Am I just turning food into sh*t?

[JohnnyHumongous]

I'm having a lot of trouble finding meaning in my life. The commercialistic society we live in gives me little feeling of true purpose or fulfillment. I spend very little and spending money doesn't give me happiness like it does for many people I know. Right now I'm playing poker for a living and I do well at it, and it's mildly fulfilling in that I succeed at it and outplay most people yada yada yada. I go to the gym a fair bit and I'm trying to reach some weightlifting goals. I spend time with friends and family when I can and I travel a fair bit as well. For whatever reason, when I review these facts of my life, I get quite depressed. What's my life about? Not much as far as I can tell. Making money, keeping a social life and some exercise. But isn't that everyone's life more or less? If I was in consulting or finance or whatever it would be the same dilemma, just more hours in the office and less pay.

I can't be the only one feeling this way. So many people in society are on the same treadmill that many must feel the same odd sense of hopelessness. I look to the future and say, well if it's 30 more years of this this is stupid and pointless. Maybe I'm spoiled because thanks to poker I have more money than a 23 year old could possibly need and no family to support. The sad thing is I couldn't say off the top of my head what really compels me, what I would even be doing with my time if I wasn't a part of this cycle. When I was working I would have said poker was a passion of mine, well that's out as a fulfilling pastime now that's it's my job. Should I go back to school? Try to find some lifepath that is somehow deeply rewarding? Or just sit back and hope I find it in my travels...

Thanks for reading my ramblings, any thoughts and comments are greatly appreciated.

[hmkpoker]

Tried acid yet?

[bunny]

If poker has become a grind, find a new passion? If you're into cards I'd recommend bridge (though you have to not mind spending a lot of time surrounded by old women) - it's a much better game, though nowhere near as easy to make money out of.

Otherwise - try new stuff. Take up dancing, painting, music, go to billions of movies/plays til you find what's right. Go back to university and do a degree in something that interests you, rather than something that will lead to a career. That'd be my advice, anyhow. [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

[yukoncpa]

[ QUOTE ]
Otherwise - try new stuff. Take up dancing, painting, music, go to billions of movies/plays til you find what's right. Go back to university and do a degree in something that interests you, rather than something that will lead to a career. That'd be my advice, anyhow.

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[/ QUOTE ]
This is the greatest advice I can think of. Only I would take dance, music, painting, at a univesity, if you enjoy these things only because there are lots of fun people ( including chicks ) at a university. Take whatever excites you, like, film school, archeology, photography, etc. Once your are at the university, you can join clubs, like travel clubs, skydiving clubs, etc. Personally, I'd migrate where the chicks migrate, but do what you want. Just socialize. That should make you undepressed.

[Phil153]

Challenges are what keeps life interesting. If you never try to do things which are exciting and challenging (both in the short and long term), then life gets boring.

[AWoodside]

I second hmkpoker sentiment. Acid might be too much right for you right now, who knows, but definately some mind expansion is in order. There isn't any meaning in the world except the meaning you create for yourself. It doesn't have to be through drugs either. I took a year off school and just backpacked in the mountains in New Zealand for 8 months, spending lots of time just with myself being introspective, best decision I ever made and helped me get over a type of existential crisis very similar to the one you seem to be going through.

If you want a shortcut, go here: http://www.bouncingbearbotanicals.com/

Order the san pedro cactus (legal to own), google a bit, have a 12 hour mescaline trip one weekend. Might change your life.

[Mickey Brausch]

[ QUOTE ]
I'm having a lot of trouble finding meaning in my life.

[/ QUOTE ]One of the best posts I've read in the SMP forum. Congratulations, if I may say so.

You are correct in your assessment of everything in your life. As the saying goes, "life is a bitch - and then we die". There's no meaning to life, as such, in the sense that we use the term "meaning". We give meaning to life. We give meaning to life.

And that meaning, when all the chips are down [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img], is about us -- and our place in the world. Left to our own devices, as we should be, we have to choose --without outside or "divine" intergerence-- between abandoning life and conducting a life.

The realization of being alone in our decision is the toughest part. It's really a bitch. When you come to think of it, every living creature on this planet is an organic contraption gorging on other creatures and converting them to gases and excrement. The planet can be viewed as a Disney-like place which has plenty of Good and plenty of Evil, and they are separate and quite distinguishable, and mostly Good wins, which is indeed a comforting picture -- or, realistically, as a theatre of the horrific and the absurd.

Add to this latter realisation, the realisation that our appearing on the scene of this theatre is a matter of chance -- and a chance so small, so remote as to render all sense of "probability" literally meaningless-- and you understand why the nausea.

So, it's up to us, for better or worse, to decide our individual and collective course on this Earth. Taking a step towards the realisation of the human condition, as you're now doing, is a step towards the right direction.

As to poker, Ray Zee is on record as being very sorry he wasted as much time as he did on playing poker and not on other things as well.

Look him up.

Mickey Brausch

[candyman718]

You getting laid?

[NotReady]

[ QUOTE ]

Try to find some lifepath that is somehow deeply rewarding?


[/ QUOTE ]

Jesus said the following:

I am come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly.

I am the way, and the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father but through Me.

So Jesus said to the twelve, "You do not want to go away also, do you?"
Simon Peter answered Him, "Lord, to whom shall we go? You have words of eternal life.

It is the Spirit who gives life; the flesh profits nothing; the words that I have spoken to you are spirit and are life

For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it; but whoever loses his life for My sake will find it.

[Phil153]

Notready,

Your Jesus sounds like a bit of a narcissist.

Since this is spam-your-religion day, here's some alternative quotes from Buddha to consider:

"Just as a candle cannot burn without fire, men cannot live without a spiritual life. "
"We are formed and molded by our thoughts. Those whose minds are shaped by selfless thoughts give joy when they speak or act. Joy follows them like a shadow that never leaves. "
"Your work is to discover your world and then with all your heart give yourself to it. "
"Let us rise up and be thankful, for if we didn't learn a lot today, at least we learned a little, and if we didn't learn a little, at least we didn't get sick, and if we got sick, at least we didn't die; so, let us all be thankful. "