I don’t understand what we’re living for — Transcript

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1. 0:00I don't know what I'm living for. Life
2. 0:05feels so painfully empty
3. 0:08that it's something I don't even feel
4. 0:10like I can even ignore anymore. I've
5. 0:12spent most of my life just following
6. 0:15rules or following missions and goals I
7. 0:18thought were supposed to be the answer
8. 0:20to the emptiness in my heart.
9. 0:22I'd blame it on my weight, I'd blame it
10. 0:24on my appearance, I'd blame it on some
11. 0:26random accolade that I need to achieve
12. 0:29and then I can start living my life.
13. 0:31Then things can maybe begin to make
14. 0:33sense.
15. 0:34A lot of the time I'd also use that goal
16. 0:37post as a way to tell myself, "Well, I
17. 0:40know something deeper is wrong, but I
18. 0:42first need to reach this goal to have a
19. 0:44little bit of a barrier or a protection
20. 0:48and then I can begin to go to that
21. 0:50vulnerable place."
22. 0:52The issue is
23. 0:54I have been doing this for so long that
24. 0:58I am not even sure that there's a life
25. 1:01worth living
26. 1:03behind that.
27. 1:06What I mean is
28. 1:08I I'm somebody that overthinks a lot, if
29. 1:12you want to call it overthinking. I'm
30. 1:13someone that
31. 1:14just thinks too much about things.
32. 1:17And I'm sure you are, too.
33. 1:19You try and understand the world a bit
34. 1:22too much and it ruins the experience
35. 1:24because you can't seem to make sense of
36. 1:26it and you can't seem to make sense of
37. 1:27yourself in it. Especially when you have
38. 1:30pain. And I remember throughout my
39. 1:32childhood and adolescence,
40. 1:35I spent a lot of time thinking about
41. 1:38relationships, about people, about what
42. 1:40made people love you. Because for me, if
43. 1:43I made people love me, everything would
44. 1:45be okay. That was my main goal in life.
45. 1:47I needed to make as many people as
46. 1:49possible love me and to do that I had to
47. 1:53play a role. I had to do this very
48. 1:56specific formula I'd figured out a while
49. 1:58back to making someone love you and it
50. 2:01was about not being too honest. It was
51. 2:02about pretending this. Anyways, I won't
52. 2:05go into the details about that random
53. 2:07thing. But what I mean is what that
54. 2:09represented for me was a way out of the
55. 2:12suffering. It was a way out of the
56. 2:14emptiness and a feeling of having a
57. 2:17footing somewhere that made sense on
58. 2:20this earth.
59. 2:21And obviously as the years went on and
60. 2:24my mental illness got worse and I lost
61. 2:27so much due to these very problematic
62. 2:29behaviors and I realized that they burnt
63. 2:32me out more than they could ever save
64. 2:34me. I was forced in many therapy
65. 2:37sessions to sit with myself and think
66. 2:39about what what would it look like to
67. 2:41change? What would it look like to not
68. 2:43live this way? To let go of all these
69. 2:45beliefs.
70. 2:46And I'm sure like a lot of you
71. 2:49the answer is often I don't know. I've
72. 2:50never thought about that. It's never
73. 2:52even felt like a possibility. And to be
74. 2:55honest, the whole idea of it sounds like
75. 2:57a just a lie, a fantasy.
76. 3:00It doesn't seem real. And my argument
77. 3:03about that was that well, if it was
78. 3:05real, I would see happy people.
79. 3:08I would see
80. 3:10conflicting evidence in my everyday life
81. 3:12and I would have seen it up until now.
82. 3:14But I don't feel like I do. When I look
83. 3:16to the outside to try and first
84. 3:20to try and begin to find out what could
85. 3:23possibly
86. 3:24make someone want to live, make someone
87. 3:27enjoy this experience of life. It often
88. 3:30feels like I'm trying to
89. 3:33understand
90. 3:35an equation.
91. 3:37Like an equation, you can probably solve
92. 3:39it and someone will explain it to you
93. 3:41slowly. But at the end of the day
94. 3:45it just feels like a concept.
95. 3:47It's It's just letters and it's just
96. 3:49numbers and we've decided they mean
97. 3:51something. And I feel like
98. 3:54I am unable to
99. 3:57fall back in love with life.
100. 4:00When I think of relationships,
101. 4:03friendships,
102. 4:04romantic relationships, goals, career
103. 4:08aspirations, life lifestyle hobbies,
104. 4:12I just feel
105. 4:14confused.
106. 4:16And it's a weird type of confusion. It's
107. 4:19not like the type of confusion
108. 4:21that feels like it can ever be
109. 4:25worked through. It's like
110. 4:28when you go through deep suffering, you
111. 4:30can either go one of two ways. You can
112. 4:32either
113. 4:34grow and learn a lot,
114. 4:36or you can crash and burn.
115. 4:39But I also think
116. 4:41there can sometimes be this weird middle
117. 4:43ground
118. 4:44where it's like the veil of what life
119. 4:48really is gets lifted. You see behind
120. 4:50the scenes. You see
121. 4:52the the the fantasy isn't real. You see
122. 4:54that friendships, relationships, a lot
123. 4:56of it is selfish. And
124. 4:59unconditional love doesn't exist because
125. 5:01through your trauma you were forced to
126. 5:04deeply perceive relationships and
127. 5:05realize that
128. 5:07things were not unconditional and you
129. 5:08did that to protect yourself. In
130. 5:10friendships, you could say, "Well,
131. 5:12they're your friend until you start to
132. 5:14be very inconvenient." Let's say if you
133. 5:16became really really really depressed.
134. 5:19People often say, "Well, that's what
135. 5:20friends are for." But
136. 5:22quietly they actually mean
137. 5:24"I will be your friend until this
138. 5:27doesn't stop fast enough."
139. 5:30Because everyone feels selfish, which is
140. 5:32our natural way of being.
141. 5:34So it's hard for me to fall back into
142. 5:36the fantasy that well, that's worth it
143. 5:39because I don't feel anything for it
144. 5:41anymore. Hobbies, I I see the concept of
145. 5:44them. I see goals. I see the concept of
146. 5:46them. I'm like, yeah.
147. 5:48But, what is that for?
148. 5:51If I
149. 5:52am just still pursuing something to
150. 5:54prove something,
151. 5:56to use up this time on earth just to use
152. 5:59it up, it feels empty. It all feels
153. 6:01empty. And it's like I can't see the
154. 6:04point in anything anymore. Feels like
155. 6:08this horrible veil has been lifted.
156. 6:11And I cannot
157. 6:13fall back under the trance of the
158. 6:15illusion of it all being worth it, of it
159. 6:16all having meaning. Because obviously,
160. 6:19the meaning is created by the person.
161. 6:22But, if I fundamentally disagree with
162. 6:26everything that is around me,
163. 6:29where do you go from there?
164. 6:30If I if I see
165. 6:33relationships and friendships as this
166. 6:35fake performance, no matter what. If
167. 6:38goals feel like another way of trying
168. 6:40to, you know, prop myself up and and
169. 6:42prove to the world or prove to myself or
170. 6:44something that I'm worth something. If
171. 6:46my career feels again like this weird
172. 6:48thing of of this popularity thing, this
173. 6:50thing of feeling like, oh, I'm better
174. 6:52than this person and this person. This
175. 6:53protects me more. Or
176. 6:56kids or whatever makes people want to do
177. 6:59things, it just all feels like some
178. 7:01iteration of the same
179. 7:04Just playing this game that I just you
180. 7:07can't win at. I don't feel
181. 7:09connected to it.
182. 7:11And I don't know what you do with that.
183. 7:12I used to run away from this feeling by
184. 7:15finding my meaning in literally, like I
185. 7:18said previously, trying to make people
186. 7:20love me. Trying to
187. 7:22do everything I could to be this
188. 7:25illusion.
189. 7:27But, that's not possible anymore.
190. 7:29And
191. 7:32it doesn't even work long term. The main
192. 7:35question I have after all of this is
193. 7:37what do people live for?
194. 7:39I do not understand any of it.
195. 7:41I'll bring myself often times on the
196. 7:43weekend to lakes, to towns,
197. 7:47and I try and just put my body into the
198. 7:49situations to maybe
199. 7:52create some spark again, you know,
200. 7:53something that wants to
201. 7:55be here, that feels something, that
202. 7:57feels this pull, this beauty. I don't.
203. 8:00Feels similar to somebody that has
204. 8:02seen something that is so
205. 8:05violently horrendous that even when
206. 8:07they're out of that situation and
207. 8:09they're back home, safe with their
208. 8:11family and with everything they could
209. 8:13ever want, they just cannot fall back
210. 8:16into love with life. They just feel
211. 8:19empty. They feel disconnected from
212. 8:21people around them and they feel like
213. 8:23everything is just empty. Honestly, it
214. 8:26scares me. It really does.
215. 8:29Because
216. 8:31you don't hear a lot about that part, I
217. 8:33feel. I feel like you hear a lot about
218. 8:34people talking about very specific
219. 8:36things they struggle with and wanting
220. 8:39specific solutions. But this feels more
221. 8:42existential and it doesn't feel like
222. 8:45it's something that I can
223. 8:48answer. And I think a lot of us feel
224. 8:50this way.
225. 8:51And it's horrible.
226. 8:53It's absolutely horrible because it's
227. 8:55something that is so so all
228. 8:57encompassing. It feels so much deeper
229. 8:59than anything that anyone tries to make
230. 9:01you worry about every day. Yet, you're
231. 9:03still forced to play the role, play the
232. 9:05performance, get up, go to work, put on
233. 9:08a face and pretend you're not dealing
234. 9:10with this. Try and do things on the
235. 9:12weekend, you feel fundamentally
236. 9:14pointless. And I don't want to become a
237. 9:16monk.
238. 9:17I know often times the answer to these
239. 9:19things is, well, you've risen above the
240. 9:20whole ego thing or you've risen above
241. 9:23the whole role that society wants you to
242. 9:26play and you've seen how empty it all is
243. 9:28and you have to follow a different path.
244. 9:30I don't want to follow a different path.
245. 9:32I just want to enjoy my life.
246. 9:35I just want to feel young.
247. 9:37Cuz I spent my entire teenage years
248. 9:39feeling like a 30
249. 9:4240, I don't know. Now I'm in my early
250. 9:4420s and I've got my life back together.
251. 9:48Yet I can just sit in a room filled with
252. 9:51peers my age and I just cannot connect
253. 9:53to them. I cannot understand how they
254. 9:56feel and I can't understand how I feel
255. 9:58in that moment. No how much I try, no
256. 10:00matter how much alcohol I drink, I just
257. 10:02can't get there.
258. 10:04It's like you get the first curse of
259. 10:06dealing with these issues and then you
260. 10:08get the double whammy of like, "Hey, and
261. 10:10now these are fundamentally going to
262. 10:13alienate you even more from people due
263. 10:16to that experience itself, even if it's
264. 10:19healed."
265. 10:21So, yeah.
266. 10:22The meaning of life.
267. 10:24I know everyone wonders that, but
268. 10:27I guess this is just something I wanted
269. 10:29to vent. I wanted to just talk about
270. 10:30that. I definitely will keep talking
271. 10:32about it because it's honestly something
272. 10:33I just keep thinking about and
273. 10:35ruminating over. You're not alone
274. 10:37feeling this way and it's
275. 10:39deeply terrifying and it's just
276. 10:43Yeah. Anyways, see you.