The meaning of life and philosophy

Are any of you into this stuff?

After graduating from school and spending around ~4 years working, I started losing my mind. It doesn't matter the job, I just can't picture myself doing the same ****ing thing for the next 30~ years while watching my body slowly age.

I started looking into how we got to this point. All I found was a **** ton of horrible atrocities done in the past, with very rationalized reasons as for how we evolved to this point in society.

But every ****ing man-made system, from capitalism to communism, can be exploited. For example: I'm a software developer and I pride myself at being efficient. Back during school days, I'd finish things ASAP and do my best to have December and April free of any work. If I got high marks on projects, I knew I wouldn't have to study for the exams. So I was rewarded for being competent with free time.

Lets contrast the above with the modern 40-hour work week system. I made software designed to secure a multi-million $ deal. I even finished it ahead of time by a month. Did I get rewarded? No. Did I make even 1% of that deal? No. Instead, I got flak for asking for more vacation time. When I told my manager about this, he said "I get it, I don't want to be here either (we're both on Facebook 90% of the time), but if we don't look like we got work, they'll wonder why they need us and fire us."

The above statement led to me realizing why corporate systems seem to always go down on Friday at 3PM...because people will do the least amount of work in the most amount of time to look busy. This means procrastinating until Friday, and realizing there are problems with the software system because nobody ****ing used it until last minute.

This started to truly piss me off, so I started asking "why the **** am I doing this?" Then I realized the following:

We are born as a clean slate.
We are told to go to school in order to be successful, without ever defining success.
We are then told to find a partner, to be happy (this actually makes sense.)
We are then told to have a child, only to have the child repeat the above in order to keep the system going.

This got me into philosophy, which is more rage inducing than anything so far because everything I've read simply talks about problems without any solutions.

For those who have gone through this, and I know there are a lot retired/older folk who visit this site, how the hell did you get past it? At this point even suicide has crossed my mind (will not actually do it!!!!) because unlike the systems I write, I can't change the world.

油井緋色;2548490 said:

... because unlike the systems I write, I can't change the world.

Click to expand...

but you can change your perception of the world.

I was never told to go to school to be successful - I was only encouraged to be happy in life.
I was never told to find a partner to be happy, because happiness comes from within.
I was never told to have a child, because it's a personal decision for each person based on life goals.

shanekingsley said:

but you can change your perception of the world.

I was never told to go to school to be successful - I was only encouraged to be happy in life.
I was never told to find a partner to be happy, because happiness comes from within.
I was never told to have a child, because it's a personal decision for each person based on life goals.

Click to expand...

This.

Sounds like OP is having a quarter life crisis.

It's ok, it gets better. Time to update your perspective.

Unhappiness is the gap between what you want (or what you expect) and what you actually have. The larger the gap, the greater the unhappiness.

Young adulthood is a series of high expectations and endless disappointments when those expectations are not met. Your job, relationships and financial situation will never feel as good as you might unconsciously desire. But after a while, your expectations about life will become more realistic, and will be met more often.

Perhaps the most important thing I've ever learned is that I don't really have as much control as I'd like over many of the external circumstances of my life, but I have a great deal of control over my desires and expectations. Happiness comes when those desires and expectations are realistic and attainable.

BTW, the 20 year old version of myself would have been disgusted by this point of view, but the 40 year old version of myself is much happier than the 20 year old ever was.

The meaning of life will vary from person to person, it ultimately depends on their personal goals. For some people it could helping others, making x amount per year, etc.

Now, define success?

My perception of success is to have a well rounded life. On all fronts. Work, family, relationships, etc. I'm at a stage in my life where I'm putting together the building blocks of my future. I know where I want to be and I know the sacrifices I have to make in order to get there. While that path may be suitable for me, it may not be for you and that's ok.

There's no right or wrong but you must have goals and work endlessly towards them.

油井緋色;2548490 said:

Are any of you into this stuff?

After graduating from school and spending around ~4 years working, I started losing my mind. It doesn't matter the job, I just can't picture myself doing the same ****ing thing for the next 30~ years while watching my body slowly age.

I started looking into how we got to this point. All I found was a **** ton of horrible atrocities done in the past, with very rationalized reasons as for how we evolved to this point in society.

But every ****ing man-made system, from capitalism to communism, can be exploited. For example: I'm a software developer and I pride myself at being efficient. Back during school days, I'd finish things ASAP and do my best to have December and April free of any work. If I got high marks on projects, I knew I wouldn't have to study for the exams. So I was rewarded for being competent with free time.

Lets contrast the above with the modern 40-hour work week system. I made software designed to secure a multi-million $ deal. I even finished it ahead of time by a month. Did I get rewarded? No. Did I make even 1% of that deal? No. Instead, I got flak for asking for more vacation time. When I told my manager about this, he said "I get it, I don't want to be here either (we're both on Facebook 90% of the time), but if we don't look like we got work, they'll wonder why they need us and fire us."

The above statement led to me realizing why corporate systems seem to always go down on Friday at 3PM...because people will do the least amount of work in the most amount of time to look busy. This means procrastinating until Friday, and realizing there are problems with the software system because nobody ****ing used it until last minute.

This started to truly piss me off, so I started asking "why the **** am I doing this?" Then I realized the following:

We are born as a clean slate.
We are told to go to school in order to be successful, without ever defining success.
We are then told to find a partner, to be happy (this actually makes sense.)
We are then told to have a child, only to have the child repeat the above in order to keep the system going.

This got me into philosophy, which is more rage inducing than anything so far because everything I've read simply talks about problems without any solutions.

For those who have gone through this, and I know there are a lot retired/older folk who visit this site, how the hell did you get past it? At this point even suicide has crossed my mind (will not actually do it!!!!) because unlike the systems I write, I can't change the world.

Click to expand...

I went through something similar recently, and realized I wasted the first 28 years old my life, I was essentially sleep walking through life...

The answer was so simple, it was staring me right in the face the entire time and i never even realized it...perhaps this is also the case for you.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kBwoEXlTph0

skip to 5:30

Perhaps we'll discuss more at bar nights

Maybe you need to travel the world a bit. Go to Haiti. Or Rwanda. Or any of hundreds of other places to gain some perspective on how 80 or 90 percent of the rest of the world lives. Then come back here and think about how bad you actually have it and how much the "system" that produced the motorcycles you enjoy, the roads on which you enjoy them, a health care system to help and rehab you should you crash, the home that protects you from the cold of winter and the heat of summer etc ad nauseum; the safe, civilized society that allows you to gaze at your navel and wonder such things without worrying if your next sip of water could kill you or if there's an armed militia on its way looking to slaughter you because you're of the wrong tribe or faith.

All of this stuff came about by generations of people before us doing exactly what we're doing as part of the capitalist liberal democracy system. It's got its pimples and warts, no doubt, and some of those are worsening (e.g. wealth inequality) but history shows it's by far the best system for humans to coexist and improve their collective stead.

I think you're maybe blindered in a "can't see the forest for the trees" kind of thing, where you're not appreciating how good you've got it in this system because you're not comparing it to every other realistic option out there. Before resorting to a Ted Kaczynski-like log-cabin existence, broaden your perspective to put your current stead in focus.

I was on a wayward path in life once upon a time and questioned my pathetic existence and then I discovered GTAM....

We all die alone.


Doesn't matter how many are around you. You die and it's just you. It could be worse, it could be better, but it is what it is.

you need to start thinking for yourself instead of doing what society told you to do to be happy

We are born as a clean slate - maybe for the first second, but babies are immediately influenced by their parents social and financial status, as well as which part of the world they live in

We are told to go to school in order to be successful, without ever defining success - also not true, plenty of uneducated successful people out there

We are then told to find a partner, to be happy (this actually makes sense.) - i'll give you that one, but its the RIGHT partner that will make you happy, many settle for a partner in general and it ruins their life.

We are then told to have a child, only to have the child repeat the above in order to keep the system going - not all people should have kids, in fact the last thing the world NEEDS is another baby.

the answer is out there, part of the solution is the road to finding the answer tho, and understanding it in your 20s vs your 50s puts you ahead of the curve

Explains everything.

It's surely a sign of an active mind to be asking these questions OP.
The alternative is to talk about the weather.
Or, gossip about the Kardashians.

When you get even more granular than job, family and stuff,
and start to wonder why as a random arrangement of ex-super nova particles,
we have the ability and inclination to even ask such questions,
then you're kind of far down the rabbit hole.

Being about 2/3 the way through this, and having spent much time asking these questions,
I have to say the answers don't come any easier.

But one piece of wisdom I did stumble across and have retained, although I wish it had happened sooner,
is the idea that the biggest gamble in life, is betting that while you spend the first half of your life
working in order to tick the boxes for what you were brought up to think of as success, you're assuming
you will have time later to enjoy it.

I've known some guys that rolled the dice like this and lost. Worked in fields that were financially rewarding,
but they did not particularity enjoy it. They were able to provide the family a comfortable life, while around,
and after they were gone.

Some say that's all there is: the value of a man is in what they say about him after he's gone.

I'm at a stage where I want to smell the roses a bit and not worry about my legacy.
I will after all, return to dust from where I started.

Excellent thread OP

Follow lightcycle's lead.

Parents do a diservice to their kids by trying to shelter them from the ugly realities of the world. But mostly we can't really explain why things can be so ******, plus we can't admit our ignorance to our kids (or ourselves for that matter) so we avoid those things and we all end up groing up with a rose tinted view of the world that eventually gets either worn away or blown up, depending on the severity of the nastiness we eventually encounter.

I remember those occassions as a teen when some ugly reality of the world reached my consciousness, thinking nobody around me knew how truly awful the world could be. It was depressing but honestly it was also very satisfying to pry open another layer of life to reveal some small, tiny, minuscule truth that had been hidden to me up 'til then.

I'm 45 now and I still find myself peeling back new layers every now and then, but with a better perspective of the why and how of it all.

The thing we all need to focus on is our own values. Don't expect that because you work your *** off you'll be recognised for it in a corporate environment. Instead you'll just be given a greater workload. If you perform particularly well versus your colleagues (genuinely or illusorily) then you may be removed from your area of expertise and handed new assignments that you will most likely be unqualified for. It's called a promotion.

The corporate machine doesn't care that you were nice to it. It will grind you away or lift you up on its own terms. https://youtu.be/lt-udg9zQSE

So if you work your *** off, do it for yourself, not others. Yes, that can mean running your own business as the bigger the corporate machine, the more difficult it is to implement rules and processes that can detect our individual strengths and put them to good use. But it can also mean working for some mega conglomerate on your own terms. You may value helping others, or you may focus more on personal achievements. There's no wrong answer. Whatever you figure out that makes you happy, just work somewhere that doesn't impede that outcome. Maybe that place is where you are right now, but instead of doing things to achieve targets others set for you, do those same things to achieve your own targets. A suitable job is simply one where your employer's goals and your goals don't clash. A good job is one where there's some alignment between the two.

Also, what Ash said.

Edit: Also, don't expect to find happiness from a partner before sorting out your own issues first. Your underlying dissatisfaction with life will only become an obstacle in the relationship, it won't magically be fixed (unless you simply need a partner and are doing fine otherwise).

Comes down to ...work to live, don't live to work.

fastar1 said:

Parents do a diservice to their kids by trying to shelter them from the ugly realities of the world.

Click to expand...

parents are the most ill equipped people, to be parenting
don't have the wisdom to be doing it
until the kids are grown and gone

and agree Lightcycle appears to have figured it out
and very fortunate, and kind of rare
to have a partner that was in the same place in life to share it with

Riceburner said:

Comes down to ...work to live, don't live to work.

Click to expand...

its a romantic quote but not always possible, people choose certain careers where you are expected to work a certain amount of hours per week, or to work as many hours as required to finish a certain task in a certain time frame, and part time or reduced hours is not an option.
I think that working less is not always a solution to happiness if you have nothing to fill that free time with, some people spend 90% of their work day on facebook, and get back on it as soon as they get home. working a lot can be very satisfying if you are working towards something

油井緋色;2548490 said:

..... because unlike the systems I write, I can't change the world.

Click to expand...

But, you can change your own world.
You don't like the way the corporate gig is treating you. Venture out on your own. Make your world what you want/need it to be.
If it doesn't work, you can always go back.

mbroyda said:

its a romantic quote but not always possible, people choose certain careers where you are expected to work a certain amount of hours per week, or to work as many hours as required to finish a certain task in a certain time frame, and part time or reduced hours is not an option.
I think that working less is not always a solution to happiness if you have nothing to fill that free time with, some people spend 90% of their work day on facebook, and get back on it as soon as they get home. working a lot can be very satisfying if you are working towards something

Click to expand...

I mean it more in the sense that you don't always have to work toward making the big bucks so you can buy the bigger SUV that you aren't using off road anyways and usually only have 1 occupant and the big house that you don't even use all of, etc.

Humans tend to be social creatures for reasons of protection, whether it was protection from another individual, tribe or country. This has been the case for many thousands of years. Knowing your place in society was important so you had to be pigeon holed.

Schooling was to teach you how to be a worker and money was the judge of success. That has become so ingrained in us that we have largely become sheep.

The concept of free thinking is fairly new, maybe 50 years and considering the greed in the world, not likely to last another 50.

Your comments:

"We are born as a clean slate."

True but with physical and possibly mental limitations. Forget the NBA if you are short.

"We are told to go to school in order to be successful, without ever defining success."

Society has largely defined success as money related. I'm in the same confused boat as I grew up poor but happy so $$$ doesn't impress me. You have to live in a financial world but the financial world doesn't have to live in you.

"We are then told to find a partner, to be happy (this actually makes sense.)"

I believe in monogamy but also that a life partner has to have the same ideals. Success is also defined by being married to a "10" even if the "10" is only a "5" inside.

"We are then told to have a child, only to have the child repeat the above in order to keep the system going."

Raising a child isn't easy in the lifestyle we face. You're swimming against the current on this one but it needs to be done. The victory can be a bitter win

At one time a person could go into the humanities, medicine, teaching etc for a feel good occupation but that is threatened. Give a kid a hug and it's sexual assault.

There is no pat answer. It sounds like you're good at what you do. You have to learn to play your hand wisely.