having an existential crisis?

I'm a perpetual existential crisis. It's one of my charms.

Sounds like you need a better job. The "crap and tedium" of "hours and hours spent at the office" doesn't have to be part of your life. I enjoy my job, for the most part. Every now and then something comes up where I say to myself "crap, this sucks", but for the most part it's enjoyable.

i find a lot of ways that relief is the most satisfaction i get.
don't covet the struggle
but if and when you do learn to appreciate what you have for the sake of having it--
--i forget how old you are but try to separate things into true need (food, air, shelter, etc.) and want--
--actually i shouldn't say anything--
but if you try being mindful or really aware of the world around you or not losing a sense of wonder--

pphhhtt

in a lot
should eat something

i was going to write something totally different but you've incidentally given me the whim And mood to really appreciate eating something for the first time today and watching the some dvds of the last season of angel, diving into a book, or taking a long bath after a long assy day--
hmm, wow
thanks

In this, dame, we are nearly polar opposites - yet I have a very close friend who feels almost exactly as you do. Her pessimism doesn't irritate me, and my optimism doesn't nauseate her, though, and we do end up laughing at each other a great deal, so it works out nicely.

yeah, dame, be all cheery so i can be the maladroit
i hate being the voice of reason
the irony is painful
*off to bathe*

Ironically dame, while you were posting that, I was writing the following to an old friend in Portland, OR.

I cannot even begin to articulate sheer crazy awesomeness of my life at this point. Knock down drag out, beat down salad, blood, sweat and tears, real life living, meet me on my level while life sinks back on its heels and winds up the next wallop and keep it coming, don't you dare stop awesome. I don't understand it, cannot define, describe or divine it and yet I can and do because here it is. Life with intention. Bring it.

I'm surrounded by people with as much lust for life as I have. A brilliant, affectionate pack of mongrels running rampant and converging, again and again. Electric, exhausting, utterly fulfilling and invigorating. It remains everything I thought it would be and so much more.... Things is good down here.

And earlier today, I read this:

Work is love made visible. And if you cannot work with love but only with distaste, it is better that you should leave your work and sit at the gate of the temple and take alms of those who work with joy.
-Kahlil Gibran

Everyone's got a story that has its points of suffering. Mine involved a childhood and early adulthood subject to others' addiction driven needs and decisions and a cubic fuckton of time and energy figuring out how to avoid what looked like a living hell.

Essentially, I was too much of a punkass scrapper to go down without a fight. If for no other reason than as quoted above, I knew there was SO much amazingness out there to be experienced, I was damned if I was going to be cheated out of it because the people who should have been raising me couldn't keep their mouths off the hooch & paws off the smack. In the end, I'm thankful as I learned great deal from their mistakes. Painfully, but thoroughly.

But these days are mine. I've earned them and while I know that I'll never experience every wonder available, there's world enough and time to take in as much as I can and hopefully pave the way for others to do the same.

Additionally, I harbor no illusions that bad times aren't just around the corner. They always are, it's a simple fact of life. The trick for me is knowing that the good times are also just around the corner. They usually happen all at the same time in a big messy heap. But I'll take my own headshakingly silly mess of good and bad over a vapid and vacuous existence.

Don't get me wrong, there's nothing wrong with getting down and dirty with a proper sense of morbidity and I indulge in it for shits and grins from time to time, but I still can't help but be a little overwhelmed by the incredible nature of this life, both good and bad.

I’m a pessimist by inclination, though less so in recent years than I once was. If you are young, you might find likewise that this stuff bothers you a little less as you get a little older. Personally, I find a peverse comfort in contemplating thoughts by those even more pessimistic than myself, for example:

‘This is a world that will, in any case, be destroyed at some time. Working for its destruction seems pointless. It is impossible to save. Between these two facts, life must be lived.’—Paavo Haavikko.

The greatest power one may possess—in any situation—is simply not to care what happens. In fact, it’s the only power, all others being a semblance and mockery of it. But you must also not care about possessing the power itself. So fuck it.—Thomas Ligotti.

I sympathise entirely dame. My problem with statements like that is that I just can't relate to that view at all - I mean, sure, I don't want to die but it isn't because the world is such a beautiful and complex place.

I've found for myself that I prefer working hard for my kicks, that just having things handed to me on a plate makes them less enjoyable. Once you start working to bring together the things you want from life maybe you'll feel a bit differently - maybe you'll feel that the tedium is almost worth it.

But these days are mine. I've earned them and while I know that I'll never experience every wonder available, there's world enough and time to take in as much as I can and hopefully pave the way for others to do the same.

Additionally, I harbor no illusions that bad times aren't just around the corner. They always are, it's a simple fact of life. The trick for me is knowing that the good times are also just around the corner. They usually happen all at the same time in a big messy heap. But I'll take my own headshakingly silly mess of good and bad over a vapid and vacuous existence.

What she said. : >

I think we have enormous power to make our lives more interesting, or better, or worse, or not as dull, or quieter or louder, etc. (we even have a little left over to help affect others' lives--hopefully for the better)

Okay, no more crappy cheery shit. I know you feel that way. People who feel that way never just shut the fuck up! We all get it now. That's great. Go start a thread about kittens and puppies and how glorious life is. I am asking about crankiness.

I'm cranky too, hon. I often feel that there is no point, everything is controlled by evil agents of the illuminati or annoying minor demons, take your pick, and I personally would have been happier born in some other time/body/place. Or something. I used to wonder sometimes what happens to people who are born with great talents for which the technology does not yet exist, like what would Kurosawa have done in 1515, without a film camera? Ansel Adams in the 8th century? Sometimes I think I am one of those people.

Not that I don't have occasional redeeming moments of faith & beauty & Hope & peace & all - I do - they're just that, moments. But I guess we just have to live by lurching through the chaos from moment of grace to moment of grace. Personally I enjoy it a lot more if I can inject some bitter humor into all situations. There is nothing so dismal it cannot be laughed at.

But we're cranky too, sometimes. I'm very cranky lately, bec. of work too (and the heat, which sucks the life right out of me). It's times like this that i need distractions, diversions, laughter, tears, etc more than ever.

Yes, but amberglow there is a substantial qualitative difference between the experience of crankiness with an underlying (and IMHO unfathomable) sense that "we have enormous power to make our lives more interesting, or better, or worse, or not as dull, or quieter or louder, etc." and the impression that while nice things happen they don't make up for the crap and tedium that are generally our lot. (And argybarg, I don't mean simply in the work sense--my job is pretty decent.)

dame, are you talking about crankiness or a sense of futility?

Dame:
I came to the realization after years of activism that the powers that be will not relenquish their power, and the vast majority of people prefer to be led around as sheep...this crushed my heart. I wandered around the country aimless and hopeless, enjoying friends and family...then i found love. And just recently lost it...back to wandering aimless among friends and family.

Don't you love a farce?

The answer to your question? You have to decide whether you care about anything enough to let it bring you down.

I had to stop caring about anything but close friends and family...screw darfur, screw iraq, screw the environment, etc....these things bring me back to the inherent suffering of the powerless. This will NEVER change. I will not claim complete apathy, sometimes the world knocks me down and kicks me in the teeth. Sometimes the world gives you a break, provides impossible coincidences that bring you great joy...but it will not last forever, or it will.

Futility-derived crankiness. Well, I don't think futility is the full explanation, though. There is some sense of it of course--notably in the sense that I could manufacture a purpose, but that would be pointless because I would know it was manufactured.

But more generally, it was just wondering if I was the only one who found notions like "the wonder of X just makes me feel lucky to be alive" totally unfathomable. I mean, I'm alive cause I came out that way and because I haven't the inclination to make me not alive. So I muddle through. But it isn't fun or special or profound. Mostly it's boring and annoying.

By the way, mygoth, the glass is excellent.

The wonder of X makes me feel lucky to be alive, but the despair of Y makes me feel sad to be human...

Well ok, then. Let's dispense with the crappy cheery shit and cut to the chase.

No, you're not the only one who believes that life is mainly tedium, that interacting with intelligent people doesn't mitigate the pain of dealing with dolts, and that the world's beauty only serves to briefly punctuate its general ugliness. I work with a lot of other people who do as well. Some of them are old, lifers at a job they hate. Their bitterness has lost whatever charm or quixotic edge it once had and has settled into a permanent stain. It's a fine acid that's lined their faces and etched into every word they say -- words meant to sound so world-weary and wise, but that actually sound like ceaseless petty boring bitching. It's remarkable just how many stupid people they find to hold in contempt, and how worthwhile it is to them to use their vastly superior abilities to cut them to pieces. It's almost as remarkable as their ability to blind themselves to their own stupidities and generous contributions to the ugliness they suppose themselves imprisoned by.

I flee those people like the fucking plague they are and would throw myself off a spectacularly sunset cliff before becoming one of them. I've come close, when I stopped doing anything creative for a few years and just did a circuit from home to work to nights out and back while slowly becoming a bitch on wheels. Then I fell in love -- real love, not just a nice fling to while away the hours -- and started writing again, and making music, and it melted that creeping frost off me like spring. There are other paths out, but they all start with love -- for some person, for some pursuit, for something other than endless absorption in your own smug self. And I'm glad I found one, because I hated looking in the mirror and seeing a woman with a mean little mouth and hard eyes looking back.

That's pretty unfair, melissa may. For one, you have no idea what sort of love anyone's got. For another, you assume a world-weariness where that isn't implied. It isn't as though one looks at the sunset and is like, "Yeah, who cares." It is pretty. There is nothing I like better than a foggy October night, with red and yellow leaves sticking to the pavement and a pervasive hush. Other than some recent annoyance, I like my job. I find pleasure in plenty of things. And yet--

That's it. The and yet. I'm glad you aren't someone you hate anymore, but I don't hate me. In some ways I'm sorry the scale doesn't weigh out on the optimist side. But that doesn't mean I'm going to whip myself into some sort of optimistic frenzy that I know I don't believe in. I'll take the farces and the bitter humor and the bafflement, thanks. And those people who think I'm some plague, harshing their mellow, can slowly and gently fuck the fuck off.

You're right, I was unfair. Just as it's unfair to presume that the kittens and puppies crowd are all somehow wired that way at birth, or that their lives are an unrelenting kitten and puppy parade. I wasn't born an optimist, and I don't think I'll ever truly be one. I still smell shit. I just don't want to wallow in it, or routinely fling it at other people as a mark of how honest and tough I am anymore.

Reconsider what Frisbee Girl had to say. Lust for life wasn't handed to her -- she clawed her way out of profound misery to get it for herself. She fought for her happiness. I suspect amberglow had to do much the same. That's not fake cheery bullshit. That's the hard-earned right of a person who's had to make the best of a bitter road. It deserves better respect than you give it.

However, I am sorry for implying that you had no love or that the love you have isn't good enough. That was wrong. But I am just as offended by assumptions like yours that fighting for happiness marks one as somehow less comprehending of pain or the world's miseries, or any less baffled by them. If you like yourself so much, and are willing to forgive your own flaws so readily, retain some of that feeling for people who do not choose as you do.

Ah, dame, I feel that I owe you an apology as my initial comment was not in the spirit of your post and helped drive the thread in a direction that you didn't want to go.

I was making no attempt at a judgement call or offering advice on how to fix or change your attitude or perspective. In fact, you seem rather comfortable with your disgruntled, futility-derived crankiness (if I may be so brave as to paraphrase your descriptions), so it would be pretty egotistical of me to try and change that. My intent was to offer another perspective and one that wasn't saccharine, but I do see how it was poor posting etiquette.

Again, apologies.

Crikey.

Thanks for the apology, Frisbee Girl, though I have to say it really isn't necessary. It was amberglow, with the evil smiley that kinda drove me batty. You made an intersting, if frustrating, point. Amberglow (who I do have great affection for) just took the sacchrine bit and said, "Yay! I believe in life!" which was what I was talking about.

And frankly, melissa may, the difference is I didn't go into a post about "tell me how wonderful the world is" and throw a big insulting hissy there. I started my very own hissy thread. So, no, it isn't the same thing.

When I'm in one of those "shiny, happy moments" I feel it does make up for the shit life throws at you. Sadly, those moments are few and far between. When in one of those shitty moments, I feel such despair (maybe that's the word your looking for, dame) and know that life is pointless, it won't get better and there's no reason to continue.

We all feel despair sometimes, and yeah, life is largely tedium. But, at the risk of sounding cliched,it's often all in the way you look at it. Life is sometimes a blast. Not in some overriding, "ah, the wonder of it all!" type of way, but in the small joys that happen in the process of being alive. Which beats the alternative. And if it's any consolation, the way we feel about shit is mostly chemical. I've known people from miserable circumstances who are downright cheerful and people in great situations who are miserable. I careen between euphoria and despair a lot myself.

If all else fails, there's beer.

Nah, deborah. Despair is much more visceral. I think crankiness is it.

Anyone, thanks everyone for your responses. It seems the answer is, no, most people do think the good stuff outweighs the bad, but for taz's best friend, mygothlaundry, and dodgygeezer. Or something like that.

So am I really the only one who is this cranky?
Ha! I see your cranky and raise you a pissed-off. Pissed off that I got to be over 40 and don't seem to have achieved anything much. Pissed off that I wasted my youth by using my energy in ways that were wasteful and useless and now it's gone. Despite being an optimist at heart, I can't help but feel that things should be better and that, damnit, I deserve better. Pissed off that I am so cranky, too, because I have a nagging feeling that none of this would bother me so much if I wasn't so cranky.

sometimes nice things happen, and sometimes nature is cool, but I don't think it makes up for the crap and tedium that are the mainstay of the human condition.
Exactly. Exactly right.

You're one of those "Glass is 9/10ths empty" types, I can tell.

Surprisingly not - even though I am generally pretty cranky about the state of my life, I am ever optimistic that it will improve, despite all evidence to the contrary. I guess you could say I think the glass is half empty, but I expect it to start filling up soon.