I get so down dealing with other people

[Jsinjin]

I feel that the pettiness of people around me misses out on the big things and then I feel like things don't matter at all. I see posts or angry people and then I think that I shouldn't care because nothing matters. I feel like nothing I do will ever matter. I bet there were incredibly famous artists in Pompeii whose work and fame was incredible and in seconds it was wiped out and you know what, we don't know their names, we don't know what they thought, if they were good or bad, what relationships they had with their sisters or brothers or cousins or friends. None of it mattered at all and it was not just one of them, it was all at once and today we know there were 11000 people wiped out in seconds and even though that thriving town existed, did anything that a specific person did matter now? Can we honestly say "I'm so glad that Gaias from 79 ad had such nice things to say about his grandmother" or "little cleo did so well at her school choir performance". We can roll through billions of people who if they had committed suicide would not have had any impact at all as a ripple 100, 200, 500 years later. I don't want to think about any rationalization. I don't want to think about "just one thing I could do better to improve my relationships." I want someone to prove to.me that any of these tiny things we have to try and force ourselves to be happy about will matter at all in 100, 200 or 500 years especially if we want nothing to do with other people, we don't want to be productive and we don't want to be part of society at all. This is why I want to die. There is a future and truthfully it doesn't matter at all in the scope of now or 1000 or 10000000 years from now.

my brain spirals into this and it makes me want to die because everything feels futile. Friends are angry about politics, families are angry about money, we all have too much stuff, tok much to do and not enough time and then I think "none of it matters". Joy doesn't matter, pain doesn't matter, it's all just a void. You can say that things matter like friends and family but will they matter in 1000 years and why exist as an organic pain collector in the meantime.

 

[may71]

I feel like nothing I do will ever matter. I bet there were incredibly famous artists in Pompeii whose work and fame was incredible and in seconds it was wiped out and you know what, we don't know their names, we don't know what they thought, if they were good or bad, what relationships they had with their sisters or brothers or cousins or friends. None of it mattered at all and it was not just one of them, it was all at once and today we know there were 11000 people wiped out in seconds and even though that thriving town existed, did anything that a specific person did matter now?

If the universe has a beginning, then it will surely also one day have an end. Meaning is something that happens in between the beginning and the end, not something that becomes significant if it survives into the future.

I think it can be argued that the only time that really exists is the present. The past is always experienced as a memory, and the future is always imagined.

I'm not sure if that's any comfort to you, but I hope so.

 

[iloverachel]

 

[Jsinjin]

I am so down. I can't snap out of nihilistic thoughts

I would love to be simply forgotten. I would love for so many things around me to be just let go. Stop caring about causes, about awareness, about trying to "remember the past" or "never forget". None of it matters. We don't have any impact. We can be in charge of a few people. We can even hurt of help others around us but that only matters if you try and believe it matters. In 1000 years if a person commits suicide then it won't have had an impact. Things will move on. There won't be a news story about the loss, the people who remember won't think that someone was selfish, this forum won't matter, all the crying and fussing won't matter. It's all simply people trying to be relevant in the face of not mattering at all. Society is neither good nor bad. It's all just meaningless junk in the face of history. You are simply a bunch of molecules held together by a few atomic forces, a lucky set of points in the universe capable of sustaining self organization of those molecules for a short time and then you will be dead. On a universe time scale we can't count the percentage of time you ahbe existed and the amount of time that will continue after you are dead and no longer remembered is infinitely bigger. Forgetting me would be the greatest gift the universe could give.

Everywhere I go online I'm faced with people fervently trying to matter with their causes or values, people in my town have to work so hard to raise awareness for an event or a cause. More effort goes into trying to gain attention than the event itself. We are completely oversaturated with people tyeing to raise importance in the face of nothing mattering at all.

 

[Ziggy]

Here's a little story I like...

There's a spiritual master who is crying because his wife has died, and his disciple goes up to him and says "Why are you crying? You tell us that life is but a dream". And he says "Ah but she was such a beautiful dream"

I think things only matter because you decide that they do, and I suppose it's a blessing if you can find things you care about.

 

[Lady Wolfshead]

I believe the opposite. We all have a profound effect on the world, and that effect is compounded when we act together. Parents affect their children who affect their children who affect each other. Artists and musicians and writers can affect millions. We know the names of a few individuals throughout history, but these people were all shaped by those around them. Many writers and musicians and artists would not have become famous but for their spouses, family or supporters, or the help of other artists. We all shape society.

If you talk one person out of suicide, you have meant the Universe to that person.

Of course it's all about perspective. But we are living here and now so that is our perspective. So I agree - it's now that matters.

 

[Ziggy]

Artists and musicians and writers can affect millions

Around 1000 AD Guido of Arezzo created musical notation as we know it today, maybe he had a friend or partner who helped him or simply encouraged him, which history will never remember? All these musicians owe a huge amount of debt to that unknown person for simply being a good friend to someone. Maybe that's the case, maybe it isn't but I do believe that doing things which are kind or good can have consequences in the future that we never realise, so you say "my life never mattered" but it did and you never realised it. It's a question of having faith in results when you may never see those results.

 

[Jsinjin]

I appreciate and I'm ok with that perspective. I don't want to interact with anyone. I don't want to be manipulated at all, I don't want to be advertised to, to let someone understand me in order to sell me something. I don't care if companies live or die, I don't want to care about the issues of today. I am exhausted. I work three jobs because people beg me to just to help people succeed and I don't want to care. I want to skip conference calls and not have people pinging my phone and instant message systems and email and busness what's app and slack sayinf "are you joining..." And I pray, "maybe if I skip they will make decisions without me and go on" but they reschedule so that I can be there. I am tired of solving problems that don't matter at all except to prevent liability of things that don't matter. I try to say "this doesn't matter..." And some lawyer says "the company could be sued for this" and so we have to calculate the statistics. I hate my jobs, I hate people begging me and pleading. I just want to die and disappear because I know none of it matters. I believe the concept of historical importance isn't some formula of everyone played a part. Long term mattering is luck and truly long term like 200,000 years isn't even a probability that can be calculated

All my day to day minutia of things I hate doesn't matter. I think and think, "if I were dead right now would you call my corpse begging and pleading for actuarial crap because some boss somewhere demanded it of you in the corporate world to dehumanize more people?". I think all day "please let me get cancer and die quickly to be rid of this horribly crappy existence. Meetings on Saturdays and Sundays, calls by the dozens, four separate schedules and stupid calendars and none of it helps anyone. Two years ago I canceled a phone and one of the companies sent me a company one just to keep me on call.

I spent my undergraduate and graduate and post doctoral years in joyous belief that I would make a difference. I studied physical chemistry and applied math and got very interested in statistics and actuarial work and landed in pharma and corporate risk. And it is not designed to help people or patients. It's completely designed to protect companies from risk all day. All I do is calculate ways to limit payouts to people who have been hurt through laws, statistics and pushes by leadership. Any of you who have been denied clinical treatments by insurance or big companies?? It's because of people like me that have to sit and calculate ways to limit liability years in advance of you ever needing a payout. It's so valuable to the companies that I've tried to walk away and once quit by walking out and that company sent a person to find me and my spouse at my mother's home far away from where I lived in order to legally force me to finish certifying statistics.

Those of you out there who want to be well paid, study things that can be used to screw the general population out of money. Study marketing that treats humans like eyeballs and pocketbooks to be maximized, study corporate and state liability insurance laws and how to generate contracts that prevent payments from going out, study healthcare sales related to pushing costs down to consumers without the ability to declare any sort of bankruptcy similar to student loans, study option laws and the ability market risky financial isntruments to elderly people with pensions. If you want money, cars, real estate, study these things. People will not only employ you, they will not let you stop working under any circumstances.

 

[Ziggy]

I spent my undergraduate and graduate and post doctoral years in joyous belief that I would make a difference.

You may not be making a difference in the ways that you expected or wanted, but I think it is possible that you are making differences without even knowing it in other areas (you always affect those close to you). I know that doesn't help with the situation you're in though, but you can only work on improving what you can. Many people may try to get money, cars and real estate and fail, whilst not working on improving their own happiness in ways that they can achieve

 

[Lady Wolfshead]

J it sounds like your really need to retire and do something meaningful (even if just to you) with the rest of your time. I worked in both banking and insurance so I do understand what you're saying. You're right many industries are just about money, but some are not.

Your job is toxic to you. It sounds like you have the ability, the money, to quit, so leave and retire. You have to set boundaries. Nobody will do it for you.

I hope you can do it and get some peace and enjoyment in your retirement. You don't have to save the world, but you can save yourself.

 

[may71]

The good things that people do, and the bad things they don't do really do matter. Imho, the perspective of meaninglessness that you have is primarily a product of depression, and your depression is primarily a product of a set of intolerable circumstances that you're unable to escape from.

I know the ability and the will to free yourself is very limited, and so understandably you're stuck where you are. It's a tragedy that you were ensnared by a ruthless corporate agenda.