Poll of the Day > how am i supposed to care about anything

(+) Yeah! (+)

Im not even saying this in a nooooo Im so depressed, nothing matters sort of way. I just dont care about anything lol

The longer you live the less you will care about things unless you create things to care about along the way. Family can work great at this, building a company or some job that you take pride in etc, are all ways to extend how invested you are in life as a whole and increase your will to live and deal with the problems your body will start to have.

Sense of taste goes downhill as you get older, so often even the foods you used to love become less enjoyable to eat. Sex drive which is a huge factor for many when younger can also go downhill, getting rid of a primary motivation for many people.

If you are lucky and build a family, have kids and eventually grandkids etc, that can help deal with all of that, but otherwise you need to find something to focus on to keep motivated or life will become more and more dull and pointless as you go forward.

I feel like it's hard to care about anything while seeing what a dark place the world is heading to, but I think that's depression/existential dread, so I guess I don't know what you mean

There has to be something you care about. Even I have things I care about.
I just don't have enough things to care about to make my meaningless existence meaningful.

dud posted...

I feel like it's hard to care about anything while seeing what a dark place the world is heading to

Thousands of years worth of humans seem to have dealt with the exact same thing perfectly fine.

Even at times when things were actually tough. Like when 50% of your neighbors were dying from incurable diseases that you thought were the literal wrath of god punishing you for being bad. Or when foreign armies were burning down your cities, raping your wives and daughters, and annihilating your culture.

But yeah, now is totally the worst possible period in human history.

we are but blades of grass tossed into an uncaring wind.

breaking up with my gf earlier this year has done a real number on my cognition. Im not depressed, Ive just become a borderline alcoholic and have zero passion for anything that doesnt give me immediate gratification. whatever, Ill be dead in 50-60 years at best and get to sleep forever

Dunno. It's a tough time for this one. The traditional things that gave peoples' lives meaning are dissolving pretty quickly: religion, national pride, ethnic/tribe pride, community groups, simple pride in work. Heck, even the value of friends is low (particularly as a dude who doesn't use social media): I have friends I consider good, but it's hard to get together and there isn't much to do anyways. And the slow but steady/obvious decline of society casts a further pall over everything.

I'd like to say that simply having a family does wonders, but if you can't really figure out what you're hoping for your kids...it's no panacea.

I've been to a counselor and told her I more or less had this issue. She said "good news, you aren't depressed (i.e. we can't drug you) you just have to find some things to enjoy." So I took up mountain biking. Now things are pointless but I mountain bike.

*shrug*

Work on yourself.

PPPPLAASSUMA posted...

Work on yourself.

Hey, haven't seen you since you were trolling the pokemon boards 10 years go.

Time was [screen goes all wibbly-wobbly, dissolves to grainy black-and-white film of barefoot urchins playing on cobbled streets] when putting food on the table and keeping a roof over their heads took up most of people's caring time. At least you have the luxury of needing to look for purpose and meaning.

[Sits in silhouette as screen fades to black, puffing on pipe for extra gravitas]

Yeah I feel you. I always have my kids to keep me motivated when Im feeling apathetic but its damn near impossible sometimes.

Vampire_Chicken posted...

Time was [screen goes all wibbly-wobbly, dissolves to grainy black-and-white film of barefoot urchins playing on cobbled streets] when putting food on the table and keeping a roof over their heads took up most of people's caring time. At least you have the luxury of needing to look for purpose and meaning.

[Sits in silhouette as screen fades to black, puffing on pipe for extra gravitas]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Maslow%27s_Hierarchy_of_Needs2.svg

Vidya game more

I became a lot happier when I realized that not caring about things is perfectly ok.

Read a book that pulls you in and forget about how much you don't care about things for a bit

ParanoidObsessive posted...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Maslow%27s_Hierarchy_of_Needs2.svg

Well, at least now we know why the pharoahs were obsessed with building pyramids: they were busy self-actualizing.

Nothing wrong with not caring about anything. Some say I'm void of all emotion myself. I can somewhat agree with it because I care about very little, don't get involved in trivial drama and generally don't care for most people. I however do care about some things. My close family being the main one and even that is a handful of people. I like being how I am though because it makes life much less stressful for me.

I'm glad I don't personally feel like I need some higher calling to enjoy life

as long as my mind can be stimulated I'm good