Why should I wish to live?

[Anacardo]

This is a question that tends to be met with hostility and derision, in my experience; the presumably happy majority seems never to encounter it at all, from cradle to grave, regarding the answer as somehow self-evident. The act of asking seems to mark one as bearing some sort of infectious disease, that people are shy of catching. Nonetheless this is the question that sits before me. My unhappiness has driven me deeper and deeper within myself, and higher and higher into more and more global lines of inquiry, the so-called 'high country of the mind' - what's the point of all this? What's the value in participating?

Some seem to latch onto purpose with vigor early in life; their father's construction company or their childhood sweetheart beckon unsought, and off they are led to their destiny. I have never been like that. In one of my few approving nods to Freud, the pillars of a man's striving are work and love. I seem ill-suited for either; my interests are solitary and specialized - books, music, film, contests of strategy, rhetoric and logic. Counterbalancing that is a lack of practical skill of any kind, self-absorption, a chafing desire for independence and autonomy that eventually brings about conflict in any social setting, and, above all, a profound laziness, which I believe to be the defining element of my character. Even in those pursuits I enjoy I invariably find myself giving less than my best effort; only if there is someone else involved, whom I cannot bear to disappoint, do I find myself fully rising to the occasion. I don't regard this as a particularly sought after set of qualities; I might, to an employer or a mate, be someone that might be settled for in a pinch, but never truly desired. Sometimes I have thought myself on the verge of being proven wrong, or having devised an alternate solution, but always these hopes are proven wrong, and I am left with nothing.

Transcending merit is the issue of desire. I have never had any, beyond idiosyncratic sporting and intellectual pursuits. In my youth, I went to school, as was prescribed to me, and assumed it would sort itself out. Then one day I reached an age when I realized that that wasn't going to happen. I must choose something, but nothing looks particularly appetizing. I loathe subordination, tedium, and business etiquette, and generally dislike having any one else schedule or control my time at all; this already makes me a rather difficult candidate to employ. My current occupation is dying; poker is being choked off in the United States; my skill level is no greater than an average professional's, and that soon will be not enough. My savings are meager and much of them are inaccessible due to the Neteller fiasco. I have no prospects and no desire to simply set my standards lower and drone away at whatever I can get. I am mostly alone in a strange city with my means of support hanging by a thread, with a quicksand-trap inside my head for which therapy and drugs have proven an expensive, time-consuming waste of effort. How am I supposed to look at all this and derive, as a conclusion, that it's best to keep muddling forward somehow?

[rwesty]

You write well but it's [censored] annoying. I think your life would improve if you stopped using big words.

[RJT]

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You write well but it's [censored] annoying. I think your life would improve if you stopped using big words.

[/ QUOTE ]

Get a dictionary, rwesty. Otherwise, your reply was hilarious.

Fwiw, I like his writing.

[Chump Change]

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You write well but it's [censored] annoying. I think your life would improve if you stopped using big words.

[/ QUOTE ]

I want to die sometimes and it's usually because of people thinking and saying dumb [censored] like this.

[maryfield48]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
You write well but it's [censored] annoying. I think your life would improve if you stopped using big words.

[/ QUOTE ]

I want to die sometimes and it's usually because of people thinking and saying dumb [censored] like this.

[/ QUOTE ]

They are easily ignored.

[Dids]

As one of the many people I know that have had similar conversations with Cardo over the past year about this stuff, we're all wasting out time.

1- Cardo won't ever chance his mind. I'm not alone in basically giving up trying to help him after having my advice fall on deaf ears for over a year.

2- The same stubbornness will keep Cardo unhappy because he is at a war with pragmatism. I've attempted to explain to him that a big part of functioning in an adult world is A- not taking the position that everything you dislike is "loathsome", B- making compromise. Cardo will have none of this.

3- Cardo, once you stop living in absolutes, and attempt to make some accommodations for the world around you, you'll be able to find a way to be happy.

You've created this notion of an ideal world that you'll never find. As long as you measure this one against that vision, the disappointment you feel when things don't measure up will ruin you.

None of this matters though, 'cause you won't listen. This thread might as well be locked, because nobody will get anything out of it beyond frustration.

[PITTM]

as someone who is in the same chat room as cardo and dids almost everyday and knows more about cardo than i would wish to. i think that dids is 15x more spot on in his last post than anyone has been in this entire thread. 100% correct imo. he just left out the part about the over-mulling over girls from long in the past, which katy alley-ooped for the finish.

most spot on thing said:

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None of this matters though, 'cause you won't listen. This thread might as well be locked, because nobody will get anything out of it beyond frustration.

[/ QUOTE ]

he just left out "excuses".

[Anacardo]

Every meaningful man on earth has been at war with pragmatism since the caves. "Rational men adapt themselves to the world; irrational world expect the world to adapt themselves to them. Therefore, all progress in the world is made by irrational men." When pragmatism cracks in a particular area, we call the breaker a genius and soon seemlessly slip the result into what we call 'pragmatism.' If pragmatism beats the man at war with it we call him a loser or crazy and carry on with our lives. The only difference is result and whatever nameless collection of virtues it is that causes some to succeed and others to fail.

[adsman]

The only difference between a rut and a grave is the depth. In the lottery that is life you won the powerball. You are intelligent, able to think for yourself, male, live in the USA and I assume white. There are literally billions of people in the world who would do anything, literally anything to be in your position.

Don't just throw away your wealth. Use it. Don't know how to use it? Just get off your butt and do something. Volunteer. Anything. Your chosen occupation has taken a beating. You can do something about it or feel sorry for yourself.

FWIW I am exactly the same as you personality-wise and I want through the same crisis some years ago. At one point I just chose to live and then I went out and got off my butt.

[goofball]

There's masturbation.