Member Since: September 22, 2006
Answers: 205
Last Update: February 1, 2007
Visitors: 16636
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I can’t help but feel as though I’m not headed anywhere good.
I have not one, not two, but three mental disorders, one of which they discovered in me. Lucky, no? The first one, depression, was discovered when I was in seventh grade (I’m in ninth now) and pushed me to attempt suicide several times. I got over that and moved straight on to anxiety, which proceeded to generally be a bitch to me in all areas. Then, my doctor managed to identify the third one, which I’d had for years. That’s the unidentified one, which I like to call “Emotionless Bastard Syndrome”. Basically, my emotions turn off, sometimes when provoked and sometimes for no particular reason. I’ll be somewhere and I’ll just go completely numb.
Over the past few years, I’ve started to feel more and more… Distant. I’ve read very heavy books and graphic novels, and grow more and more disgusted by my own species. I wrote this, which is probably not a good sign:
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Dear Humanity,
What the fuck happened?
I mean this in all seriousness. You were doing so well. Genuinely, I think everyone expected you would turn out great. You certainly had an excellent start…. You discovered the wheel, fire, electricity, and a whole lot of complicated nuclear stuff. I was always able to overlook your shortcomings because of your promising future, but now this shit has gone too far. You’ve pushed your luck, folks.
Where to start? I guess the first thing I should mention is this little consumer ideal thing you’ve got going for you. You just can’t stop buying shit… And not even shit you need, stupid shit. There’s also bullshit, but I’ll get to that later. So anyway, you kicked off with all this capitalism and free enterprise stuff and that seemed like it was working out, better than communism in any event. But then you got your second addiction, and this addiction was to buying. Didn’t matter what, you would buy pretty much anything and everything regardless of whether you needed it or not. Once again, began pretty innocent. You had free enterprise, you could buy or sell whatever shit you needed, and it was good. But Jesus Christ. How many brands of vacuum cleaners need to fucking exist in the first place? Humanity, I sentence you to watch the movie Fight Club about eight hundred times.
Next, how about we talk about ignorance. This is another strong one, particularly amongst the young. Now, for fuck’s sake, you guys are inheriting the future, and this is the kind of mindset you’ve got? There’s other people starving all over the world, there are kids with dads who rape them every night, and the best complaint you have is about the color of your god damn iPod? Also, if there’s a country that represents the human mindset, it’s America. You use up 80% of the world’s resources, ignore the counsel of other countries, invade smaller nations whilst trying to force your system of government upon them, and have the balls to call yourself leader of the fucking free world? Christ, Teddy Roosevelt would be rolling over in his grave.
And while we get to the subject of invasion and wars, I would like to politely ask the lot of you to sit and wait for five fucking minutes before blowing each other up for once. Come the fuck on. It seems like as soon as everybody has their conflicts resolved and they don’t give a shit about their differences, someone gets greedy or stupid or pissed and decides to find another reason to kill people. And before you know it, BAM! War. Another fucking war. Who’d have guessed? Whether it be for revenge or land or money or resources or women or honor or stupidity, it seems vital to you that you kill a whole bunch of each other in order to satisfy you for a short period of time. Come on guys, at least be original.
Moving on, I’d like to point out the royally shitty job you’ve done of taking care of the place you got handed to you. It was classy, too: Millions of other species, vast geological wonders, and natural occurrences that could only be described as miracles, and you had to move in and burn all the forests and kill all the whales and destroy your fucking ozone. An ozone, I have to give you credit for that one. That’s impressive. I mean, it’s one thing to go out and be completely selfish bastards to all the other beings your sharing the planet with, but to destroy something that existed only for your protection in the god damn first place? Humanity, your incredible selfishness and short-sightedness remains unmatched. I can’t imagine. I just can’t imagine.
Now, lets move on to our most pressing matter, which would be bullshit. By this, I would mean the bullshit that you’ve clouded your worlds with. It’s on your news, in your books, filling up your churches… No fucking surprise it’s in your minds. Still not clear what bullshit is? You believing a woman who tells you that the 9/11 widows are all profiting from their husbands deaths, that’s bullshit. A politician who tells you that the rights of a lump of cells outrank those of a crippled man or a grandmother with Alzheimer’s, that’s bullshit. A Texan who tells you that someone else’s happiness detracts from his happiness, that’s bullshit. Every dinner table manner you’ve ever had to learn, every polite lie you’ve ever had to tell, every useless algebra fact they ever drilled into your brain, that’s all prime BS. And a clergy member who tells you that god is amidst all the burning bodies and screaming children? What you have here is real bullshit.
In the bullshit department, religion is the undisputed champion, and always has been. As usual, an innocent start: A bunch of people decide that life sucks and they don’t know what comes after it, so there’s some big guy in the sky who’s taking care of all that for them. I repeat: Come the fuck on. I really would think you would have gotten over this shit by now. This primitive idea has been defended in so many ways for so many years it grows sickening. “Why did god burn my house down?” He works in mysterious ways. “Why did he give me cancer?” We are all a part of his plan. “Why does he murder the children?” Their time on earth was done. Has it ever occurred to you that right now, and I mean right now, there are people who are living lives that will consist of more misery and less happiness than you could ever imagine? There comes a time where you just have to stop rationalizing and admit the blindingly obvious: You are alone in your sad little existence.
Humanity, your being has been a downward spiral for thousands of years, and I believe that you are now beyond redemption or any kind of savior. Buy your last clothes, kill your last enemies, suck your last drops of oil from the earth, and pray to whatever gods or myths you may wish. You were so promising… But your time has finally come. Like all species, you will fade into the past, where perhaps others will learn from your failure. But for now, all you can do is hope for the best.
Truly,
Me
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I began to feel as though the weight of the world was on my shoulders. Now, it seems as though I’m so inside myself that no one knows my true face… I hide behind a wall of atheism and skepticism, which is probably more curiosity gone wrong than a genuine staunch opinion. Every day I’d look up more and more reasons why God doesn’t exist… And boy did I find them. But I recently realized that what I’m looking for is not disproof: It’s proof. I want to believe so badly that someone out there more competent than humans handling this, but I just can’t bring myself to. I recently got a girlfriend, which helped a lot.
And now, I feel like I’m chasing a dream or a ghost of some sort. I’ll go onto Google and search for words like “meaning” or “answers”. I don’t know what I want, I don’t know why I want it, but I can’t stop wanting it… I just don’t know what’s going on. It’s like I’m slipping out of reality or falling out of the world. Thanks for reading this far. I guess I was hoping maybe somebody had answers.
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First I'd like a '5' for reading all of that. Especially considering I had to scroll down nearly 2 pages simply to get to the answer window.
But anyways, moving on.
You are hardly alone in this. We live in a world, and in a society, which seems awfully bleak to those that take a long, hard look at it. Some people cope (this is my opinion) by simply trying to fit in and not looking at the big picture, lest they be confronted with the reality of how sad things really are. People grab onto anything they can in order to bring structure and comfort into their lives, and to convince themselves that things aren't all that bad overall.
There are a lot of people that cannot go blindly out into this world of ours, embracing religion, politics and societal behavior without question. Its actually a sad thing, to be someone who simply cannot blind themselves to the worlds problems, because you won't get any answers, nor will you be able to solve anything. The world will continue to move along, and those who voice objections against the mainstream will be ridiculed and marginalized, whilst the mainstream sleeps happily and blissfully in their beds of ignorance and conformity.
When I was younger, I actually wished that I was stupid, or ignorant, and able to simply 'fit in'. Unfortunately that wasn't to be. I've slowly had my skin thickened, and I am somewhat careful not to reveal the full extent of my dissatisfaction with the world, with society, with just about everything. In the end I generally avoid political and religious arguments or debates like the plague. Not because I cannot hold my own against rational discourse, but rather because you wont even be arguing against anything rational at all. Mostly it will be blind adherence to tradition or convention, the same defenses over and over, and your using logic and reason will not work. Americans have become enamoured with simply refusing to concede the points of others, as if by doing so you will be unable to budge them from their blindly idiotic position. Simply pick and choose your battles carefully and be content that you aren't one of the billions of sheep that populate the earth.
You say that you "hide behind a wall of atheism and skepticism", but I don't believe that (I'd be just as apt to say that there are many who hide behind religion and political/social groups...its a double-edged blade). The problem is that the questions you want answers to are somewhat taboo; church officials aren't going to humor you with questioning religious truth, nor is anyone in general normally going to accept your bitter world view and critical assertions. Of course don't think I'm saying this to attack your point of view, I often see things in the same light - but surely you can grasp that this entire post of yours has a certain negative, acerbic tone to it. Thats just the nature of the situation.
The realizations you are having are bad, in the sense that you have opened your own Pandora's box, or eaten your own Fruit of Knowledge from Eden. It's too late to dumb yourself down, once you've started asking the questions it is too late. This is why I suspect some of the experienced leaders in religion try to dissuade people in general from asking too many critical questions; they know that once you reach a certain point, you will no longer be able to accept what they are presenting without question, and I believe many would rather you be ignorant and save your soul rather than to have you question the reality of truth and in the end logic your way out of religion entirely. In this I might disagree that they do this in general, but I can appreciate the intent and worry. I don't think those in religion do this out of anything but concern, as they've probably seen this happen from time to time.
Answers? Often others don't have the answers you seek, you need to find or create your own...especially when you craft your own questions. Its different for each individual.
Yeah, and I'd give you a '5' for reading this too, if I could. =]
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Rating: 5
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I was skeptical about giving you a 5 when you first mentioned it, but your advice was clearly well-thought-out. Thank you very much, and I will try and take it to heart.
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