Absurdism

You can't change the world, but you can change your little corner of it. The world may be full of horrors, but you can make your own space -- your home, your room, whatever it may be -- a place of kindness and peace. You can choose music and books and friends and pastimes that uplift you instead of dragging you down. In the end, it's not about the world, anyway; it's about you. It's about who you are and the person you want to become.

Silent Empath, I see your words... I feel your sorrow... I see your pain. Pain, unlike most people believe, can be beautiful.

Your poignant writing comes from your pain. Many artists create beautiful works when they are in pain. Some of my most beautiful photography has come from my darkest moments.

I don't agree with trying to free ourselves from the pain, I have found it I can harness that pain, I can see the beauty in it.

It is a little different way of looking at depression, and it, most times, works for me. Maybe it can help you discover the beauty and leave the suffering.

This is amazing. One of my biggest paradigm shifts involved learning that pointlessness does not have to equal negativity. If everything is pointless and useless and meaningless, why not do whatever the eff you want!? It's total freedom.

People have different preferences for behavior. It's not as simple as doing "whatever you want". Those preferences do not become null simply because one does not believe there is a purpose to existence. While I would like to do whatever I want, there are consequences for my actions, and I would rather not be subject to those consequences. And I would not necessarily say that everything is "meaningless", it depends what you mean by "meaning". For example, the laws of physics cannot be violated, so I would say there is at least some meaning, if by that it is meant some things can be comprehended.

meh, semantics. you're saying you're choosing not to do what you want. s'all the same to me

I am choosing not to do what I want because of my personal preferences. It is not an arbitrary decision. An arbitrary decision would be to find some random establishment, and kill everyone inside. It's not my preference to do such a thing, because of the consequences. So I do not do it. Also you seem to be implying that killing everyone, or something like that would be an inevitable consequence of being able to do whatever you want.

Yes, all humans have an individual combination of opinions, personality traits and types, talents, features, etc. however this is not what I was referring to. I know that every human has an individual makeup that cannot be duplicated by any natural means. What I meant is that virtually every individual characteristic has been done before. A personality in its whole is never completely duplicated but on occasion, combinations of the above individual characteristics can make two people virtually indistinguishable.
I appreciate the level-headed-ness of this response, and that it was not merely an emotional knee-jerk reaction. That's more than I can say for at least one member aside from you who has commented here.

I don't think there is a person alive or dead in all of history that has completely abstained from all of those. There are those who personify them more greatly and those who only personify them less. Those who personify these things (intentionally) less often, I am sure would be in the majority, but that doesn't stop every human from having these traits in some way shape or form, and from personifying them at points in their life, thus spreading a cycle of harm and negativity. These same people may indeed go on to do a great deal more good then bad but the negative resonates more deeply in human kind than the good does.

Importance is completely relative and as fleeting as life, in my opinion. Once you die, by my belief, you cease to exist, so I would be incapable of holding anything as important to me after that point. However, that kindness sprung from some action a person makes may live on for decades afterwards through a spread of actions, I can concur with. In physics, it is something commonly referred to as the butterfly affect.

This is not a certainty, and to say "immediately" is stretching things fairly far in most of my prior experience.

I know it's only natural for a person to do such; I know it's obviously from an instinct to survive, but seeing the selfishness of the world is depressing at times.

I agree that it is, in a manner of speaking, extremely lucky that we are able to participate in life. The possibility of being in existence on a planet with the correct conditions in which to sustain life, is literally astronomically low.

Perhaps change is possible, but behaviors present during childhood and for several years thereafter are difficult to change.

You can want something with every fiber of your being and still not be motivated or have energy enough to do anything to change thing. I know it’s within the scope of possibility for things to change, but I don’t know how it would actually happen.

I understand what you mean. I had a point in the interim of the emotions and thoughts hanging behind this where I though, “Well, what's the point of not doing whatever the hell I want; If I’m pissed enough, what does it matter if I were to kill someone? I may as well, what’s the point in holding back” But I would empathize for the parents/relatives/friends of said person who grieved afterwards. All it would be is perhaps an animalistic instinct relieved, but this train of thought has passed and society also presents us a consequence whether or not the action truly is meaningful.

If I were to become so enraged (and I can’t imagine actually reaching this point having been so inhibited the majority of my life) that I actually did have the true physical desire to kill someone, I would either have to take up a life of running and hiding, or face what I had done in prison after the fact. Neither is a scenario that I would particularly enjoy living, at present much less so than living with whatever person caused me to feel such rage against them. Thus, in Not killing them, I Am doing whatever I want. Because I do not want to go to jail. If the laws of the land did not prosecute a person for such actions and we lived in a more tribal society, where life holds less significance to the populace and we could take another person’s life over a dispute and it would be settled, I would have much fewer qualms about it and would be more likely kill said person.

Of course pain has a certain beauty to it, otherwise books involving pain and conflict and struggle would fail rather than succeed. If there was not something alluring in the pain, why would anyone choose to read such things?

And I myself have created works which others have fallen in love with, drawn from my own pain. It seems odd for someone not experiencing it, how out of something so dark, can come something so deeply beautiful.

While I enjoy and would never want to give up the level of inspiration I can achieve while in pain, I do wish that one did not need to be in pain to create such.

"I'm nearly constantly in a fully blank and apathetic state. I have gone years like this, interspersed with days or individual weeks of fleeting, exuberant joy, and consecutive weeks if not months or more of a crushing demotivation and depression. All the while I am quiet. All the while I observe and I learn and it is from this observation that I draw my semblance. "

((((TheSilentEmpath))))))

I can't help but think, and this person is only coming 18? I checked your profile and with what I read in that profile, I can't blame your anger as well as your apathy. I think to myself, as I have done before, this is the mind of someone who has been abused and did not recieve the right nurturing, how awful is that?

Then, as I read your writing it is obvious that you are far from stupid. I can't help but wonder what would have happened with all that intelligence had you not had that past? You have the capacity to empathize, well ofcourse, that does come from being abused because there is a personal knowledge and experience with that kind of pain but there is also a great deal of anger and resentment storred there as well.
When I slice through all the ways you have mastered the use of words, I cut down to the personal pain you experience and I cannot blame you for your sense of darkness, even that you do defend it. I can say that I can relate to some of your sentiments and that I have entertained these thoughts myself. Yes, I too have gazed upon the crop of humanity and saw much selfishness and ignorance and I too have been very disgusted and troubled by what I see. Yes, I too have had those thoughts of "What could I do that has not already been done before?

What could you do with that intelligence that at only 18 you seem to feel there is no point, nothing to accomplish on a personal scale, you're only but a speck, what could you do? At only 18, smart as you are, as much as you have learned, are you truely certain you could not really do anything?

When I was trying to learn about what was wrong with me, what is this PTSD, what the hell do these flashbacks mean too? I started a journey to learn about this thing that my brain was presenting to me and I came across the research of Robert C Scaer MD. When I read his article it was as though he was studying ME and I could not believe how well he identified ME. He is one man, in a world FULL of human beings and he KNEW ME. And he is still researching ME and many others like me. And because he is doing that I have a better chance of being understood and in that alone as I struggle to understand this troubling thing going on my own brain, there will be others that will help me, support me and even validate me. And as I get validated and learn, I will want to reach out to others as I know how difficult it is to understand and deal with what I have. In my own unique struggle I am learning to look at human beings in a very different way. Yes, there is a lot of awful things that happen to human beings, there are many human beings that ARE selfish and destructive and outright mean. BUT, not ALL human beings are like that.

TheSilentEmpath, go to your own about me page and read it. What you will see there is what it took to present you with what you are saying in your own thread. Your not stupid, but you are painted with a black cloak that is blinding you and that is not your fault, just is is not my fault that I too have this strange dark cloak that I am trying to somehow push aside myself. Yes, I wanted to end too, and yes I thought about how that would hurt others so I have to TRY to find myself out of this awful cloak that no one around me understands, no one can feel it, no one can see it and yet I am covered in it. All I can say is THANK GOD that some people decided to see it somehow, study it, talk about it, learn about it and try help those that are covered in this awful cloak that is not their fault. And it wasn't that long ago that so many suffered alone and misunderstood with what I have, I don't know how they managed, must have been awful must have been HELL.

My daughter loved the artist Monet and she had a big poster in her room of one of his pieces. We were sitting on her bed one night and I looked at that picture and it was blurry but soft and had nice colors to it. I turned to my daughter and said, "I wonder if that is how he really saw the world?" After all, back in his day we didn't really have glasses like we do now. My daughter's eyes opened wide and she starred at the picture and replied, "Gee mom, I never even thought of that".

What may you not be truely seeing, I wonder.

" While I enjoy and would never want to give up the level of inspiration I can achieve while in pain, I do wish that one did not need to be in pain to create such. "

I agree with you there, but it is part of our evolution to learn from some kind of pain. The pain of hunger forces us to seek ways of nourishment, the cold pushes us to find ways to stay warm, and most living things have some kind of preditor that can be as big as an elephant and as small as a simple germ. Much of what we all learn now is often from the pain that others have suffered before us.

But what really keeps us going? Well, we are very optimistic, maybe not all humans are, but enough to bring progress as well as learn that if we can imagine it, we can very often find a way to create it. We have proven that so many times now. Is GOD our imagination? We really have not proven that yet, so we do not really know. But we can still make a choice, at least privately to believe or not.

Every idea that lights up in your mind has already been thought of? Well maybe so far, but give your brain time to stash more information, then you may discover something new, as intelligent as you are, you have yet to learn and find out what other contributions you may be able to make. I hope that you will use that intelligence to find some light and make efforts to creep out of the darkness, because if we search for the bad, well, it will always be easy to find, but there are positives.
Open Eyes

TheSilentEmpath I think a lot like you. My mind is pretty tired at the moment, so I have been skimming through this thread, but I'll go back and read it in more deatail later. "The Stranger" is one of my favorite books which I happened to read in a college class. I felt like I related so much to that main character, besides the murder part heh. It has been a year or 2 since I read that book, but I am feeling the urge to reread it. I kept the book of course. Its been awhile since I took philosophy courses, but I remember liking the existentialist way of thinking.

I myself dont really see any point to my life either. Ive felt numb and hollow and like I am just surviving for years. I dont feel like I connect with people and most of the time I dont want to be around them. Im an introvert so people drain me after awhile .Yet, occasionally I wish to be around people, but I have isolated myself so that occasional yearning for some socializing usually goes unfulfilled. I have physical problems as well that will most likely prevent me from ever keeping a relationship going either. So its extremely likely that I will be on my own and alone for my entire life. So my life surely will be quite pointless. Ill just have to work,eat,sleep and survive for no real reason. I wont be too happy but perhaps I can just stay numb and survive for some reason.

I related quite heavily to the main character as well and even seemed to comprehend myself acting as he did when he murdered the Arabs. At some point, if logic or fear completely cease within me I believe myself completely capable of acting in such a manner. I read the book just earlier this year, in my high school AP Literature and Composition class.

"numb and hollow"
Easily relatable words, "simply surviving" seems to be all we do, and surviving without motivation or drive seems utterly pointless at times, which can make it harder. Without the ability to pursue love, or the motivation to push yourself forward, we seem perpetually stuck in such a train of thought, because even if life is meaningless, a person can still find things they enjoy.
I too am an introvert in the extreme. In personality type quizzes, I always come out as INTP or INFP, with an "I" score of 95%. I spend a vast amount of time every day alone in my room on my computer. Because I am still in school, I do still have the means of keeping up a connection with people I can go places with, in the event that I crave social interaction; I am sorry for your not being able to; I can imagine the frustration not being able to interact with others when the desire strikes would cause.
Don't assume that because of a physical condition, that you cannot find love however. Anyone who's worth catching won't be held up in the physical anyway. Having an emotional connection and common interests is of a much higher significance to a real relationship.
Try to find activities you enjoy and invest whatever time you can in them. It helps to cope the numbness and depression, mainly by distraction.

I never reported what happened to me. I kept it from my mother, my father, my siblings, my friends, and everyone else I knew for many.. many years. It was only earlier this year that I first confided in someone about what had happened to me, someone who I trusted deeply..
Aside from this my mother is a very, very cold person. She shows little emotion herself aside from frustration and did not provide the necessary touch bond a child needs growing up. Humans are supposed to be cuddle-bugs by nature, but I had very little touch as a child.

I know the realm of possibility is open. I know there is the opportunity for me to do something great or worthwhile. I am very much demotivated, however. I have been searching for an idea to drive me forward- something that captures my attention so, that I feel compelled and driven forward.

There are human being who are not entirely or even mainly selfish or consciously destructive, or outright mean, but everyone is selfish at some point, with or without realizing it, and everyone contributes to destruction. I won't make the generalization that everyone is "outright mean" but everyone has the capacity to be such, some are just more inhibited, or moral than others.

Suffering from depression and remembrances of thing I wish had never occurred don't mean that I am blinded. There is good in this world. I am aware that people can be kind and can be warm and loving and can choose not to do horrible things at times. If anything, this depression and this solitude have driven me to open my eyes further. To take things in at a wider scope, and to learn all that I can about humanity, no matter how it may pain me. Suffering from any one thing without sympathy and without relief can be a personal hell no one else can understand. A friend of mine suffers with his gender. He is Extremely intelligent, and thoroughly logical. He has compulsively looked up, and knows more fault in genetics of males, and sees more discrimination and expectations thrust upon males, than almost any girl will ever have to deal with. He will never be able to experience the bond of a mother and child. He is very, very much jealous of all females and wishes with every fiber of his being that he had been born that way. Had he been, he like many other male children in the US would not have been mutilated in ways most foul directly after birth- A procedure that is banned for females and is common practice for males. He detests the unnatural, so taking surgical measures are out of the question, but he is so torn by grief, that most days lately, he is so depressed he won't look at or say a word to anyone. What's worse is only myself and one other friend of his seem to comprehend why such things would trouble him so greatly and why they would pain him without telling him something as sexist and cold as "Man up." She and I are the only two close friends he has, and she recently entered basic training, leaving him further alone. His entire life- stuck in a body he detests, has become for him, a living hell the likes of which I cannot even begin to comprehend.

That is an interesting suggestion, and not something I had ever considered.
I may miss some things, but I am very, Very observant. I have a memory abnormally vibrant (not always advantageous). I can recall moments in time from before I had reached 2 years of age. Since middle school I have been very very quiet in public. I sit back and watch, and more importantly, I listen. I hear things. I learn things, I can pick apart multiple conversations going on around me at once and remember everything I hear. I know a great deal about the people who only share classes with me, people I have never spoken a word to. I know their personalities, their friends, some of their family life, which teachers they despise, what classes they find difficult, etc. Nothing I will ever need to know, and things I cannot forget none the less. Perhaps I have missed things, but they were things beyond my realm of perception., beyond what I have been exposed to, rather.

Most people I know are pessimistic or realists, but We (humans that is) are interminably saturated with this illogical device known as "hope". Something that strives to keep us moving forward even when the world seems to be crashing around us. Motivation and Hope drive a person to create something otherwise perceived as impossible, so hope is not without it's benefits, but it can appear in times, completely unnecessarily, and even harmfully. I am an atheist. I won't chalk up whatever goes on inside of me as having been derived from another beings omniscient, omnipotent will. I make my own decisions, my mind formulates it's own ideas. I cannot say with absolute certainty that there are no gods (only that there is no physical evidence of them), and I do not deny the possibility of there being a god, but given what I know and have learned, there are none that I know of, under which I shall blindly follow.

I am an artist, not a scientist, not a mathematician.. no doctor. In terms of actually contributing things of value to this world, my chances are slim to none. In general, my intelligence is precisely how I pull myself from the depths of my despairs- by identifying the cause and eliminating it or counter-acting it. There are positives in this world, but there is a reason they are harder to find- negativity resonates within us more deeply.

"I am an artist, not a scientist, not a mathematician.. no doctor. In terms of actually contributing things of value to this world, my chances are slim to none. In general, my intelligence is precisely how I pull myself from the depths of my despairs- by identifying the cause and eliminating it or counter-acting it. There are positives in this world, but there is a reason they are harder to find- negativity resonates within us more deeply. " quote TheSilentEmapth

Hmmm, me too. I am was very much an artist at your age. And loved writing poetry and brought a pad with me everywhere and observed people and wrote, it came to me like the art came to me, anything in the arts as well as an extreme love for all animals, I don't know what I loved more about them, I loved their beauty, expressions and how they were put together, facinated me from the beginning.

Oh, and I can relate to knowing about other people, picking up on all kinds of things too and remembering all the details, whether I wanted to or not. But I thought everyone was like that which isn't true. My therapist tells me I am extremely intuitive and pick up on things most don't see. Honestly, I could never understand how others could not pick up on what I could pick up on. I never even thought of it as a gift to be honest. But I also had to be that way for a reason, I had see or know the facial signals that meant run to me. I had to know that a lot for as long as I can remember.

Me too, I was date raped and I didn't tell anyone, it resulted in a pregnancy and because it was the son of a very wealthy client of my father's I was afraid to tell, Sigh, I was always afraid to tell or didn't know how to tell. I was wisked away to endure an abortion that was one of the most horrific experiences I dealt with. The changes in hormones alone, all by myself, no guidance. Back then they didn't give anything for pain during the procedure, it was shear hell. And my father was so diappointed in me, still, I was afraid to tell. I finally did tell him about a year ago.
He was very forgiving but I didn't tell him everything I wanted to. And my parents and family have no idea how to understand what the PTSD I have means. I think at this point being in their mid 80's they are just too old to comprehend it. Hey, it was and is hard for me to comprehend and I have it.

The way you can relate to that friend? I do that too, I don't judge the way others do, I don't just use labels myself. I really believe that someone can have all the thoughts and feelings of one sex but the body of another, yes, it must be hell.

I am sorry that you didn't have the nurturing that you needed (((Silent))). That does really effect our ability to connect with others, much like what you describe too. Well, I had a loving mother but I had abusive siblings (CSA) and I was the youngest so I have real trust issues myself. I know my childhood is a big part of who I am today as well, and yes, it is a part of everyone, whether they know it or not, human beings are designed that way.

Well, just because your base is in the arts, don't sell yourself short, your very capable of fanning out from that, more than you know. I think that studying psychology should be good to fit in there as well. Now I am not saying to make that a passion, but, keep it there, even if just for yourself. And because of the way you can pick up on so much about other people, that is also a gift so keep that in mind. It was one of my gifts too, only I didn't know it until the past few years and I am far from 18.
It is mentioned constantly in therapy by different therapists, but at my age I don't want to hear anymore about I should have been this or that or that I somehow missed my calling. Yeah, after years of abusive people telling me to shut up I don't know what I am talking about and then have professionals tell me the complete opposite, does wonders for the psychie at my age.

Personally I don't catagorize hope and optimism as the same. When we buy a lottery ticket we hope we will win. When I work on my recovery with PTSD I am optimistic my brain can be plastic enough to heal in time. Although I know they are very close in meaning, for me optimism has just a bit more to it than just hope alone there is a little bit of justification to it that hope alone doesn't quite have.

So, what kind of art are you drawn to most? What is your favorite medium? What are your favorite artists?

Open Eyes

Yea the only real happiness I get from my life is from distracting myself from reality by watching tv, playing video games, and reading. Although sometimes even those hobbies I like feel pointless to me and I cant distract myself from my unhappiness. I guess having some little things in life to distract me from being unhappy is better than nothing.

I love poetry as well, but this is not a "My Age" deal, the only thing I've ever wanted to be throughout my entire life thus far is an artist.

It does seem odd at first how others don't notice the same but then you have to realize that they aren't the ones sitting there listening. Their minds are off elsewhere or they just can't pick apart signals.

I don't mean to sound callus, but do not bring up abortion in my presence, I've been in enough debates on the issue recently. I disagree with it. Strongly in all circumstances except those which save the mother's life- let's leave it there.

It is, the past few weeks alone he has been so upset that he's very much torn over the idea of killing himself. He does not want to live the way he is, but he can't stand to think what might happen if he failed.

I was the oldest, we have our fair share of difficulty, such as having to fight tooth and claw for every privilege the younger siblings will get a free ride on.

Psychology is my minor.

I don't either. I'm saying I don't see the optimism, rather I see the hope.

Pencil is my favorite medium and my first, but I experiment in everything. Digital art is where i have been focusing recently, as I would like to animate in the future. Feel free to examine my Deviantart Gallery http://kaiariandneji.deviantart.com/gallery/?catpath=/ Most of my favorite artists are modern artists and can be found on this site. I know them only by username.

I have been where you are. I hope this link will help you all; it helped me a lot:encyclopediadramatica.se/You