta/confessions-tolst...

dmarchand90 5y ago

I'm not sure what your background with therapy is, but, it's certainly not an opiate. In fact a good therapist will help out and encourage one to confront one's problems directly.

bjt2n3904 5y ago
Oh, absolutely! A GOOD therapist will encourage you to confront your problems. The problem is finding a good one. My experience is that the vast majority are on the wrong side of the couch, or assist you in suppressing the problem instead of confronting it.

amznbyebyebye 5y ago

Absolutely this is a great comment. And good marketing for Ecclesiastes, now I want to read it. Definitely go at these feelings head on, meditate on them.

kgin 5y ago

Can you say a bit more about what happened when you confronted these feelings?

bjt2n3904 5y ago
Absolutely! Primarily I was disillusioned with my college education, but that feeling spread to encompass many areas of my life. Everything seemed arbitrary and pointless -- and reading the first few chapters it really was comforting to hear someone else from a completely different time saying the same things. It was like -- I'm not alone here. Many people seemed to feel this way with Bojack Horseman as well... Though I find Ecclesiastes much more satisfying at the end. In fact, knowingly or not, many people are echoing the same sentiments here: everything is the same, nothing is new, history repeats itself -- things are bent, and there's no straightening it. But where the rubber meets the road is this: all the suggestions people told me didn't seem to be of any help. "Just do a hobby, exercise, or travel!" is a hollow suggestion when you think everything is meaningless, "a chasing after the wind." The author talks about the futility of work, wisdom, pleasure, relationships, even gardening! But then he even talks about miscarriage of justice, and government corruption. "Why do bad things happen to good people?" It's like he's tugging on this weed on human existence, and the more he pulls, the deeper the roots of the problem go. I'll leave with just two verses that stick out to me: Better to spend your time at funerals than at parties. After all, everyone dies— so the living should take this to heart. Sorrow is better than laughter, for sadness has a refining influence on us. A wise person thinks a lot about death, while a fool thinks only about having a good time. Ecclesiastes 7:2‭-‬4 NLT Especially as a young man, that impacted me. Much of life seems to be an effort to avoid suffering -- to the extent that suicide is seen as a viable option. But I look at Joni Eareckson Tada, and the impact her life has had on so many people, in spite of her terrible suffering. But the jewel on top is the final chapter. It's a direct rebuttal to nihilism and absurdism. There is a meaning and purpose in life to be found in your creator. This feeling of meaninglessness was hole that only Jesus could fill. Once he was there, I found the meaningless imbued with meaning and purpose. This is my Twitter handle as well, feel free to reach out if you'd like to chat!