I stand up, I look out my window at the big city. I think ‘how is any of this real, and why do I have to age and eventually die?’
I wake up in the morning in my weird little flat. I wonder to myself, ‘so this is it, huh? I just do this until my body fails?’
I cook myself a meal. I find out how a museum works behind the scenes. I get a tour of an office. I see my friends go out. I book a movie ticket. I work out. I watch a comedian. I listen to a podcast. All of these things just make me ponder what the point of it all is. Am I doing it wrong? Am I doing it pretty well? Why should I accumulate all this knowledge if I’m just going to die? What’s the point in watching my stupid obscure movies that I can’t even talk to people about? Am I missing out on the human experience?
Realistically I’m a happy ape. All my needs are satisfied. But I am a sad human.
I think it’s all linked to graduating. The pressures on to do well, the workload is racking up, and then once that’s all done I just get thrown into the real world. That’s it. Then it truly is just doing the same thing over and over. Then it really is a question of survival. Would it be better to just be a dumb neolithic huntsman who is grateful for his bed of fur in his cave? What the fuck did those guys even think of when they took psychedelics? Well, spirits, I know, but wow, the things in their head must’ve been so original. If I do them, most of my thoughts are just about the garbage I’ve watched, and my modern worries that are worrisome but relatively tame.
Is this just a normal thing to go through, and then you get on with it and accept that this is just how things are?
Maybe life is simply starting to get to me, and time will tell if I crack under pressure.
Im 44. It is just work, eat, sleep, work, eat, sleep for me. I make jokes, i laugh at jokes. I interact with other humans regularly, but im not happy. Im not suicidal, but im not happy either.
I am a plumber by trade. Ive been doing this a long time now. I hold a couple professional licenses in the state i reside in. This is what i will do until im buried. I have moments where i enjoy what i do, but those moments are more and more fleeting. Its mostly just frustration though. Frustration because something went wrong, or parts didnt arrive when they were supposed to, or because i have to squeeze just one more service call in on a Friday at 445pm. Frustration because i got a weekend emergency call and its going to end up tanking my whole Saturday or Sunday and then Monday is back on deck. I make ok money but it isnt enough to vacation, or do anything to break up the monotony. It isnt enough to retire on. I will work until the day im six feet under. It isnt professional burnout. It isnt a midlife crisis because im not trying to relive my youth, or fuck 20 year olds, or drive a red convertible or anything like that. Its life burnout.
Ive struggled with the thought of ‘This is it, Feinsteins_Ghost. This is your life. This is how its going to be forever.’ Also always struggled with why am i doing this? Why am i in YET ANOTHER continuing ed class? Why am i reading fucking plumbing code books? Why bother? I might not even wake up tomorrow, and if theres an afterlife, im going to look back and see that i wasted my last night on Earth looking thru manufacturer literature verifying the correct lockup pressure on a goddamned propane regulator.
The struggle is fucking real, and it slaps me in the face daily. Whats the point is a very valid question to ask.
the worst is I know that thousands of people in the global south died so this could happen and I don’t want it, I want less, I can afford less, I don’t need this much and they need more, but I can’t do much myself to truly rectify the situation
every day
would you mind me prodding you for where you’re at in life? Have you begun the ‘work, sleep, work, sleep, work, die’ cycle yet?
hahahahahaha fuck me
well if it means anything you don’t come off as a 40 year old at all
not kidding if you ever wrote up your thoughts about it all and how you’ve gotten this far I’d love to read them
no pressure of course I know that’s also potentially just an extra chore
No, in fact, I am very deliberately not thinking about this
I studied philosophy most of my life, graduated a relatively long time ago, have been involved in the Left for many years, am a reasonable but very religious person, and these thoughts still not only occur to me regularly but also still shake me to my core.
You may very well have these thoughts for the rest of your life.
But it’s better to have them than to not. Just be forgiving to yourself.
