Comment by plutonorm | Hacker News Reader

Comment by plutonorm | Hacker News Reader

Always. Since I was 10years old, I've battled with the knowledge that life has no intrinsic meaning. Sometimes I break free for a few years, but it always comes back around. I'm 38 now and I don't see myself being able to come up with a convincing reason to live anytime soon. I mostly feel empty or sometimes I bubble over with rage, or deep sadness. Sometimes something interesting will catch my eye and I can become involved with it for a time, but I'm not sure I actually enjoy the process. I think perhaps, for me, all the things I want are out of reach. I'm transgender but could never transition. I was fascinated with physics and philosophy, but had untreated ADHD and could never manage to apply my decent intellect to doing well in academia. I don't have any family, never did. My mum died when I was a baby and my father is an abusive alcoholic and couldn't love me. I've tried every drug going, nothing works. I'm empty inside and the world is just as empty. And the world is so cruel, brutal. Not just to me, but to everyone and people are so cruel and arrogant and empty. I want to reach out and save the world, to take away it's pain, but there is nothing anyone can do. It's all just fucked and often I wish I hadn't been born. Also I hate my career and am so lonely working alone all the time. And IT people just don't suit me, I'm just not like them. So maybe the existential depression is just an expression of my own misery and loss of purpose. Also 3 years of therapy did squat.

Huggles. I can understand how you feel.

> battled with the knowledge that life has no intrinsic meaning

Yes, it doesn't. But we can choose our own adventure, create our own meaning. I organize a summer camp for ~50 people. Is there any objective value to it? No - we'll all die and no one will remember. But I derive plenty of subjective value, as do the other participants. Is it worth it to do this? Objectively, no. For me subjectively, yes.

Have you read Man's Search for Meaning by Viktor Frankl?

Why not give up on the search of meaning? "What is the meaning" is an ill posed question, because it assumes there is one or that there should be one. I mean think about it - what's the meaning of a life of a wolf. Or a frog. Or a computer program. Or a modern naked ape. They all just are, until they are not.

The creatures you listed were necessary for the development of a human. They are also a part of the fragile balance of nature which keeps the living conditions on Earth. I am not saying everything has a meaning (I do not know). But I disagree that this is "an ill posed question".

So was the transistor [necessary] for the development of the CPU. It's also a part of fragile timing nature of electric signals. What's the point?

By ill-posed I simply mean it assumes something under the hood. Like when someone says "how do you catch X criminals" without first establishing that X is a crime. It's kind of a trick of language.

The point is that there may be a meaning. You questions do not prove its lack.

I do not like your parallel. The question about the meaning of life can also have the answer "there is no". It does not assume anything under the hood.

You are talking about objective versus subjective meaning I think. Objectively life is meaningless according to the Nihilism school of thought but subjectively life can have plenty of meaning it all depends on how you "frame" your experience of life.

Meaning to me for example is conquering my existential problems (anxiety, depression), pushing past boundaries and percieved limits in life, seeking love and obtaining goals. These examples provide substantial meaning for me, where I'm currently at in this point of time. So meaning to some degree are what you value, subjectively speaking.

I'm actually coming from the Buddhist/meditation school of thought. It's neither about subjective nor objective meaning, it's about the emptiness of this word "meaning". For a lack of better language available - "meaning" does not mean anything. It's like pondering over the liar's paradox without defining truth (see Tarski's undefinability theorem for a strict mathematical example).

Just ask yourself - what does it mean that the "meaning" of X is Y? In the "meaning" sense that this thread is about.

The very fact that anything is happening, that there's something rather than nothing can be all absorbing. The "meaning" as people usually put it is typically a case of mis-wanting, trying to fit the reality to the language of thought, rather than the other way around, and a lack of focus on the present. In particular the religious concepts of heaven and hell are the most prominent members of this category (throughout the written history, and perhaps much earlier).

I share some of your experience, (though I'm not transgender and grew up in a loving, supporting family). I recall upsetting my parents when I was about 7, by asking "Why are we alive? Why don't we just die?" I didn't mean it to be depressing, it was just that I didn't "get it", why people do all the things they do, and end up dying anyway. I still feel that way. I've concluded long ago that I'm not particularly depressed, and that the existential crises is not mine but is shared by everyone, it's just that a lot of people don't realize it, or recognize it somehow as such a fundamental property of being alive that they never pay attention to it. I don't hate being here, I like it in general, I have the opportunity to experience things, but that does not mean that there is any intrinsic meaning to life, and that does set some baseline of sadness.

I know exactly how that feels. A switch flipped at some point though and it stopped bothering me:

I gave up on any notions of mysticism - religion, higher meaning and all that and instead just accepted causality is all there is. Things happen because they're the only logical thing that could happen given the conditions. Think of it as taking Markov to a broader sense.

You know what's so great about that, that relieves me so much? That there's no plan for me. No one is going to fix my issues, no one but myself. So I found comfort in having agency over my own circumstances. And I slowly started to fix whatever made me unhappy.

The stuff you mentioned will bring you down for sure. Start attending to them and life will slowly get really awesome. No silver bullet of course, there are ups and downs but it feels so much better. And get help if you have to!

Massive resonance with this. I developed my friendships outside of IT and found a degree of (admittedly drug fuelled) distraction based happiness.

Sorry, friend.

Maybe try sincere, old fashioned religion. It works for many. I believe there is something to it. (And done properly, it leads to helping others.)

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