Social sadness

For so many people, life looks meaningless. We are on roller-coasters mentally.
To quote Pascal: “Nothing is more intolerable for men than a state without purpose, without goals”
For man works fine, as long as it keeps focus, as long as it doesn’t have to think too much, as long as it feels that it matters. A proven reality of being useful to society.

Many people walk around with a makeshift attitude to life. They live only conditionally, only in the present. They stop making plans for the longer term. They stop setting goals.
If it’s one’s sense of purpose to remain useful, to have a job, and that thus is a resource for the community, that could give you a feeling of belonging. But to be in a state of mind where you’re feeling low, blue or depressed, how will you overcome it. When you feel emptiness, a feeling of meaningless, a feeling that nothing matters, and nothing is everything, and everything is nothing. Really, nothing. How do you keep yourself floating above the surface?

This feeling also occurs in a figurative sense, the feeling of existential emptiness, a feeling that life lacks goals and content. People living a life in routines, and suddenly they get time to think. Suddenly everything seems so pointless. I guess a lot of us who have experienced the great pleasure of being drunk, just loves the day after. Hangover. Bad visions. Bad memories. Regret. Emptiness. You are feeling sentiment de vide.  Thoughts that may arise is that yesterday was totally pointless. You sit there with a headache and think that you should never drink again, and you’re allready dreading the job Monday morning. “Why?” You think. “Why am I doing this?” You say to yourself that you are not going to drink, ever again. And you know it’s a lie. Ask yourself;  “how do I change the situation?” “How do I change the outcome?”

Nietzsche said: “He who lives with a ‘why’, can withstand almost any ‘how'” This means that the consciousness that one’s life has a purpose, more than anything else help a person to overcome external and internal harassment’s. For those of you who have seen American Beauty, you will perhaps recognize the main character’s emotional existential meaninglessness. He set himself the typical questions about why and what, and concludes with a how. He quits his job and change his miserable life. He starts giving a fuck. Similar scenario in Fight Club.

Dostoevsky: “Man; a being who gets used to everything” Man is on the run from inner emptiness and desolation, during the flight crashing into a jumble of questions and empty boxes. Questions about life, themselves and the universe. People get lost in their thoughts. The tanks are stuck on a rolling tape in a circle. Man is by nature animated by a will to meaning, a yearning or a meaningful existence and struggle to achieve this goal. When this fails it is to believe that man is trying to numb the feeling of emptiness and intoxicate themselves by whatever satisfaction they can get their hands on, whatever that may mean personally. Sex, love, drugs, food, porn, social media etc. The will for desire occurs in the arena when one is standing there empty handed and disillusioned with nowhere to go. No meaning. No fulfillment. No goals. No visions for one self.

Love is the greatest thing in life, so I live in altruistic spirit to my fellow man. But I still see nothing wrong in people working for themselves, build their character and live in the belief that it will ultimately serve humanity. Yes, we are social beings. Individual unique snowflakes that together form a great white winter. But when summer comes, and we all melt away from each other, what do you want to be next?