Do you ever feel like you are living a pointless life?

You have to make your own meaning. Find something useful to do.

But you don't always feel that way, right?



I could say the same about my father. I think a lot of people feel that way.

Long term everything is pointless. Surviving is the art of tricking yourself that between now and death there will be enough moments you enjoy to make the rest of existence bearable.

Some people take the religious route to find"meaning", but others look closer into the "me" which is seeking that meaning. You don't have to be a Buddhist to notice the inconsistency of "self". You might eventually come to recognize that "that which seeks meaning" or "that which wishes to stand apart from society" are just two members of an argumentative committee we call "self".

So a potential solution "in depth" (to use your phrase) is to transcend the "me with the problem" by recognizing its parochial nature. The view from that transcendent position can have a very different quality to it compared with that of "selves".

buy a farm. You will never live with any doubt thereafter. With so many lives depending upon your care you never have time for doubt.

You got a thumbs up from me on that.

It's only been in recent years that I realized I was trying to live up to some artificial expectations created by others saying we have to "do" something with our lives.

In the past year/year and a half my life has been mostly pointless, and quite happy and content.

Amen, Chai.

I am, for the most part, happy and content.

I am not searching for some over-riding "meaning"...other than to enjoy existence and my stay here. If I can make a contribution or two to the general existence (and I like to think I have)...so much the better.

As we are often reminded, this is not a dress rehearsal!

My life is not pointless but it is unfulfilled and unappreciated. I feel the Universe keeps me alive to care for my handicapped son (which I do not regret or resent) and be a human ATM machine for everyone else. I accept it and even though I'm stating my feelings I'm not whining about them. I have never considered life to be a happy proposition but rather something given to us we didn't ask for with just enough happy moments to keep us pulling the plow.

Have you read Albert Camus' 'The Myth of Sisyphus'? It's an examination the idea of the relentless pointlessness of existence, and an argument of what to do with it. I find him more agreeable than other pessimists like Sartre as he advocates that what we are supposed to do is fight against the pointlessness in some way, as other a2kers have suggested to an extent here.

It doesn't seem like anyone has said that. It feels like you twisted words just enough to have them fit the message you wanted to portray.

Why fight it?

When you realize the pointlessness of it all, you're acknowledging you're a part of the universe. It doesn't exist for any purpose. Neither do we. Might as well enjoy what we can.

That's certainly not a sad thought to me.

Why are we supposed to have a point as compared to anything else?

Do you ever feel like you are living a pointless life?

only when i'm awake

Evidently then Dj you don't have the same sorts of dreams as I

This may sound odd, but I find a certain relief in feeling that my life is pointless. I'd like to further develop the ability satisfied with just riding the wave and seeing where it takes me. I don't need a grand design or to be an important part of one; I just need to be satisfied with whatever's going on at the moment. YMMV.

FBM, agree wholeheartedly. Life is three brews Tuesday and popcorn Friday and Sunday

Relief. Yes that's the word.

I'm sure we (meaning, Dale, hingehead, Frank & djjd) are causing a lot of people to scratch their heads.

Pointless? No purpose? Aren't you miserable?

Hell no.

Life being pointless doesn't preclude you from doing kind, interesting, fun things. I think I enjoy these things more because I'm not looking to do these things to find meaning or purpose to my life.

Perhaps the need to have a point to your life is really the fear of death.

I bit of a vent here. This is why I find the term "bucket list" rather stupid. Ok, a lot stupid. It's the latest thing, gotta have a bucket list. Can't die without having done something we can facebook or tell about, to show others how cool we are. There are even websites to tell us what we should want to do before we're gone.

No, that's what You want me to do, so when I'm gone you can make yourself feel better by saying "At least she had a full life."

My full life is not anyone elses. I would worry my life wasn't full when I thought about what was supposed to make it full in the eyes of the world.

Now, I'm a little closer to just saying "I am"

Thanks for that vent.

Yeah, I jettisoned the idea of accepting others' values with regards to what I "should" accomplish or experience before I die. I had a bucket list once, long before that movie came out. Not putting others' ideas on that list is the reason I wound up here in Korea. Incidentally, I've done everything on that list and haven't bothered to make another.

Stolen from Tumblr:

Wow. Thanks for that.

I've always been confused by people saying they feel so small when they think about the faraway stars, and the universe. Well, yeah, we are small. It doesn't make me feel empty, I feel a part of it all.

When I was a wee Chai, I used to get up in the middle of the night in the summer and go to the window. I'd open it and the screen, sit on the sill and lean out backwards, holding onto the sash. I watch the stars and lose myself in them.

I get the feeling that many/most people don't ever think about what's beyond the blue of the sky during the day, or that stars are anything else but some lights in the sky.

It's harder to get worked up about having a meaning or a point to your life when you see the reality.

I hear ya. I used to go outside at night, lie in the grass or on the hood of the car and just stare at the stars for hours. Feeling small didin't make me feel bad in the least. To the contrary, really.

Speaking of sky, the Geminid meteor shower is peaking this weekend. Now if only these clouds would go away!