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What's the point?


Guest Paul92

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Guest Paul92
6 hours ago, paradoxer said:

Life might be pointless,  I, incidentally, quite like the idea of us being victims of a cosmic joke, but when it's the focus of an OCD related obsession it doesn't warrant discussion. Want to philosophize? Fine, but don't mash it up with a obsessive disorder. 

Are you suggesting this isn't an OCD obsession?

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6 hours ago, Paul92 said:

Are you suggesting this isn't an OCD obsession?

Its definitely an OCD obsession because its causing you distress and you are responding with compulsions.

It doesn't matter what the topic is, any topic can become an obsession.  Some people have no issue pondering these types of questions, considering the possibilities.  They think about it for awhile, then get one with their day.  But for you, right now, its become an unhealthy obsession, you  are engaged in negative compulsive behaviors to try and resolve the intrusive thoughts.  Even your question to Paradoxer is an example of this, you are responding in a what if fashion to the obsession:  What if his post is saying it's NOT an OCD obsession? (theres the doubt, that its not an OCD obsession, that its a "real" problem you should be worrying about).

Maybe the world will end and humanity will go extinct one day, maybe it won't.  You don't know, you will almost certainly never know, and you don't NEED to know in order to get on with your life, even though you feel like you do now.  To move forward, to get past this, you have to accept that you can't find answers to this and you don't actually need to.  The harder you try and "solve" this problem, the more trapped you will become. The first step to getting out of a hole?  Stop digging!
 

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3 minutes ago, dksea said:

To move forward, to get past this, you have to accept that you can't find answers to this and you don't actually need to.  The harder you try and "solve" this problem, the more trapped you will become. The first step to getting out of a hole?  Stop digging!

Great Post ? :cheer:

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Hi Paul92. There’s been a switch. Your latest concern is that ‘life is infinite’  - after reading a spirituality site. Before it was ‘life is finite’. Interestingly, dksea refers to your previous theme of ‘life is finite’ in your last post by the nature of his reply. What is going on here?

Edited by Angst
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Paul92, you can't afford to tarry with this question. Why? Because for you it's OCD related. I recall going to dinner with a friend awhile ago, she offered me a hand wipe, I thanked her, and told her I couldn't afford the luxury. Decline the hand wipe. 

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Guest Paul92

I'm doing my absolute best to not engage with it. I just keep batting it away saying it's pointless to think about it. 

But every time I do something I just get the thought that everything is meaningless if we all die. I don't see any doubt here. I've woken up this morning with the most awful nervousness in my stomach. 

Today is another I will try and just not engage and do a good day's work. 

Thanks for the support, I know I go round in circles but you guys are all I've got and please know I am making a real effort, it's not wasted on me I promise 

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31 minutes ago, Paul92 said:

But every time I do something I just get the thought that everything is meaningless if we all die. I don't see any doubt here. I've woken up this morning with the most awful nervousness in my stomach. 

So what's happening. You get an intrusive thought appearing to corroborate the OCD core belief "what's the point if we are all going to die, world /universe will end etc". 

Now here is the key ? Connect with the core belief and intrusion e. g. "I don't feel doubt, it must be true" and you are playing into the hands of OCD - giving it strength power and frequency. 

It's all wasteful worthless nonsense, it really is. 

So expect those intrusions, those niggles, and treat them as that worthless nonsense. Like everyone else would. 

Edited by taurean
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Guest Paul92

I've been trying my best not to engage with it but it's just too much. I don't think I can do it.

I feel so detached from the world now. I can't even explain it. I have a constant nervousness in me, and I keep noticing things that seem to align with the teachings of Buddhism. How everything is impermanent. Which is freaking me out. Every single moment is a new moment, nothing seems real. I was looking forward to the weekend and spending it with this girl. We had a lovely time together, but I felt numb a lot of the time. I remember laying on the sofa with her feeling quite content, but all I could think about is that I know I will be thinking about this when I am at work the next day, which is where I am now. I just constantly notice time passing.  Normally I would have been belly laughing at some of the things, but I almost had to force myself to laugh. I was just so aware of time passing all the time and how no moment lasts at all. I just get this sense that this is going to go on for a long time and then before I know it, I will be dead along with everyone else.

What sort of creator would put a thing through this? Or let them be born into an illusion? It is so bloody cruel.

I looked forward to the weekend and now I am here at work, again. But then I will be home again. And so on and so on. To what end? Death and then nothing. And then the end of the universe. My uni studies have just resumed and I have zero motivation now. My motivation was to try and work to create a better world, but if we are guaranteed to go extinct, then what is the point?

I keep wondering, why are we here? The new age stuff says we are the universe experiencing itself and we can't be separated. This just keeps playing on my mind. Like I am not an individual. Then why create me? Why give me a brain, ears and eyes? Why do I have a nervous system? If the universe is a giant mind of infinite intelligence, why create humans?

People like Eckhart Tolle, Bentinho, Deepak Chopra have just fried my mind and I just don't know if I will ever be myself again. Partly because my head keeps telling me that a lot of it seems to make sense. But if I'm not supposed to have a mind, then why do I have one??

Before I looked at all that stuff, I was relatively happy. I knew that we all die, and I knew, in the back of my mind, that it is likely the universe will die. So why am I now feeling like this? It is such a strange sensation.

Edited by Paul92
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Guest Paul92
1 hour ago, PolarBear said:

So you used to feel fine. Then you read a bunch of philosophical stuff and ruminated like crazy to boot. Then you felt bad. Do you see what happened? Do you see the connection? 

To be honest, I'm not sure that I do. I feel as though I have just woken up to the realities of life. And the whole thing about time is just freaking me out. In everything that I do I feel like I've got Eckhart Tolle or someone sat on my shoulder telling me this or that, proving that there is no 'me' and I'm an illusion.

And still struggling what is the point in anything if the universe will ultimately end one day and we will all go extinct. I'd feel more comfortable if there was actual doubt about this, but the science seems pretty solid.

I honestly don't even know if this OCD this time. It's unbelievably hard to not think about when you are just constantly conscious of time moving and nothing being permanent. I just get thoughts like I feel like I am already dead... if it is inevitable.

Edited by Paul92
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Let me say it again.

You felt ok at one time. Then you did a bunch of compulsions. Then you felt bad. See? The compulsions are what made you feel bad. They are what are keeping your mind focused on this topic.

Edited by PolarBear
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7 hours ago, Paul92 said:

I honestly don't even know if this OCD this time.

Its definitely OCD.  

You have an intrusive thought that causes you anxiety/discomfort: Humanity/the world/the universe will some day end.

You engage in compulsive behavior:  Rumination, investigation and analysis of that thought to try and "solve" it.

Thats all it takes, its OCD.

 

7 hours ago, Paul92 said:

I'd feel more comfortable if there was actual doubt about this, but the science seems pretty solid.

There is doubt, plenty of it, but even if there wasn't it doesn't matter.  No amount of anxiety or worry or rumination will change the reality of the universe.  It is what it is.

In the meantime you have two choices:

  1. Spend all your time and energy focusing on something that you have no power over, wasting whatever time you DO have, and being miserable about it.
  2. Live your life, be happy some times, sad at others, and accept that you may never know what it was all for (if anything) but you enjoyed it while you could.

Path 1, which you are focused on now, does no good for you or anyone, so why do it?  You can choose to take a different path, and accepting that these fears are part of OCD is a big part of getting past them.

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Guest Paul92

Thanks guys. Again, don't think your words are lost on me. I try so hard to put it into place, I really really do.

Over the weekend I didn't do any Googling or anything and then when I got to work yesterday I just felt terrible and I did get involved in researching the universe and quantum mechanics etc. I just felt really weird like I was living a lie.

When I dismiss the spirituality stuff, I just start to notice how impermanent everything is. Every single moment. Everything we do comes and goes so fast. It is like it has already happened. I am so conscious of time passing. If I eat something, the taste is impermanent. One minute I am at home, next I am back at work. Everything is moving so quick. It makes my stomach turn. But then it just reinforces the stuff about Buddhism and the new age stuff. How we are not individuals, we just think we are because of our ego, and that ultimately WE ARE the universe. We were never born and we will never die, we are just an event, just particles coming and going to create something that for some reason thinks it is separate to everything. Nothing is under 'my' control because there is no me..

I've even tried googling anxiety about time passing and all I find it is Buddhists and new agers saying that you have seen through the illusion etc and you need to accept it or live a lie etc.

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Guest Paul92

Life is utterly utterly pointless. We all die. Everything dies. There is no point. We all know it, but I think I've just realised it.

I honestly don't know if I want to be here anymore. I am so tired of all this. Why delay the inevitable?

There's no point in trying to enjoy the experience, because it doesn't last. You're just delaying the inevitable. Life is meaningless, it really really is. How can nobody see this?

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There is nothing solid about science Phil, nothing at all.

Remember the time when scientists thought the sun was sub-servient to - and orbited round - the earth?

Who knows what discoveries are yet to be made? I find that exciting, not a threat. 

LIfe is for living, not worrying, agonising, carrying out compulsions - that's the waste in this debate, not life itself.  

Edited by taurean
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It was not science that thought that the sun orbited the earth. It was the whole world and the religious order. Galileo used the scientific method to prove otherwise. A very novel and innovatory approach at the time. The Church thought it was heresy. Science is about method and open mindedness.

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14 hours ago, Paul92 said:

Life is utterly utterly pointless. We all die. Everything dies. There is no point. We all know it, but I think I've just realised it.

I don't want to go too far down this road, because honestly it becomes reassurance and I don't think that will do you any good, but I want you to start recognizing that what you are saying here is merely opinions and interpretations not facts.  You are treating them as facts when they simply aren't.

Take your first statement for example:  "Life is utterly pointless"
Can you prove this?  Can you test this?  Can you repeat the experiment and verify that yes, indeed there is no point?  Of course you can't, because the point of life is different for each person.  You declare that life is utterly pointless, but I don't think so, and I fully accept that I will almost certainly die one day.  Its even likely that everyone will.  I still don't think that means life is pointless.

You are asserting, as fact, something that is mere opinion, that in order for life to have meaning it must have permanence.  This. is not, I repeat, NOT a fact.  You can believe ti as a choice (though I don't recommend it) but it is not something you can prove. It is 100% something you have to CHOOSE to believe.   Personally I don't believe it.  I believe there is meaning in life even if its not permanent.  You are free to disagree, but that doesn't mean you are right and I am wrong, it means you have made one choice and I have made another.  The difference is you have made a choice that leads only to suffering and pain, and I have made a choice that allows for happiness, joy, contentment, and overall the ability to continue to experience freely whatever it is that my life includes, however long that may be.  Our fates and the ultimate fate of the universe may be inevitable (we don't know for sure) but our choices aren't, WE make them.  You can continue to struggle with this unanswerable question all you want, you can engage in the compulsive rumination and checking and researching and it will continue to cause you pain or you can make a choice to change your actions and change your thinking.  I hope you will, I hope you will choose the option that allows for your to enjoy life, however much of it you have.  Yes time passes, but that is independent of whether life has meaning and what meaning you ultimately give to it.

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7 hours ago, Angst said:

It was not science that thought that the sun orbited the earth. It was the whole world and the religious order. Galileo used the scientific method to prove otherwise. A very novel and innovatory approach at the time. The Church thought it was heresy. Science is about method and open mindedness.

Side issue, so I don't want to get too far down this rabbit hole, but yes absolutely the scientific method was also applied to the hello-centric model.  The Platonic' conception of the way the heavens worked was based on verifiable observation and it could predict both the past and future apparent movement of the heavens with reasonable accuracy.  Was it also influenced by the prevailing religious world view at the time?  Certainly, but it was still something that people could independently verify by watching the movements of the stars and planets themselves and applying the Platonic model to those measurements.  Ultimately it was supplanted by Copernicus and later Galileo's model because it fit the data better, in addition to being simpler and more straightforward, but it too could possibly be supplanted someday if an even better model which matches the observable data works even better.  Science is not absolute, it is based on the current best model and can (and is) supplanted when a better or more accurate version is discovered or refined from it.

Consider, for example, the explanation of how various species, apparently related, ended up on far different locations.  One hypothesis was land bridges, formerly present but since submerged, collapsed or otherwise changed, that allowed species to cross vast distances.  While we have good evidence to support the existence of SOME such structures (such as between present day Alaska and Russia), scientists once believed that they were far more extensive, including entire continents that connected areas like India to Madagascar.  Later, as our ability to gather evidence improved this theory, which was the best explanation at the time for what happened, was supplanted by the current accepted theory of continental drift.  Or the basic three particle model of physics (proton, neutron, electron).  At one time these were believed to be the fundamental building blocks of the universe, that everything was composed of these in various combinations and configurations.  Now, with more advanced equipment and methods we know that even these seemingly fundamental particles, are, themselves, made up of even smaller building blocks.  It doesn't mean the previous method was unscientific, merely that science did what its supposed to do, continued to question and refine based on new information.  Heck, even Galileo was wrong, his model assumed the sun was the center of the entire universe, something current models do not support.  Science is about constant refinement and improvement based on the best possible models based on data, and as our ability to measure and examine the universe around us has continued to improve, so to has our ability to use science to describe it.  But earlier, more primitive explanations still fall under the category of science as long as they meet the necessary criteria.

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Guest Paul92

Is me reading this stuff just reassurance seeking? I don't know.

I don't even feel like I need reassurance, that is the issue. I feel like I've seen through an illusion or some sort.

If I try and change my thinking and think, well I might as well do things I was going to do under the belief that humans might never become extinct because it would still create a better world for here and now and the future is irrelevant, I can sort of understand that. But then the thought is that it is a waste of time trying to battle with the inevitable.

This morning I woke up and I had a real strong thought about time passing. Like if you move your hand from one place to another, that moment is gone. Literally EVERYTHING is impermanent. So it makes me wonder whether we are already dead. For instance, did you ever imagine you would get to the age you are now? But yet, here you are! And then, again, you might feel as though Christmas is so far away, but yet, notice on Christmas day, it is there again! So aren't we already dead?!

If every moment is so impermanent that it doesn't actually exist, then aren't we all illusions??

The only thing that I seem to hang on to is that we age at our own pace and that time and age is just a number that humans have created to create order. That seems to bring some normality.

But you simply cannot argue with impermanence of everything.

Today is a new day so I won't Google anything … but this just doesn't seem to change anything

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1 hour ago, Paul92 said:

But you simply cannot argue with impermanence of everything.

We wouldn't argue with it, whether it is factual or non-factual, because it isn't something about which we are obsessing.

The only person obsessing about it, searching for certainty, is you Paul. 

And, to ask the topic question another way, what is the point in obsessively worrying about something over which we have absolutely no control anyway? 

Edited by taurean
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Guest Paul92

Do you all really believe I can get past this if I simply just don't engage with it? Please, just tell me if this is absolutely OCD from your points of view? If it is, don't want reassurance. 

I know I read threads on here and I see how obvious it is that people have an OCD obsession that can be dealt with through stopping compulsions etc. So I ask you, is this obvious to you when you read my thread? 

@PolarBear  I watched your video earlier about ruminating. It all made sense. But then I was thinking I'm not sure if it can apply to me.

So far today I've not googled anything and every time I catch myself ruminating I've told myself to stop and tried to refocus which makes me really anxious. However at the same time, I'm really conscious of every millisecond and moment passing that it truly truly does turn my stomach and wants me to curl up in a ball and just sleep forever. 

I'm meeting the girl I'm seeing shortly so hopefully I'll find a distraction. It pains me so much that I finally find someone I like, who accepts me, and I'm in the middle of the most horrific mental breakdown. 

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The funny thing is, you are asking for reassurance now. You've been told it is OCD. We've told you how to treat it as OCD. But you're here now asking if your problem is OCD. That is asking for reassurance, a compulsion.

Doctors do not prescribe heart medication if they feel your problem is in your fert. And we don't teach prople how to tackle their OCD if we think your problem is something else.

Good on you for not Googling and resisting ruminating. Keep doing that.

 

Edited by PolarBear
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And "is this absolutely OCD?" simply gives belief to the demand for certainty that OCD uses to create doubt. For absolutely is a synonym for certainty. 

You cannot have that certainty. No sufferer from OCD can. 

But we can all accept probability and we can all take the" leap of faith". And those that do are much more likely to succeed with recovery; those that don't stay stuck in an endless cycle from which they are not able to break free. 

 

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Guest Paul92

I know, I'm sorry. Just with this theme, I feel like it's different but I'll take what you say on board and carry on doing the work...

I'm sure you appreciate how difficult it is. I've never felt like this and it's frightening. 

Thank you for the support. 

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