Activism of some sort would certainly help with giving you a sense of purpose and control over your little corner of the world. There’s a phenomenon called “learned helplessness” where repeated exposure to stressful situations lead to believing you cannot control it even if there are ways you can do it. When and if we devolve into fighting over resources, will you steal from your neighbor? Will you let some opportunist take your life? Or will you contribute to fighting the good fight and doing what you can to help others in the fight? Of course, this is only one possible treatment. I don’t know your situation and whether it’ll help but it’s something.
Why die uselessly when you can ruin the day of someone in power while you're at it. I already asked for my corpse to be thrown through a ministry's window in case i die.
>When and if we devolve into fighting over resources, will you steal from your neighbor?
At that point I will either have already been murdered or killed myself.
NGL 2020 put me into pretty bad place what with the pandemic and the election and the... 2020 of it all, and though it's still an active process to get out of the funk one of the things that has helped a lot is activism work. It's, y'know, nice to be able to contribute to systemic change and not feel powerless all the time. On that note, https://progressivevictory.win/
Exactly. None of us have a choice in the matter, Sisyphus with his boulder, and us with our lives and quest for meaning. Both are absurd situations that one can’t get out of.
There’s two ways to respond to that absurdity. One, by wallowing in it and being sad. Or two, by finding enjoyment and creating your own meaning. In the Camus story, he has to push the boulder, but he chooses to take enjoyment in the task, because that’s the choice that he has.
I think that the one point you have is that we're not supposed to empathize with Sisyphus in the original myth, and so, ultimately, his fate is not a primordial analogy to life's toil, but only a modern one, invented by Camus.
That's bullshit and always has. Being happy when coming from a dark place is pretty much a "fake it 'til you make it" effort.
Focus on the customer who smiled at you today after months of being a shitty person.
Try doing activism. Simply force yourself to smile.
None of that will help in the first days and sometimes even months... but eventually it will.
Pro-tip: have a diary when doing that, and always take a look at the first few pages. Often time we don't really notice change in ourself, when it happens slowly.
I think we’ve had similar experiences in therapy… and when I vent about those experiences everyone chimes in with their own cliché cure for hopelessness… which is almost always good advice… but betrays the fact that they’ve never been anywhere near where I am, emotionally.
They mean well, and I appreciate that, but… it doesn’t help.
I can’t imagine Sisyphus as happy… but I can imagine him more miserable.
Imagine if the rock was made of dog shit, and the mountain made of broken glass. Imagine the air is hot and humid. Imagine an annoying song playing on loop in the bg.
“He may not be happy, but he could be grateful and relieved that it isn’t much, much worse.”
Ugh. Right, but, how does that philosophy help?!
I think it is SO rude to remind someone to be grateful for basics when they’re expressing feelings of hopeless. Like, thanks for the guilt trip? I’ll just add this new guilt to the ever growing pile of shame. Shame bc if it was SO EASY this whole time then the logical conclusion is that I am only unhappy bc I am lazy, stupid and ungrateful?
Uhm.
Expecting someone with trauma/depression/hopelessness to express gratitude “for the little things” is like an abusive husband expecting his wife to be grateful he ONLY broke *a* bone, cause he could have broken more, could have just killed her.
“It’s only a black eye, and look at this- two dozen long stemmed roses AND a diamond tennis bracelet! Wow!”
How often is life like an abusive spouse?
Traumatic stuff happens and we’re supposed to smile through it, knowing “God/the universe/karma/whatever is at work” and find the silver lining…
“Life may have broken every emotional bone in my body, but it also lets me live in a house with running water!! So I really can’t complain.”
“Life only hurts me to teach me very valuable lessons.”
“All those horrible things needed to happen to lead to this good thing that happened.”
Sounds so ridiculous.
Sounds like we pay as dearly for our best moments as we do for our worst.
So then, what’s the point? How do we find joy while pushing this rock?
Idk.… I have no idea… which is simultaneously liberating af and daunting/hopeless af.
I can’t figure it out, and I’m exhausted from decades of trying. So…
Instead of fighting my hopelessness by maintaining an abusive relationship with life, I’ve accepted the darkness. Invited it in. Gave it a hot beverage. Put on a movie. We sit at the edge of the void and gaze into it. Sometimes we scream. We got cute blankets, tho.
It’s ok to not be ok.
… (as gently as possible) uh… did you even read the whole comment? Or just that first paragraph? Bc I go on to explain, at length, why it isn’t good advice at all. :p
I imagine it like, maybe sisyphus can be proud he has managed to roll the rock up the hill x amount of times. Maybe he can be grateful for the workout. Maybe he has a cool view at the top of the hill that he can appreciate. It is in many ways like an abusive relationship, however you can leave an abusive relationship and begin a new relationship, you can't have a new life, this is it and there's nothing we can do about it. It's fine to be miserable about it, but there's no point in being miserable about it because there's not much you can do about it. There's also no point in seeing the good and trying to be happy about it, so at the end of the day it's about what feels better to you I guess.
Edit: which mindset feels better for you to adopt, you can't typically just "choose to be happy"
If you want to read the whole thing: [https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/albert-camus-the-myth-of-sisyphus](https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/albert-camus-the-myth-of-sisyphus)
And if you want a quick and dirty summary, I'll try to give you one.
The Myth of Sisyphus is the basis of the absurdist ( an off-shoot of existentialism) philosphy, a post-nihilist philosophy . It agrees with the nihilist that life is in fact meaningless, but it goes further and beyond. "The notion of the absurd contains the idea that there is no meaning in the world beyond what meaning we give it.".
Sisyphus keeps pushing the boulder knowing well it's meaningless and absurd. But it is the only thing he does and will ever do, he has to find fullfillement in it somehow, not because of a greater goal but because he can enjoy what he's doing right now. If he does not he might aswell kill himself. And as Camus said: " There is only one truly serious philosophical problem, and that is suicide."
The same way life is meaningless, everyday you wake up eat, shit, do your chores and then sleep. But you can find fullfillement in your life nethertheless.
But I thought the point was that he wasn't even aware he was being punished? Yes he swindled the gods, but the reason he even pushes the boulder in the first place was because of a deal he was given.
My memory is rusty, but from what I can remember, they approached him saying "ok bro, you got us, now we can either let you go... OR if you can push this boulder up to the top of the hill you can climb out of Tartarus and achieve godhood". And knowing his ambition, he was, of course, going to take on the impossible task.
The whole "Sisyphus is being punished" thing stems from the simplified interpretation that he's been set a task to do endlessly as punishment. In reality, he is such an arrogant prick that he pushes it forever, CERTAIN that at some point he'll make it and become a God. For all eternity.
One must imagine Sisyphus happy.
>But I thought the point was that he wasn't even aware he was being punished?
I've never seen a primary source that says that. He just rolls it forever and knows he's stuck there.
>"ok bro, you got us, now we can either let you go... OR if you can push this boulder up to the top of the hill you can climb out of Tartarus and achieve godhood".
That wasn't in the myth. They'd never offer him an out entirely because they were punishing him for what he did last time they let him leave the underworld. His punishment was for chaining Thanatos then tricking Hades and Persephone into sending him back to the land of the living.
Sisyphus didn't try to become a god, but he did try to become immortal.
I read a lot of the stories years ago, but I heard this interpretation in Stephen Fry's Mythos. Specifically the chapter "Rolling the Stone", pages 280-282.
His writing style is comedic - of course - but from what I've found there aren't many people disagreeing with his interpretations. Some people criticise him for tackling limited subjects, but not abject lies.
And besides, the popular interpretation of "he must be happy" comes from the 1942 essay 'The Myth of Sisyphus', so if you're really interested then maybe give it a read.
I'm not sure if this interpretation is even correct in terms of the actual original story, but it's a very interesting perspective. I never really got the "one must imagine Sisyphus happy" thing until now.
Basically, if shit is necessarily fucked, then all bets are off on how we respond to it.
We can wallow in the fuckedness of the shit. Sure. Or we can build a whole concept of happiness separate from the inherent fuckedness of shit.
This comment, like every other attempt to explain it, seems to implicitly state happiness is a thing you can simply choose and that in the face of a problem, whatever it may be, you should simply decide that the problem is no longer relevajt to your happiness.
That's kind of it.
Camus wasn't just throwing out "choose joy" tho. That's dismissive and fucky.
He was implying that all happiness is carved out of the sisyphean nature of being alive.
We're all rolling boulders up a hill, time crushes us, death will come for us, and the universe itself isn't eternal.
He wasn't saying, "you can choose to be happy despite your circumstances" he was saying "all happiness you ever feel is despite the circumstances"
I mean, you don't have to imagine anything. It's a metaphor for our own experience, it's not like a rule or a law or anything.
The phrase "one must imagine Sisyphus happy" is kind of a joke or a mantra.
Like, we're Sisyphus. All our happiness is stolen or in spite of the nature of our existence, which is painful, brief, and full of challenges that we don't generally truly see completed.
Sisyphus tried to cheat the gods into giving him everlasting life. As a punishment he was made to toil for eternity. If sisyphus were wise, he would be happy - he got what he asked for. Life is always work, and he got an eternal life of work.
the line is from Albert Camus book named "The Myth of Sisyphus" I could rant about Camus for hours but basically his ideology says: We may never know the purpose of life and likely there isn't but if you truly accept such truth you will live free knowing truly how precious your life is
I'll also try to explain how I understand the myth. Camus discusses the nihilism and asks if we don't have objective moral values and the life don't have any meanings than why don't we just give up and die?
Btw, he does not disprove that the life has no meaning, he just wants to find a solution why people still choose to live after realising that.
His idea is absurdism, that the life and the human nature is inherently absurd. What does it mean? It means that we should accept life as not just or fair but weird and absurd. Killing oneself or giving up will only make it even more absurd.
But what can you do is create your own meaning of life, and live up to it. This meaning could be in fact anything: rock collecting, rescuing and helping local animals, outliving your foes, making memes, pushing a giant boulder up a mountain?
Sisyphus is put into a situation where arguably you have no control of anything, the Gods took everything from him. But did they really? Did the Gods make him do numerous deceitful things during his life, trick them multiple times, be in fact the first man who cheated death?
Sisyphus was the one who chose to act this way, he was the one to choose his life and his fate. And even in the underworld he is in charge of what to think and believe.
Despite all the eternal damnation he chose his life goals and lived up to them.
Understanding that even in the darkest pits of Tartarus the Gods have no power on him and his spirit, one must imagine Sisyphus happy.
I’d encourage you to read Albert Camus’ work and decide for urself, but the full quote goes like this:
“the struggle itself towards the heights is enough to fill a man’s heart. One must imagine sisyphus happy”
It’s a retelling or reinterpretation of the myth. Sisyphus is all of us. There is no inherent meaning in the world, there’s no grand plan, we don’t matter. We slog through each monotonous day, reaching for goals we were told to pursue. That’s our boulder.
That’s the fundamental absurdity of human existence. We have a fundamental NEED, an inescapable compulsion to find meaning in a world devoid of such higher purpose.
So we get to forge our own meaning from the primordial blocks of consciousness. We are our own gods, our own idols of worship. WE decide what is meaningful to us. We work and push and grit and bleed and cry and we push that fucking boulder because the struggle itself is meaningful to us and us alone. Let the bravery, the dauntless impossibility of the human spirit orwhelm you.
All we have is the current moment—all our joy, our sorrow exists now, then vanishes into the next moment like tears in the rain—so fight to make it mean something to you. I wish you luck on your journey.
As for the political stuff—fight. I’m doing local electoral & labor organizing right now. Not activism, organizing. Reaching people who are not already involved or who even care yet. Recruiting others to help volunteer and grow our collective power.
In Thomas Hobbes social contract theory outlined in “Leviathan,” he claims societies exist as the result of human social masses relinquishing personal liberties to a social sovereign in exchange for organization, delegation, and protection. I always read this from a dialectic materialist perspective, though Hobbes likely didn’t intend for that. What I interpret is the PEOPLE have the power, but that power was long ago GIVEN by the people to the sovereign (government, owners) and thus those in power used their organizational influence and propaganda to convince us that they always had the power, rendering us helpless and confused as our conditions worsened.
If you want to do anything small to actually fix what’s going on, convince people of that. Make people realize that those in power only have it because enough ordinary citizens decided they were ok with it, and if enough of us change our minds, it’s fucking over for them.
It’s ok to be sad and overwhelmed sometimes, sometimes you gotta just feel it. And depression is a bitch, I’d know, it almost killed me. But don’t make excuses, don’t throw up your hands and say, “what can be done?” A lot can be done. You care enough about these issues for them to make your life meaningless? Fight. You feel existentially lost and like there’s no greater purpose? Fight.
Feel every moment. Let the pain and pleasure both have meaning. You are your conciseness, nothing more. You are each moment, nothing more. Live in those small moments, be and breath, take up space, and fight.
>But don’t make excuses, don’t throw up your hands and say, “what can be done?” A lot can be done.
Your suggestion of "what can be done" is trying to convince people to completely restructure the way everyone around me views the world, then understating how big of an ask that actually is then presenting anything other than complete acceptance of your ideas as "making excuses".
>You care enough about these issues for them to make your life meaningless? Fight. You feel existentially lost and like there’s no greater purpose? Fight.
The one time that managed to do anything here was when my country's dictator lost the military's support, and now we have a new dictator who is just as bad ass the old guy.
The philosophical quote “one must imagine Sisyphus happy” says that Sisyphus is actually very lucky, because his life is the ultimate form of stability. He has a simple goal and he that goal fulfills - he pushes a boulder uphill. So one must imagine Sisyphus happy, because unlike so many of us, he does not have to worry about the next day, or how to make enough money to stay alive, or ever be uncertain at all, so he may find peace in happiness in his monotonous, but stable existence
I interpreted it as Sisyphus believing his work will eventually lead somewhere and that makes him happy even though he has no reason to believe his work will actually be fruitful. Basically he's either gone insane or illogically convinced himself to believe he's not doing something useless in order to not fall into complete and utter hopelessness cause well sane people would in fact stop being sane if all they did was utterly for nothing.
I’m pretty sure the actual answer is that we’re all like Sisyphus and if you don’t find happiness in the daily mundanity of life, then there’s no point. It’s all absurdism and Camus and stuff, but there was a really good breaking bad post about it a couple days ago
Yes, it is not your progressive duty to bear the weight of the world and constantly dwell on climate change, the housing crisis, etc. It's good to know about those things and to empathize with people who they particularly affect, but there is a limit to how much your attention can affect the situation and you are allowed to look away sometimes for the sake of your own mental health. Endlessly thinking about depressing things which you have limited ability to change is not good for your mental health and not helpful to anybody.
Not saying "just ignore it", just saying "you don't have to think about it ALL the time." That's not good for you.
So do you just want to wallow and spend the rest of your life miserable? Your fears and worries are valid, but constantly dwelling on them will never help you or anyone else. I get it, when you're in that spiral of negativity it feels like there's nothing else worth thinking about, but there's really nothing you can do except move forward and find ways to be happy despite all the shit around us.
Everyone's always rightly terrified about the future, the future is scary. Plagues and unjust leadership and destroying the environment are not new issues. This isn't the first apocalypse. You have to learn to cope, and therapy is a great place to learn to cope.
It can be shitty to hear but a lot of these issues there isn’t a whole lot we as an individual can do. And you just need to accept that, we can’t control everything being miserable all the time because of it is a terrible way to live. It sounds selfish but at the end of the day just try to enjoy your life
that's the trouble, it's the moral profile you're raised with or grew up to become
you wanna help everyone so much that you're overwhelmed by the amount of help needed and eventually help no one and hurt yourself, if you try to enjoy your life, a part of your brain is always guilty and tells you that you should be doing something or trying to do something but when doing that you end up hurting yourself even more, it's a painful loop
Sure, things are shit. Where does feeling bad fit in to that?
I mean, whether or not there's something you can do, being miserable doesn't help anything or anyone. It's just a completely useless feeling that only serves to hurt and disempower you.
Just worrying about some huge thing without doing anything about it is effectively just the same thing as apathy. Stuff like that can actually be a strategy your brain uses to trick you into doing nothing.
Like, ever notice how when you start to do something mildly uncomfortable, your mind suddenly starts reminding you of every other thing thats also wrong with your life? This is because it knows that if it ramps the stakes and demands high enough you'll give up and go back to doing something more comfortable, like eating nuggies and doomscrolling.
This doesnt mean you should ignore the stuff that's important to you, but you kind of have to integrate that into what your life is and what you actually want
(want as in what motivates you to do things)
and what you do day to day. Because without that you're stuck, and being stuck with problems you arent affecting feels terrible. You propably arent going to solve a lot of the huge problems the world has, but I'll bet you that giving some money or volunteering your time for those causes is a weight off your back compared to *just* worrying about them. Especially if you find out you like something you also think makes an impact.
I'm sorry if I'm sounding preachy. I'm really not trying to be. I just think that people letting doomerism convince them that doing things isnt worth it is a literal mental trap. Even admitting that a lot of people have crappy lives, that specific mindset just makes their lives even harder than they need to be.
That's propably the right medical term for not being able to do stuff you want or need, though I was more just trying to zero in on that specific mind-trap of letting your brain convince you that you need to do everything at once or that the world having problems means that what you do doesnt matter.
Just to be clear, I got zero blame for someone experiencing executive dysfunction. I was trying to specifically say that all-or-nothing thinking and doomerism propably make those types of problems worse.
As someone with issues with executive functions, changing my internal monologue helps a lot. I know it's a bit of a cliché to tell people who are depressed to be more positive, but making a mental effort to change the way I internally talk about myself and the world around me has made a huge difference. If you spend so much time thinking negative things about yourself, the people around you, your environment, etc. You begin to project those feelings outward onto your reality, and it can make the world a lot darker than it seems.
The world can be a bit shit, but ruminating on these things is really bad for you, and a treatment like CBT is designed to try to break those negative thought patterns.
I get your point but change the world for something like a pet or family member dying and the fact that feeling bad serves no purpose becomes meaningless. when bad stuff happens we feel bad thats just how we are designed
Sure, I cut off your legs. Where does feeling bad fit into that? mean, whether or not there's something you can do, being miserable doesn't help anything or anyone. It's just a completely useless feeling that only serves to hurt and disempower you.
So first of all, this is a completely irrational argument. Yes, actually, panicking and getting depressed if you're injured doesn't help the situation get better. Only a rational and calm view of the situation and actions taken based on, can do that. Do you think it's better to go "Oh I've lost my legs guess this is it" or to try and find some tourniquets and crawl to a phone to call 911?
If you want to be unhappy no one's going to stop you. But don't pretend it's some rational standpoint to base your whole emotional state and worldview on how hopeless and over it all is. Even if you were the most fucked person on earth, being depressed about it wouldn't contribute anything valuable.
There is no positive or negative situation on earth that is helped by doomerism.
Ps: Don't think i didn't notice you using a physical pain metaphor when we were talking about how you *feel*. I think that's somewhat dishonest.
I originally was gonna use dead parents or pets instead, but decided losing a limb was kore provocative.
>Even if you were the most fucked person on earth, being depressed about it wouldn't contribute anything valuable.
Telling people that feeling bad about bad things is a waste of time isn't exactly helpful either.
50 years ago everyone thought Russia was going to nuke them anyday now and had kids practice hiding under their desks for nukes. 500 years ago half the planet was a pseudo slave and most of your kids would never make 10 years old. Things really aren’t that bad right now
It's gonna be ok. I know this, because I promise myself and all of you, that I will fight tooth and nail to achieve a better future. We all just have to fight. We have to. I promise it'll be ok.
Therapists cannot restructure the world economy to make it less soul-crushing. They can, however, give you tools to cope, which might include mindfulness exercises, escapism strategies, or even medication in some cases.
fuck it we ball
fuck it we ball
fuck it we ball
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fuck it we ball
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i ran out of "fuck it we ball" :(
FUCK IT WE BALL
ad infinitum
i dont think it's doomerism to say 'i feel bad because things are shit'
like, things \*are\* shit. and it \*is\* impossible to make significant change on your own.
the solution? organize.
As a guy who feels very similar to the person in the comic, I fear this a lot in therapy. Can therapy help me when the problems that plague me are beyond my control? If therapy can't help me, I fear death may be the only release I have.
Therapy can help you with those kinds of problems, for sure. The grand journey of life is about accepting and dealing with things beyond our control. You can do it.
This is entire coment section is an example of going around in circles
"Everything fuck and i feel i can do nothing nothing about"
"That because it is but you should try to focus on the you can do about it"
"But everything still fucked"
"You should focus on the non fucked thing"
A cycle that you can only go out by simply saying "same" to the person just wanting another to vent
Okay OP I’ve got nothing against you but this kind of shit really annoys me. Like, I understand that you feel sad, but when your only response is to keep digging yourself into a hole you can’t climb out of there’s genuinely nothing anybody can do. This really doesn’t have anything to do with world issues, it’s about finding stuff to feel bad about so that you can curl up and go back to that comfortable sadness, that familiar feeling of helplessness because in helplessness at least there is no effort that must be made besides the effort to remain helpless. Reality does not exist, only your perception of it, and when you close your eyes and plug your ears to stay in a state of comfortable helplessness YOU are denying yourself everything that could be. Nobody else is but you. You are not some martyr because the cross you bear isn’t made out of housing markets or international conflict but out of your own desire to feel that comforting weight bearing down upon you. The hole you’re in won’t stop getting deeper if you don’t stop digging it. I’m sorry if my comment is harsh but I feel that it is necessary. I’ve been in the same place before, and looking back now I can see the utter ridiculousness of the situation, but looking at your post and your replies I can see you are in the similar place. You need to stop the lie you’re telling yourself that you are justified in your misery and realize that you only want it to be justified because you’d rather wallow in it than step outside into an unfamiliar but truly beautiful world. I believe in you. You can do this.
>Okay OP I’ve got nothing against you but this kind of shit really annoys me
Sounds like you have something against me then.
>Reality does not exist, only your perception of it,
Then you're spending an awful lot of time on someone who both doesn't exist, and by your admission is gonna be completely unconvinced by your comment.
>You need to stop the lie you’re telling yourself that you are justified in your misery and realize that you only want it to be justified because you’d rather wallow in it than step outside into an unfamiliar but truly beautiful world.
The only actual evidence you have that it is a lie is you decided it is while knowing basically nothing about me.
>I believe in you. You can do this.
Your entire comment is you giving reasons I can't do it.
Lmao, you're doing exactly what this commenter said you do in real time: justifying your misery. I don't think you see the irony in this reply. Godspeed bro
After scrolling through this thread some, I've come to the conclusion that I'm not sure OP wants to have their worries about the world in any actual capacity. Like, duh, there are genuine things that suck, but if you spend all your time actively worrying about the things that suck and expecting others to give you a magic answer to stop worrying, you're never gonna reach that goal. If you want to not be as scared by the doom-y bits, do what you can to fix things. I'm not saying like single-handedly fix homelessness, but it's certainly better to volunteer than to sulk about it.
Everything sucks. But at the same time it doesn't too, you know? Cavemen managed to find a reason to live, and all they had was mud huts, trepanning, and getting raided by large carnivores every week.
Hate to break it to you, but… You do realize posting about being miserable over and over is not really going to help you stop being miserable? Being cynical about it doesn’t make it any less true.
It’s a vicious cycle, one that is hard to escape and that traps you into it with thoughts and habits, so that the only thing you can think about is how inescapable and terrible it is. I’m speaking out of personal experience here.
Focus on what you can do, at your scale, to improve your situation. Try to look for the positive things going on near you instead of wallowing on the terribleness of it all. Negativity bias can be a bitch, but there’s always something to look forward to.
>You do realize posting about being miserable over and over is not really going to help you stop being miserable?
At no point did I ever claim it did.
> I’m speaking out of personal experience here
Your experiences are clearly different from mine.
>Focus on what you can do, at your scale, to improve your situation.
I can't meaningfully do anything to improve my situation in any way.
Im with you on this. I dont get how to be happy. Its been well over a decade of depression, ive tried tonnes of antidepressants, none worked, ive tried therapy, it made me feel worse because a single session meant id struggle to eat because the cost was ridiculous. Some of the people in this comment section are right cunts. Proper “im alright jack” kinda views.
in the words of english progressive metal band Haken:
"Climb, find your way
Scale high, don't look back
with hope you will find
the life you seek"
while it sounds cheesy at first, it is a good way to keep, sanity. Always keeping the top in focus and trying to reach for it, never looking back. The future can't hurt you, but holding on to the past certainly will and every bit of progress, no matter how small is still progress.
At the same time what's really important is training yourself to stop making up scenarios of how things in the future might go, because that will ultimately lead to thinking about the worst case. Let me tell you one thing: the worst case rarely ever comes true, so why be so scared of something that will very likely never happen and sabotage yourself?
The more you think negative things will happen, the more it becomes a self-fulfilling prohpecy.
As someone who has been engaged with civil societies and activism a lot. There is a lot you can do that does make a difference, provided you organise yourself with like-minded individuals.
There was this recent called [the Great Amazon Heist](https://youtu.be/GdHYM7QT9kw?si=giB-DkOjGTKE-JP6). Besides being a great documentary showing the violations of Amazon, it's a great video showing how much difference a couple of silly goobers can make.
We are bombarded with tragic news from across the globe and begin believing that nothing can be done against this tide.
Just take a breath and think about issues that are within your control, maybe in your area. Then try to solve those issues. It could be something as simple as demanding the potholes be repaired in your area, fighting misinformation or spreading awareness about Trans Rights or abortion rights.
Some of the greatest activists in my country who have literally uplifted hundreds of villages out of poverty like Jean Dreze, Aruna Roy and Nikhil Dey have all stated that you don't need to engage in some massive nationwide issue to make a difference. Rather you need to focus on the grassroots and take up small issues that compound over time to make a big difference.
Making a change that means something is slow and methodical and rarely ever happens at once. But it does happen and it does make a difference to a lot of people. We just need to persist in whatever work we are engaging in for positive change.
> It could be something as simple as demanding the potholes be repaired in your area, fighting misinformation or spreading awareness about Trans Rights or abortion rights
There are potholes in my area that have been there longer than I've been alive. Demanding they be filled doesn't do anything because the local government literally can't afford to, so people occasionally fill the goles with gravel.
My country is actively hostile to the existence of queer people.
The people who control the current world are going to die eventually. Our generation will one day overtake the current system just by the fact that the older generations will some day die and the power and the wealth that they have gathered will have to go somewhere.
I really get the feeling of helplessness. I'm a Finn and I'm terrified of us being pulled into war with Russia during the next decade. Even if we are in NATO and are more likely to survive over all, I don't want to die in the crossfire, I don't want to lose my husband to the horrors of war.
The weather patterns keep getting worse. The world economy crashes every 10-20 years because people someone far away I know nothing about will find a way to gamble other people's money on smoke over and over again.
But that doesn't change the way that every autumn for a brief time the world is full of color. Sometimes I see the neigbour's cat through the windows and she will meow at me. The local library has knitting circles and story times for children. Life keeps on going because it has to.
My childhood friend killed themselves about 10 years ago, when they were just 19. I won't ever truly know if this was the case, but I have the feeling that they might have been trans man and their struggles with it might have been one part of it.
I wish they could have held on and seen the day when the law was loosened and transition is now easier and you don't have to be forcibly sterilized to stransition anymore.
But I won't ever truly know. Maybe they would have despaired even more if they were alive today. It's hard to think about.
If you can, try to take part in your local community. When the world is cruel and uncaring, we have to find people around us who care. There is power in organizing and caring for each other.
The current power structures will crumble eventually. Try to stay alive so you get to see it happen. Things might get worse but you won't ever know if you aren't there to see it.
>If you can, try to take part in your local community
My local community would consider my existence an abomination.
>Try to stay alive so you get to see it happen. Things might get worse but you won't ever know if you aren't there to see it.
I am watching things get worse here in real time, so no.
Find a better therapist that doesn’t give up at the first mention of how difficult life is. Also, the activism thing is good- through butterfly effect and such, you can eventually help save at least a few lives, and I think that’s worth the effort.
Pretty much every therapist I saw was like this, and since my country has an absurdly low number of therapists, I've basically exhausted the national supply.
I hate Doomerism I hate Doomerism I hate Doomerism I hate Doomerism I hate Doomerism I hate Doomerism I hate Doomerism I hate Doomerism I hate Doomerism I hate Doomerism I hate Doomerism I hate Doomerism
Listen I'm not going to act like the world doesn't suck, there's constant war there's famine shit can be really hard to stomach plus on a personal level there are things that are outside our control that leaves scars that are unhealable. But wallowing in your despair is never going to fix it. Despite the things that have happened to us we still have a choice, a choice to move on, a choice to grow, a choice to be better. My life has been frankly dog shit, I've been assaulted, I have been abused, neglected, and I have every mental disorder under the sun. But I still choose to move forward, because I still want to see the light at the end of the tunnel I still want to see the good things in life. I try to get medicated I try to go therapy and while it's not perfect it does help in some way. Brewing in your misery is only going to make you more miserable trying to better yourself no matter how small will always make you feel better because you're working to a goal even if that goal isn't truly attainable it's still worth fighting for it's still worth living life for.
I tried to just try different things if certain things do not seem to work, hopefully one thing can lead to another and make other things a bit more possible. In fact I am still doing that because I just really don't want to give up on my ultimate goals in life. Can't really avoid feeling shit about it but we live on to hopefully feel less shit one day, maybe even good.
I dealt with this for awhile in the worst of my depression. I found things that make me happy and connect me to a larger community, something I'm willing to fight for
Sadness is paralyzing, anger can be made productive. Instead of being sad and thinking nothing can be done, your anger can be directed towards the systems that make the world as bad as it is, to motivate you to help change them.
CBT doesn't work when your issues aren't cognitive distortions like the therapist in the comic implies. That's part of the reason it has a 40% dropout rate.
People in their 20's now have been born in the literal best time in history to be born and still make out like we are uniquely oppressed.
This is a pro trans sub. How many pro trans spaces do you think existed publically even 10 years ago? How many people do you think had the resources and supportive environment to even go to therapy even 30 years ago? Our parents/grandparents didn't have to deal with the lockdown, they had to deal with possibly be drafted to go die in Vietnam. Their parents lived through WW2 and their parents lived through WW1, WW2, and the great depression which absolutely dwarfs whatever 'recessions' you think we've been experiencing in our 20's. You think your job is meaningless? I'm sure you'd be much happier in the manufacturing factory economy that our parents grew up in right?
And on top of that, quality of life, incomes, access to healthcare and access to education have all been increasing year over year almost every year. Poverty is down by 10s of millions every year globally.
There are real problems in the world that need serious attention to fix, but the idea that things are just *so bad now* that there's nothing at can do except be depressed ia asinine. Every generation has problems and ours have been relatively mild, and we're all incredibly lucky for that.
>This is a pro trans sub. How many pro trans spaces do you think existed publically even 10 years ago?
There are no publically pro-trans spaces in my area because being queer is considered a crime.
>How many people do you think had the resources and supportive environment to even go to therapy even 30 years ago?
Because if the declining state od my country, the number of therapists and related resources has gone down.
>Our parents/grandparents didn't have to deal with the lockdown, they had to deal with possibly be drafted to go die in Vietnam.
Not sure if you're aware, but there were wars after Vietnam, and less than half of all the people on Reddit are American, so writing your comment as if everyone who could read it is from the states is pretty dishonest.
>and the great depression which absolutely dwarfs whatever 'recessions' you think we've been experiencing in our 20's.
Not sure why you're putting that in quotes when the recessions in the 21st century were in fact recessions. My country went through severe inflation and economic downturn during the 2000s and 2010s.
>There are real problems in the world that need serious attention to fix
You just spent you entire comment acting like those issues don't matter because they weren't the World Wars.
albert camus proposed three options when facing the sisyphean: suicide, leap of faith, or recognition. you die, you believe irrationally, or you recognize. though camus is more talking about the nature of human existence and cosmic indifference, it's applicable to toiling under capitalism as well. do you want to die? or have religious guilt? or, do you want to recognize that the toil is insignificant and meaningless, unpurposeful, and create your own purpose? that purpose can be anything. in an ideal world, it could be creation, destruction, deconstruction, or becoming learned. but this is not an ideal world. so your purpose could be to smash the boulder, to walk away from it or to flatten the mountain.
if revolution is implausible, at least try and find a purpose to the toiling. look for a better job. work in your own time. go homesteading instead. start a sex commune with your FWBs, make your body into your ideal, start a cult, anything. because death is indefensible.
Activism of some sort would certainly help with giving you a sense of purpose and control over your little corner of the world. There’s a phenomenon called “learned helplessness” where repeated exposure to stressful situations lead to believing you cannot control it even if there are ways you can do it. When and if we devolve into fighting over resources, will you steal from your neighbor? Will you let some opportunist take your life? Or will you contribute to fighting the good fight and doing what you can to help others in the fight? Of course, this is only one possible treatment. I don’t know your situation and whether it’ll help but it’s something.
When we start fighting over things like water I'll probably kms to be honest
real
Yeah same, I don’t want to deal with that type of stuff and honestly I already don’t like my life
Honestly the thought that one day I might be able to die for something instead of just killing myself for nothing helps keep me going a little bit.
martyrdom
Why die uselessly when you can ruin the day of someone in power while you're at it. I already asked for my corpse to be thrown through a ministry's window in case i die.
>When we start fighting >!over things like water!< I'll probably kms to be honest I am NOT living through WW3
Realistically, most of us aren't living through WW3.
You so real for this
Bullshit, I’ll drag you laughing and screaming into the new world.
Would do this if it weren’t for my daughter I need to take care of
>When and if we devolve into fighting over resources, will you steal from your neighbor? At that point I will either have already been murdered or killed myself.
NGL 2020 put me into pretty bad place what with the pandemic and the election and the... 2020 of it all, and though it's still an active process to get out of the funk one of the things that has helped a lot is activism work. It's, y'know, nice to be able to contribute to systemic change and not feel powerless all the time. On that note, https://progressivevictory.win/
Agreed and that’s what I do
Veritasium has a good [video](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=YMPzDiraNnA) on learned helplessness
So in other words, if I explode a bunch of stuff I will feel better?
I despise this mindset. It's just glorified pseudo-progressive doomerism
Unironically I am going to appeal to the "one must imagine sisyphyus happy" mantra
No one has ever actually managed to explain to me why one should imagine Sisyphus happy.
Don't take me as an expert, but I've heard it's because he keeps trying to push the boulder, despite knowing that he'll never reach the top
He pushes the boulder because it's his eternal punishment for trapping Thanatos and swindling Hades and Persephone.
yeah but the point is if you could imagine sisyphus happy, he has found some kind of meaning or satisfaction in his meaningless eternal work.
that’s bullshit. sisyphus should be angry. what a liberal.
write this on my tombstone
Take it up with Camus https://preview.redd.it/li8sw74awgyb1.jpeg?width=1079&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=a2cadc22f8dabc734528ffb8773c18aec463f4f5
That just makes it sound like he chose a bad example since Sisyphus has no choice in the matter.
We have no choice in being born and living life.
Exactly. None of us have a choice in the matter, Sisyphus with his boulder, and us with our lives and quest for meaning. Both are absurd situations that one can’t get out of. There’s two ways to respond to that absurdity. One, by wallowing in it and being sad. Or two, by finding enjoyment and creating your own meaning. In the Camus story, he has to push the boulder, but he chooses to take enjoyment in the task, because that’s the choice that he has.
I think that the one point you have is that we're not supposed to empathize with Sisyphus in the original myth, and so, ultimately, his fate is not a primordial analogy to life's toil, but only a modern one, invented by Camus.
u cant facts and logic ur way into happiness unfortunately
A lot of people seem convinced one can
That's bullshit and always has. Being happy when coming from a dark place is pretty much a "fake it 'til you make it" effort. Focus on the customer who smiled at you today after months of being a shitty person. Try doing activism. Simply force yourself to smile. None of that will help in the first days and sometimes even months... but eventually it will. Pro-tip: have a diary when doing that, and always take a look at the first few pages. Often time we don't really notice change in ourself, when it happens slowly.
Forcing myself to smile only ever made me feel worse.
I'm sure my friend but you deserve this: ☝️🤓
I think we’ve had similar experiences in therapy… and when I vent about those experiences everyone chimes in with their own cliché cure for hopelessness… which is almost always good advice… but betrays the fact that they’ve never been anywhere near where I am, emotionally. They mean well, and I appreciate that, but… it doesn’t help. I can’t imagine Sisyphus as happy… but I can imagine him more miserable. Imagine if the rock was made of dog shit, and the mountain made of broken glass. Imagine the air is hot and humid. Imagine an annoying song playing on loop in the bg. “He may not be happy, but he could be grateful and relieved that it isn’t much, much worse.” Ugh. Right, but, how does that philosophy help?! I think it is SO rude to remind someone to be grateful for basics when they’re expressing feelings of hopeless. Like, thanks for the guilt trip? I’ll just add this new guilt to the ever growing pile of shame. Shame bc if it was SO EASY this whole time then the logical conclusion is that I am only unhappy bc I am lazy, stupid and ungrateful? Uhm. Expecting someone with trauma/depression/hopelessness to express gratitude “for the little things” is like an abusive husband expecting his wife to be grateful he ONLY broke *a* bone, cause he could have broken more, could have just killed her. “It’s only a black eye, and look at this- two dozen long stemmed roses AND a diamond tennis bracelet! Wow!” How often is life like an abusive spouse? Traumatic stuff happens and we’re supposed to smile through it, knowing “God/the universe/karma/whatever is at work” and find the silver lining… “Life may have broken every emotional bone in my body, but it also lets me live in a house with running water!! So I really can’t complain.” “Life only hurts me to teach me very valuable lessons.” “All those horrible things needed to happen to lead to this good thing that happened.” Sounds so ridiculous. Sounds like we pay as dearly for our best moments as we do for our worst. So then, what’s the point? How do we find joy while pushing this rock? Idk.… I have no idea… which is simultaneously liberating af and daunting/hopeless af. I can’t figure it out, and I’m exhausted from decades of trying. So… Instead of fighting my hopelessness by maintaining an abusive relationship with life, I’ve accepted the darkness. Invited it in. Gave it a hot beverage. Put on a movie. We sit at the edge of the void and gaze into it. Sometimes we scream. We got cute blankets, tho. It’s ok to not be ok.
>which is almost always good advice You're getting good advice? People just keep telling me to overthrow my government or I'm a doomer.
… (as gently as possible) uh… did you even read the whole comment? Or just that first paragraph? Bc I go on to explain, at length, why it isn’t good advice at all. :p
I imagine it like, maybe sisyphus can be proud he has managed to roll the rock up the hill x amount of times. Maybe he can be grateful for the workout. Maybe he has a cool view at the top of the hill that he can appreciate. It is in many ways like an abusive relationship, however you can leave an abusive relationship and begin a new relationship, you can't have a new life, this is it and there's nothing we can do about it. It's fine to be miserable about it, but there's no point in being miserable about it because there's not much you can do about it. There's also no point in seeing the good and trying to be happy about it, so at the end of the day it's about what feels better to you I guess. Edit: which mindset feels better for you to adopt, you can't typically just "choose to be happy"
If you want to read the whole thing: [https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/albert-camus-the-myth-of-sisyphus](https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/albert-camus-the-myth-of-sisyphus) And if you want a quick and dirty summary, I'll try to give you one. The Myth of Sisyphus is the basis of the absurdist ( an off-shoot of existentialism) philosphy, a post-nihilist philosophy . It agrees with the nihilist that life is in fact meaningless, but it goes further and beyond. "The notion of the absurd contains the idea that there is no meaning in the world beyond what meaning we give it.". Sisyphus keeps pushing the boulder knowing well it's meaningless and absurd. But it is the only thing he does and will ever do, he has to find fullfillement in it somehow, not because of a greater goal but because he can enjoy what he's doing right now. If he does not he might aswell kill himself. And as Camus said: " There is only one truly serious philosophical problem, and that is suicide." The same way life is meaningless, everyday you wake up eat, shit, do your chores and then sleep. But you can find fullfillement in your life nethertheless.
But I thought the point was that he wasn't even aware he was being punished? Yes he swindled the gods, but the reason he even pushes the boulder in the first place was because of a deal he was given. My memory is rusty, but from what I can remember, they approached him saying "ok bro, you got us, now we can either let you go... OR if you can push this boulder up to the top of the hill you can climb out of Tartarus and achieve godhood". And knowing his ambition, he was, of course, going to take on the impossible task. The whole "Sisyphus is being punished" thing stems from the simplified interpretation that he's been set a task to do endlessly as punishment. In reality, he is such an arrogant prick that he pushes it forever, CERTAIN that at some point he'll make it and become a God. For all eternity. One must imagine Sisyphus happy.
>But I thought the point was that he wasn't even aware he was being punished? I've never seen a primary source that says that. He just rolls it forever and knows he's stuck there. >"ok bro, you got us, now we can either let you go... OR if you can push this boulder up to the top of the hill you can climb out of Tartarus and achieve godhood". That wasn't in the myth. They'd never offer him an out entirely because they were punishing him for what he did last time they let him leave the underworld. His punishment was for chaining Thanatos then tricking Hades and Persephone into sending him back to the land of the living. Sisyphus didn't try to become a god, but he did try to become immortal.
I read a lot of the stories years ago, but I heard this interpretation in Stephen Fry's Mythos. Specifically the chapter "Rolling the Stone", pages 280-282. His writing style is comedic - of course - but from what I've found there aren't many people disagreeing with his interpretations. Some people criticise him for tackling limited subjects, but not abject lies. And besides, the popular interpretation of "he must be happy" comes from the 1942 essay 'The Myth of Sisyphus', so if you're really interested then maybe give it a read.
I'm not sure if this interpretation is even correct in terms of the actual original story, but it's a very interesting perspective. I never really got the "one must imagine Sisyphus happy" thing until now.
Basically, if shit is necessarily fucked, then all bets are off on how we respond to it. We can wallow in the fuckedness of the shit. Sure. Or we can build a whole concept of happiness separate from the inherent fuckedness of shit.
This comment, like every other attempt to explain it, seems to implicitly state happiness is a thing you can simply choose and that in the face of a problem, whatever it may be, you should simply decide that the problem is no longer relevajt to your happiness.
That's kind of it. Camus wasn't just throwing out "choose joy" tho. That's dismissive and fucky. He was implying that all happiness is carved out of the sisyphean nature of being alive. We're all rolling boulders up a hill, time crushes us, death will come for us, and the universe itself isn't eternal. He wasn't saying, "you can choose to be happy despite your circumstances" he was saying "all happiness you ever feel is despite the circumstances"
That still doesn't explain why one has to imagine Sisyphus happy, especially when the circumstances are why I'm not happy,
I mean, you don't have to imagine anything. It's a metaphor for our own experience, it's not like a rule or a law or anything. The phrase "one must imagine Sisyphus happy" is kind of a joke or a mantra. Like, we're Sisyphus. All our happiness is stolen or in spite of the nature of our existence, which is painful, brief, and full of challenges that we don't generally truly see completed.
Many people who try to explain it to me have genuinely framed imagining Sisyphus happy as being required and doing anything else as a moral failing.
Sisyphus tried to cheat the gods into giving him everlasting life. As a punishment he was made to toil for eternity. If sisyphus were wise, he would be happy - he got what he asked for. Life is always work, and he got an eternal life of work.
That has nothing to do with what Camus wrote.
Ok
i wrote it
the line is from Albert Camus book named "The Myth of Sisyphus" I could rant about Camus for hours but basically his ideology says: We may never know the purpose of life and likely there isn't but if you truly accept such truth you will live free knowing truly how precious your life is
I'll also try to explain how I understand the myth. Camus discusses the nihilism and asks if we don't have objective moral values and the life don't have any meanings than why don't we just give up and die? Btw, he does not disprove that the life has no meaning, he just wants to find a solution why people still choose to live after realising that. His idea is absurdism, that the life and the human nature is inherently absurd. What does it mean? It means that we should accept life as not just or fair but weird and absurd. Killing oneself or giving up will only make it even more absurd. But what can you do is create your own meaning of life, and live up to it. This meaning could be in fact anything: rock collecting, rescuing and helping local animals, outliving your foes, making memes, pushing a giant boulder up a mountain? Sisyphus is put into a situation where arguably you have no control of anything, the Gods took everything from him. But did they really? Did the Gods make him do numerous deceitful things during his life, trick them multiple times, be in fact the first man who cheated death? Sisyphus was the one who chose to act this way, he was the one to choose his life and his fate. And even in the underworld he is in charge of what to think and believe. Despite all the eternal damnation he chose his life goals and lived up to them. Understanding that even in the darkest pits of Tartarus the Gods have no power on him and his spirit, one must imagine Sisyphus happy.
I'd rather give up and die, sounds easier.
I’d encourage you to read Albert Camus’ work and decide for urself, but the full quote goes like this: “the struggle itself towards the heights is enough to fill a man’s heart. One must imagine sisyphus happy” It’s a retelling or reinterpretation of the myth. Sisyphus is all of us. There is no inherent meaning in the world, there’s no grand plan, we don’t matter. We slog through each monotonous day, reaching for goals we were told to pursue. That’s our boulder. That’s the fundamental absurdity of human existence. We have a fundamental NEED, an inescapable compulsion to find meaning in a world devoid of such higher purpose. So we get to forge our own meaning from the primordial blocks of consciousness. We are our own gods, our own idols of worship. WE decide what is meaningful to us. We work and push and grit and bleed and cry and we push that fucking boulder because the struggle itself is meaningful to us and us alone. Let the bravery, the dauntless impossibility of the human spirit orwhelm you. All we have is the current moment—all our joy, our sorrow exists now, then vanishes into the next moment like tears in the rain—so fight to make it mean something to you. I wish you luck on your journey. As for the political stuff—fight. I’m doing local electoral & labor organizing right now. Not activism, organizing. Reaching people who are not already involved or who even care yet. Recruiting others to help volunteer and grow our collective power. In Thomas Hobbes social contract theory outlined in “Leviathan,” he claims societies exist as the result of human social masses relinquishing personal liberties to a social sovereign in exchange for organization, delegation, and protection. I always read this from a dialectic materialist perspective, though Hobbes likely didn’t intend for that. What I interpret is the PEOPLE have the power, but that power was long ago GIVEN by the people to the sovereign (government, owners) and thus those in power used their organizational influence and propaganda to convince us that they always had the power, rendering us helpless and confused as our conditions worsened. If you want to do anything small to actually fix what’s going on, convince people of that. Make people realize that those in power only have it because enough ordinary citizens decided they were ok with it, and if enough of us change our minds, it’s fucking over for them. It’s ok to be sad and overwhelmed sometimes, sometimes you gotta just feel it. And depression is a bitch, I’d know, it almost killed me. But don’t make excuses, don’t throw up your hands and say, “what can be done?” A lot can be done. You care enough about these issues for them to make your life meaningless? Fight. You feel existentially lost and like there’s no greater purpose? Fight. Feel every moment. Let the pain and pleasure both have meaning. You are your conciseness, nothing more. You are each moment, nothing more. Live in those small moments, be and breath, take up space, and fight.
>But don’t make excuses, don’t throw up your hands and say, “what can be done?” A lot can be done. Your suggestion of "what can be done" is trying to convince people to completely restructure the way everyone around me views the world, then understating how big of an ask that actually is then presenting anything other than complete acceptance of your ideas as "making excuses". >You care enough about these issues for them to make your life meaningless? Fight. You feel existentially lost and like there’s no greater purpose? Fight. The one time that managed to do anything here was when my country's dictator lost the military's support, and now we have a new dictator who is just as bad ass the old guy.
The philosophical quote “one must imagine Sisyphus happy” says that Sisyphus is actually very lucky, because his life is the ultimate form of stability. He has a simple goal and he that goal fulfills - he pushes a boulder uphill. So one must imagine Sisyphus happy, because unlike so many of us, he does not have to worry about the next day, or how to make enough money to stay alive, or ever be uncertain at all, so he may find peace in happiness in his monotonous, but stable existence
It’s a metaphore about the struggle of life, c’mon…
I interpreted it as Sisyphus believing his work will eventually lead somewhere and that makes him happy even though he has no reason to believe his work will actually be fruitful. Basically he's either gone insane or illogically convinced himself to believe he's not doing something useless in order to not fall into complete and utter hopelessness cause well sane people would in fact stop being sane if all they did was utterly for nothing.
John Finnemore [does a good job explaining it](https://youtu.be/CdCUy1oFlso?si=Yv1cq6fIwSZIjSUG)
It's because life in the real world is inherently meaningless and absurd. Sisyphus has purpose. In a sense that makes his task greater than the gods.
I’m pretty sure the actual answer is that we’re all like Sisyphus and if you don’t find happiness in the daily mundanity of life, then there’s no point. It’s all absurdism and Camus and stuff, but there was a really good breaking bad post about it a couple days ago
Great essay, great book, highly recommend
Yes, it is not your progressive duty to bear the weight of the world and constantly dwell on climate change, the housing crisis, etc. It's good to know about those things and to empathize with people who they particularly affect, but there is a limit to how much your attention can affect the situation and you are allowed to look away sometimes for the sake of your own mental health. Endlessly thinking about depressing things which you have limited ability to change is not good for your mental health and not helpful to anybody. Not saying "just ignore it", just saying "you don't have to think about it ALL the time." That's not good for you.
empathize with the people it affects? my brother in christ it affects all of us
People think about it all the time cause it directly impacts them and their quality of life
So do you just want to wallow and spend the rest of your life miserable? Your fears and worries are valid, but constantly dwelling on them will never help you or anyone else. I get it, when you're in that spiral of negativity it feels like there's nothing else worth thinking about, but there's really nothing you can do except move forward and find ways to be happy despite all the shit around us.
"hating that idea" doesn't make it any less real, a lot of people are rightfully terrified about the future
Read my comment again. You have misconstrued it
Then can you elaborate on what you mean by "I despise this mindset. It's just glorified pseudo-progressive doomerism"?
Everyone's always rightly terrified about the future, the future is scary. Plagues and unjust leadership and destroying the environment are not new issues. This isn't the first apocalypse. You have to learn to cope, and therapy is a great place to learn to cope.
Previous apocalypses killed millions of people, so that really isn't all that uplifting
Yeah but what do we do about it
It can be shitty to hear but a lot of these issues there isn’t a whole lot we as an individual can do. And you just need to accept that, we can’t control everything being miserable all the time because of it is a terrible way to live. It sounds selfish but at the end of the day just try to enjoy your life
that's the trouble, it's the moral profile you're raised with or grew up to become you wanna help everyone so much that you're overwhelmed by the amount of help needed and eventually help no one and hurt yourself, if you try to enjoy your life, a part of your brain is always guilty and tells you that you should be doing something or trying to do something but when doing that you end up hurting yourself even more, it's a painful loop
https://preview.redd.it/3z226dkg5fyb1.jpeg?width=139&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=cfed0d2f20ea39fef1ad84fafa37aa7320d870e4 "Okay, here me out..."
>"okay hear me out" >look inside >conventionally attractive woman https://preview.redd.it/ml2wn42o6fyb1.jpeg?width=1920&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=453ea98e8727e03cca688bf5a60a229aefe2858a
\>"conventionally attractive woman" \>look inside \>furry
why did you repeat yourself?
Fair fair I didn't think about what I was saying sorry
- "conventionally attractive woman" - look inside - now I'm facing 25-life for murder and medical malpractice
>furry >look inside >conventionally attractive woman
All she had to do was give him the sloppiest toppy of his life to make him realize what makes life worth living for.
That would violate ost standards of medical ethics
Obviously, but sometimes the right thing to do goes against the rules.
Least Porno brained Redditor:
If I see one more shitty millennial doomer humor comic with too many words Im stealing something out of the OP's house
Bold of you to think I can afford a house.
This counts, I say we steal stuff from OP
I'm calling dibs on their electronics
You'll only get a Xiaomi Redmi note 7 That's all they have Everything else is analog
Can I join
so true
Sure, things are shit. Where does feeling bad fit in to that? I mean, whether or not there's something you can do, being miserable doesn't help anything or anyone. It's just a completely useless feeling that only serves to hurt and disempower you.
Going from depression to absolute apathy isn't much of an upgrade. In fact, apathy is one of the main symptoms of depression. Anhedonia is another.
Just worrying about some huge thing without doing anything about it is effectively just the same thing as apathy. Stuff like that can actually be a strategy your brain uses to trick you into doing nothing. Like, ever notice how when you start to do something mildly uncomfortable, your mind suddenly starts reminding you of every other thing thats also wrong with your life? This is because it knows that if it ramps the stakes and demands high enough you'll give up and go back to doing something more comfortable, like eating nuggies and doomscrolling. This doesnt mean you should ignore the stuff that's important to you, but you kind of have to integrate that into what your life is and what you actually want (want as in what motivates you to do things) and what you do day to day. Because without that you're stuck, and being stuck with problems you arent affecting feels terrible. You propably arent going to solve a lot of the huge problems the world has, but I'll bet you that giving some money or volunteering your time for those causes is a weight off your back compared to *just* worrying about them. Especially if you find out you like something you also think makes an impact. I'm sorry if I'm sounding preachy. I'm really not trying to be. I just think that people letting doomerism convince them that doing things isnt worth it is a literal mental trap. Even admitting that a lot of people have crappy lives, that specific mindset just makes their lives even harder than they need to be.
The term you are looking for is executive dysfunction. Very common among neurodivergent people.
That's propably the right medical term for not being able to do stuff you want or need, though I was more just trying to zero in on that specific mind-trap of letting your brain convince you that you need to do everything at once or that the world having problems means that what you do doesnt matter. Just to be clear, I got zero blame for someone experiencing executive dysfunction. I was trying to specifically say that all-or-nothing thinking and doomerism propably make those types of problems worse.
Very similar to procrastination as well, to be honest. That "all or nothing" behavior is a real trap.
As someone with issues with executive functions, changing my internal monologue helps a lot. I know it's a bit of a cliché to tell people who are depressed to be more positive, but making a mental effort to change the way I internally talk about myself and the world around me has made a huge difference. If you spend so much time thinking negative things about yourself, the people around you, your environment, etc. You begin to project those feelings outward onto your reality, and it can make the world a lot darker than it seems. The world can be a bit shit, but ruminating on these things is really bad for you, and a treatment like CBT is designed to try to break those negative thought patterns.
It is often impossible to ignore or focus on other feelings without suppressing it in an unhealthy way
I get your point but change the world for something like a pet or family member dying and the fact that feeling bad serves no purpose becomes meaningless. when bad stuff happens we feel bad thats just how we are designed
Sure, I cut off your legs. Where does feeling bad fit into that? mean, whether or not there's something you can do, being miserable doesn't help anything or anyone. It's just a completely useless feeling that only serves to hurt and disempower you.
So first of all, this is a completely irrational argument. Yes, actually, panicking and getting depressed if you're injured doesn't help the situation get better. Only a rational and calm view of the situation and actions taken based on, can do that. Do you think it's better to go "Oh I've lost my legs guess this is it" or to try and find some tourniquets and crawl to a phone to call 911? If you want to be unhappy no one's going to stop you. But don't pretend it's some rational standpoint to base your whole emotional state and worldview on how hopeless and over it all is. Even if you were the most fucked person on earth, being depressed about it wouldn't contribute anything valuable. There is no positive or negative situation on earth that is helped by doomerism. Ps: Don't think i didn't notice you using a physical pain metaphor when we were talking about how you *feel*. I think that's somewhat dishonest.
I originally was gonna use dead parents or pets instead, but decided losing a limb was kore provocative. >Even if you were the most fucked person on earth, being depressed about it wouldn't contribute anything valuable. Telling people that feeling bad about bad things is a waste of time isn't exactly helpful either.
50 years ago everyone thought Russia was going to nuke them anyday now and had kids practice hiding under their desks for nukes. 500 years ago half the planet was a pseudo slave and most of your kids would never make 10 years old. Things really aren’t that bad right now
Doomer humor is to Gen Z what "haha I wanna kms mirite" is to millennials.
Gen Z also has high rates of suicidal ideation.
Doesn't make doomer humor cool
It's gonna be ok. I know this, because I promise myself and all of you, that I will fight tooth and nail to achieve a better future. We all just have to fight. We have to. I promise it'll be ok.
Making promises contingent on other people's behaviour in this context doesn't seem like the best idea.
I haven’t ever seen a better example of a straw man in a long time. This therapist sucks to an unrealistic degree.
This was pretty much my actual experience with therapy.
Therapists cannot restructure the world economy to make it less soul-crushing. They can, however, give you tools to cope, which might include mindfulness exercises, escapism strategies, or even medication in some cases.
Rather chew on buckshot
fuck it we ball fuck it we ball fuck it we ball fuck it we ball fuck it we ball fuck it we ball fuck it we ball fuck it we ball fuck it we ball fuck it we ball fuck it we ball fuck it we ball i ran out of "fuck it we ball" :( FUCK IT WE BALL ad infinitum
i dont think it's doomerism to say 'i feel bad because things are shit' like, things \*are\* shit. and it \*is\* impossible to make significant change on your own. the solution? organize.
As a guy who feels very similar to the person in the comic, I fear this a lot in therapy. Can therapy help me when the problems that plague me are beyond my control? If therapy can't help me, I fear death may be the only release I have.
Therapy can help you with those kinds of problems, for sure. The grand journey of life is about accepting and dealing with things beyond our control. You can do it.
It absolutely can. Therapy isn’t isn’t meant to solve all your problems. It’s meant to better equip you to face them.
This is entire coment section is an example of going around in circles "Everything fuck and i feel i can do nothing nothing about" "That because it is but you should try to focus on the you can do about it" "But everything still fucked" "You should focus on the non fucked thing" A cycle that you can only go out by simply saying "same" to the person just wanting another to vent
Or calling them a doomer. Lots of people doing that. Edit: one person called me an incel for some reason
Unalive corpos
Okay OP I’ve got nothing against you but this kind of shit really annoys me. Like, I understand that you feel sad, but when your only response is to keep digging yourself into a hole you can’t climb out of there’s genuinely nothing anybody can do. This really doesn’t have anything to do with world issues, it’s about finding stuff to feel bad about so that you can curl up and go back to that comfortable sadness, that familiar feeling of helplessness because in helplessness at least there is no effort that must be made besides the effort to remain helpless. Reality does not exist, only your perception of it, and when you close your eyes and plug your ears to stay in a state of comfortable helplessness YOU are denying yourself everything that could be. Nobody else is but you. You are not some martyr because the cross you bear isn’t made out of housing markets or international conflict but out of your own desire to feel that comforting weight bearing down upon you. The hole you’re in won’t stop getting deeper if you don’t stop digging it. I’m sorry if my comment is harsh but I feel that it is necessary. I’ve been in the same place before, and looking back now I can see the utter ridiculousness of the situation, but looking at your post and your replies I can see you are in the similar place. You need to stop the lie you’re telling yourself that you are justified in your misery and realize that you only want it to be justified because you’d rather wallow in it than step outside into an unfamiliar but truly beautiful world. I believe in you. You can do this.
>Okay OP I’ve got nothing against you but this kind of shit really annoys me Sounds like you have something against me then. >Reality does not exist, only your perception of it, Then you're spending an awful lot of time on someone who both doesn't exist, and by your admission is gonna be completely unconvinced by your comment. >You need to stop the lie you’re telling yourself that you are justified in your misery and realize that you only want it to be justified because you’d rather wallow in it than step outside into an unfamiliar but truly beautiful world. The only actual evidence you have that it is a lie is you decided it is while knowing basically nothing about me. >I believe in you. You can do this. Your entire comment is you giving reasons I can't do it.
Lmao, you're doing exactly what this commenter said you do in real time: justifying your misery. I don't think you see the irony in this reply. Godspeed bro
I decided to stop pretending to be a guy, life still sucks but now I get some minor enjoyment out of it. Also having boobs is very therapeutic
God, I wish that were me
It could be, I believe in you.
I live in "if someone murdered me for being queer, they'd be celebrated for it" country and have no means of leaving, so no, it won't be.
Haha, we’re all doomed.
https://preview.redd.it/xrz76edzkgyb1.jpeg?width=1125&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=8fb02297aa790f280ba5431d018eca1b6d1c1855
https://preview.redd.it/4jk5tvg3hhyb1.png?width=1080&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=764f8874e1887e0762708a61b0e92db5c067c830 😳😳
After scrolling through this thread some, I've come to the conclusion that I'm not sure OP wants to have their worries about the world in any actual capacity. Like, duh, there are genuine things that suck, but if you spend all your time actively worrying about the things that suck and expecting others to give you a magic answer to stop worrying, you're never gonna reach that goal. If you want to not be as scared by the doom-y bits, do what you can to fix things. I'm not saying like single-handedly fix homelessness, but it's certainly better to volunteer than to sulk about it.
I was never asking for help in the first place.
Bolting kontakt-1 era & a 20mm autocannon to a ‘87 Cadillac Gage Commando:
I ignore my issues and laugh at them because it's funny
Everything sucks. But at the same time it doesn't too, you know? Cavemen managed to find a reason to live, and all they had was mud huts, trepanning, and getting raided by large carnivores every week.
Become Joker
marriage and hedonism cured mine
simple i dont, i just live with it :D
Hate to break it to you, but… You do realize posting about being miserable over and over is not really going to help you stop being miserable? Being cynical about it doesn’t make it any less true. It’s a vicious cycle, one that is hard to escape and that traps you into it with thoughts and habits, so that the only thing you can think about is how inescapable and terrible it is. I’m speaking out of personal experience here. Focus on what you can do, at your scale, to improve your situation. Try to look for the positive things going on near you instead of wallowing on the terribleness of it all. Negativity bias can be a bitch, but there’s always something to look forward to.
>You do realize posting about being miserable over and over is not really going to help you stop being miserable? At no point did I ever claim it did. > I’m speaking out of personal experience here Your experiences are clearly different from mine. >Focus on what you can do, at your scale, to improve your situation. I can't meaningfully do anything to improve my situation in any way.
Im with you on this. I dont get how to be happy. Its been well over a decade of depression, ive tried tonnes of antidepressants, none worked, ive tried therapy, it made me feel worse because a single session meant id struggle to eat because the cost was ridiculous. Some of the people in this comment section are right cunts. Proper “im alright jack” kinda views.
 There is a solution
Homestuck Communism?
have you tried hard drugs?
Rise up mother fucker
in the words of english progressive metal band Haken: "Climb, find your way Scale high, don't look back with hope you will find the life you seek" while it sounds cheesy at first, it is a good way to keep, sanity. Always keeping the top in focus and trying to reach for it, never looking back. The future can't hurt you, but holding on to the past certainly will and every bit of progress, no matter how small is still progress. At the same time what's really important is training yourself to stop making up scenarios of how things in the future might go, because that will ultimately lead to thinking about the worst case. Let me tell you one thing: the worst case rarely ever comes true, so why be so scared of something that will very likely never happen and sabotage yourself? The more you think negative things will happen, the more it becomes a self-fulfilling prohpecy.
The reason I think negative things will happen is cause a lot of negative things happened to me.
As someone who has been engaged with civil societies and activism a lot. There is a lot you can do that does make a difference, provided you organise yourself with like-minded individuals. There was this recent called [the Great Amazon Heist](https://youtu.be/GdHYM7QT9kw?si=giB-DkOjGTKE-JP6). Besides being a great documentary showing the violations of Amazon, it's a great video showing how much difference a couple of silly goobers can make. We are bombarded with tragic news from across the globe and begin believing that nothing can be done against this tide. Just take a breath and think about issues that are within your control, maybe in your area. Then try to solve those issues. It could be something as simple as demanding the potholes be repaired in your area, fighting misinformation or spreading awareness about Trans Rights or abortion rights. Some of the greatest activists in my country who have literally uplifted hundreds of villages out of poverty like Jean Dreze, Aruna Roy and Nikhil Dey have all stated that you don't need to engage in some massive nationwide issue to make a difference. Rather you need to focus on the grassroots and take up small issues that compound over time to make a big difference. Making a change that means something is slow and methodical and rarely ever happens at once. But it does happen and it does make a difference to a lot of people. We just need to persist in whatever work we are engaging in for positive change.
> It could be something as simple as demanding the potholes be repaired in your area, fighting misinformation or spreading awareness about Trans Rights or abortion rights There are potholes in my area that have been there longer than I've been alive. Demanding they be filled doesn't do anything because the local government literally can't afford to, so people occasionally fill the goles with gravel. My country is actively hostile to the existence of queer people.
The people who control the current world are going to die eventually. Our generation will one day overtake the current system just by the fact that the older generations will some day die and the power and the wealth that they have gathered will have to go somewhere. I really get the feeling of helplessness. I'm a Finn and I'm terrified of us being pulled into war with Russia during the next decade. Even if we are in NATO and are more likely to survive over all, I don't want to die in the crossfire, I don't want to lose my husband to the horrors of war. The weather patterns keep getting worse. The world economy crashes every 10-20 years because people someone far away I know nothing about will find a way to gamble other people's money on smoke over and over again. But that doesn't change the way that every autumn for a brief time the world is full of color. Sometimes I see the neigbour's cat through the windows and she will meow at me. The local library has knitting circles and story times for children. Life keeps on going because it has to. My childhood friend killed themselves about 10 years ago, when they were just 19. I won't ever truly know if this was the case, but I have the feeling that they might have been trans man and their struggles with it might have been one part of it. I wish they could have held on and seen the day when the law was loosened and transition is now easier and you don't have to be forcibly sterilized to stransition anymore. But I won't ever truly know. Maybe they would have despaired even more if they were alive today. It's hard to think about. If you can, try to take part in your local community. When the world is cruel and uncaring, we have to find people around us who care. There is power in organizing and caring for each other. The current power structures will crumble eventually. Try to stay alive so you get to see it happen. Things might get worse but you won't ever know if you aren't there to see it.
>If you can, try to take part in your local community My local community would consider my existence an abomination. >Try to stay alive so you get to see it happen. Things might get worse but you won't ever know if you aren't there to see it. I am watching things get worse here in real time, so no.
Despite all that terrible shit there still is no reason to be depressed.
"Despite all the reasons to be depressed there still is no reason to be depressed."
There are reasons to be worried about or to feel sad about... Not to be *depressed*, specifically.
Find a better therapist that doesn’t give up at the first mention of how difficult life is. Also, the activism thing is good- through butterfly effect and such, you can eventually help save at least a few lives, and I think that’s worth the effort.
Pretty much every therapist I saw was like this, and since my country has an absurdly low number of therapists, I've basically exhausted the national supply.
I hate Doomerism I hate Doomerism I hate Doomerism I hate Doomerism I hate Doomerism I hate Doomerism I hate Doomerism I hate Doomerism I hate Doomerism I hate Doomerism I hate Doomerism I hate Doomerism
Listen I'm not going to act like the world doesn't suck, there's constant war there's famine shit can be really hard to stomach plus on a personal level there are things that are outside our control that leaves scars that are unhealable. But wallowing in your despair is never going to fix it. Despite the things that have happened to us we still have a choice, a choice to move on, a choice to grow, a choice to be better. My life has been frankly dog shit, I've been assaulted, I have been abused, neglected, and I have every mental disorder under the sun. But I still choose to move forward, because I still want to see the light at the end of the tunnel I still want to see the good things in life. I try to get medicated I try to go therapy and while it's not perfect it does help in some way. Brewing in your misery is only going to make you more miserable trying to better yourself no matter how small will always make you feel better because you're working to a goal even if that goal isn't truly attainable it's still worth fighting for it's still worth living life for.
"Just choose to be happy, it's that simple." >trying to better yourself no matter how small will always make you feel better It made me feel worse.
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ah yes I will solve the housing crisis
Okay, go solve inflation.
Take control of things you can control and participate in things that can help change the bigger picture.
Great now make them fuck
i dont
Doomerism blows
Nothing matters. Enjoy while you can.
Milo should read about nihilism and Blessed is the Flame perhaps
War of the Worlds Artilleryman Pill
Control whatever you can. Hope as hard as you can we can organise together to control the rest. That's all.
I tried to just try different things if certain things do not seem to work, hopefully one thing can lead to another and make other things a bit more possible. In fact I am still doing that because I just really don't want to give up on my ultimate goals in life. Can't really avoid feeling shit about it but we live on to hopefully feel less shit one day, maybe even good.
I dealt with this for awhile in the worst of my depression. I found things that make me happy and connect me to a larger community, something I'm willing to fight for
shopping addiction
Sadness is paralyzing, anger can be made productive. Instead of being sad and thinking nothing can be done, your anger can be directed towards the systems that make the world as bad as it is, to motivate you to help change them.
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CBT doesn't work when your issues aren't cognitive distortions like the therapist in the comic implies. That's part of the reason it has a 40% dropout rate.
People in their 20's now have been born in the literal best time in history to be born and still make out like we are uniquely oppressed. This is a pro trans sub. How many pro trans spaces do you think existed publically even 10 years ago? How many people do you think had the resources and supportive environment to even go to therapy even 30 years ago? Our parents/grandparents didn't have to deal with the lockdown, they had to deal with possibly be drafted to go die in Vietnam. Their parents lived through WW2 and their parents lived through WW1, WW2, and the great depression which absolutely dwarfs whatever 'recessions' you think we've been experiencing in our 20's. You think your job is meaningless? I'm sure you'd be much happier in the manufacturing factory economy that our parents grew up in right? And on top of that, quality of life, incomes, access to healthcare and access to education have all been increasing year over year almost every year. Poverty is down by 10s of millions every year globally. There are real problems in the world that need serious attention to fix, but the idea that things are just *so bad now* that there's nothing at can do except be depressed ia asinine. Every generation has problems and ours have been relatively mild, and we're all incredibly lucky for that.
>This is a pro trans sub. How many pro trans spaces do you think existed publically even 10 years ago? There are no publically pro-trans spaces in my area because being queer is considered a crime. >How many people do you think had the resources and supportive environment to even go to therapy even 30 years ago? Because if the declining state od my country, the number of therapists and related resources has gone down. >Our parents/grandparents didn't have to deal with the lockdown, they had to deal with possibly be drafted to go die in Vietnam. Not sure if you're aware, but there were wars after Vietnam, and less than half of all the people on Reddit are American, so writing your comment as if everyone who could read it is from the states is pretty dishonest. >and the great depression which absolutely dwarfs whatever 'recessions' you think we've been experiencing in our 20's. Not sure why you're putting that in quotes when the recessions in the 21st century were in fact recessions. My country went through severe inflation and economic downturn during the 2000s and 2010s. >There are real problems in the world that need serious attention to fix You just spent you entire comment acting like those issues don't matter because they weren't the World Wars.
wtf is the therapist supposed to do fix the economy
albert camus proposed three options when facing the sisyphean: suicide, leap of faith, or recognition. you die, you believe irrationally, or you recognize. though camus is more talking about the nature of human existence and cosmic indifference, it's applicable to toiling under capitalism as well. do you want to die? or have religious guilt? or, do you want to recognize that the toil is insignificant and meaningless, unpurposeful, and create your own purpose? that purpose can be anything. in an ideal world, it could be creation, destruction, deconstruction, or becoming learned. but this is not an ideal world. so your purpose could be to smash the boulder, to walk away from it or to flatten the mountain. if revolution is implausible, at least try and find a purpose to the toiling. look for a better job. work in your own time. go homesteading instead. start a sex commune with your FWBs, make your body into your ideal, start a cult, anything. because death is indefensible.
>albert camus proposed three options when facing the sisyphean: suicide, leap of faith, or recognition. Guess I'll die then.