What are we even fighting for?

I was going to post this in Philosophy, but since everyone in the psych group seems to share the common denominator of being "totally screwed," I figured I'd drop it here instead.
Life is a struggle—blah, blah, blah... But what happens when that struggle doesn't actually have a goal worth fighting for? When you’ve just been spinning your wheels for ages, staring at a wall, knowing full well nothing is ever going to change? You get those little bursts of ego, thinking you've made it, only to crash back down again—just an endless cycle of highs and lows against a backdrop of absolute, impenetrable nothingness. There's no safe harbor, no handhold, nothing actually worth living for.
Is this the headspace most people find themselves in right before they decide to end it all?

I don't know... I guess I’d only consider taking my own life if things became truly, utterly unbearable.
The whole situation described in this post seems kind of manageable to me, honestly. You're unhappy, you lack direction, you're just drifting through life feeling like nothing matters... I've definitely been in those kinds of spots before, but even then, I feel like I'd need a much more intense catalyst to actually end it all.

Look, I'm not looking for a pity party or an SOS here—I just want to know what everyone else thinks.
I was watching The Bridge the other day and it got my gears turning. Beyond the usual stuff like mental health struggles, debt, or heartbreak, it feels to me like most people end up checking out because they just can't stomach the sheer emptiness and lack of purpose in life—at least, I personally find it unbearable.
You wake up in the morning knowing there isn't anything great waiting for you. Every single day.
It all feels pretty pointless. How do you guys deal with it?

Paul Thompson3 said:Look, I'm not looking for a pity party or an SOS here—I just want to know what everyone else thinks.
I was watching The Bridge the other day and it got my gears turning. Beyond the usual stuff like mental health struggles, debt, or heartbreak, it feels to me like most people end up checking out because they just can't stomach the sheer emptiness and lack of purpose in life—at least, I personally find it unbearable.
You wake up in the morning knowing there isn't anything great waiting for you. Every single day.
It all feels pretty pointless. How do you guys deal with it?

Booze, writing, and chasing girls.

I know nobody was asking me specifically, but here's my take.🙂

Robert Rodriguez11 said:Booze, writing, and chasing girls.

I know nobody was asking me specifically, but here's my take.🙂

Responses like this are genuinely depressing. I really shouldn't have bothered opening this thread.

Paul Thompson3 said:I was going to post this in Philosophy, but since everyone in the psych group seems to share the common denominator of being "totally screwed," I figured I'd drop it here instead.
Life is a struggle—blah, blah, blah... But what happens when that struggle doesn't actually have a goal worth fighting for? When you’ve just been spinning your wheels for ages, staring at a wall, knowing full well nothing is ever going to change? You get those little bursts of ego, thinking you've made it, only to crash back down again—just an endless cycle of highs and lows against a backdrop of absolute, impenetrable nothingness. There's no safe harbor, no handhold, nothing actually worth living for.
Is this the headspace most people find themselves in right before they decide to end it all?

Back when my daughter Vanessa and I used to go for walks, she’d always ask me, "Dad, which way are we supposed to go?"
The answer is actually quite simple: "Forward." It doesn't really matter if you turn left or right, or even if you actually reach a destination... the point is just to keep moving forward. Someone else might make it there, but you'll leave tracks behind you... no matter how faint, those tracks will exist, and eventually, they'll help others find their own way...

Patrick Peterson said:Back when my daughter Vanessa and I used to go for walks, she’d always ask me, "Dad, which way are we supposed to go?"
The answer is actually quite simple: "Forward." It doesn't really matter if you turn left or right, or even if you actually reach a destination... the point is just to keep moving forward. Someone else might make it there, but you'll leave tracks behind you... no matter how faint, those tracks will exist, and eventually, they'll help others find their own way...

It's not a bad philosophy, but I see things differently.

I believe meaning isn't something you find; it's something you have to manufacture for yourself. Even just the act of traveling suggests movement, so sure, "forward" is a solid motto.

As for fighting—you have to choose your battles. 🤷 It doesn't matter if your cause carries weight in the eyes of quantum mechanics or the vastness of the cosmos; what matters is that it carries weight for you.

The trouble starts when you begin questioning whether your priorities actually matter at all by weighing them against the scale of the universe. That’s when you pause, recalibrate your focus, and then get back to work. 🤷

Dennis Bailey2 said:It's not a bad philosophy, but I see things differently.

I believe meaning isn't something you find; it's something you have to manufacture for yourself. Even just the act of traveling suggests movement, so sure, "forward" is a solid motto.

As for fighting—you have to choose your battles. 🤷 It doesn't matter if your cause carries weight in the eyes of quantum mechanics or the vastness of the cosmos; what matters is that it carries weight for you.

The trouble starts when you begin questioning whether your priorities actually matter at all by weighing them against the scale of the universe. That’s when you pause, recalibrate your focus, and then get back to work. 🤷

But how does one manufacture meaning when they find themselves incapable of seeing value in anything at all? How am I supposed to decide that my life's purpose should be, say, professional achievement, if I can't find any inherent meaning in that pursuit—or indeed, in anything else?

Regarding the concept of struggle—simply choose what is worth fighting for. 🤷 It doesn't matter whether it holds weight on a cosmic scale or within the laws of quantum mechanics; what matters is that it carries weight for you.

And what happens when nothing carries weight?

Jacob Mitchell3 said:But how does one manufacture meaning when they find themselves incapable of seeing value in anything at all? How am I supposed to decide that my life's purpose should be, say, professional achievement, if I can't find any inherent meaning in that pursuit—or indeed, in anything else?

Regarding the concept of struggle—simply choose what is worth fighting for. 🤷 It doesn't matter whether it holds weight on a cosmic scale or within the laws of quantum mechanics; what matters is that it carries weight for you.

And what happens when nothing carries weight?

Look, in both of those scenarios, you really ought to consider seeing a therapist. It’s worth digging into why you're struggling with what might be—even if only a mild case of—depression. 🤷 The reality is this: a person's sense of purpose is entirely dictated by whatever they choose to fixate on in their life. I don't have much to say about this one. It’s just... there. No substance, no weight. Just noise.If you can't find any sense or purpose in anything, it essentially means nothing brings you joy anymore—and that, in itself, is a textbook symptom of depression.

Because purpose is so deeply intertwined with what actually brings you joy, we run into a fundamental issue: the "meaning of life" isn't something you can solve through pure cognition alone. I wouldn't go so far as to say that the "meaning of life" can ever be defined as the total sum of a single human being's entire existence. It just doesn't work like that.

Life isn't some static thing; it’s more like a series of distinct phases we cycle through, driven by whatever specific impulses happen to be pulling our strings at the time. You can't just wake up one morning and decide, "Okay, from here on out, I’m dedicating my entire existence to finding a formula that turns lead into gold," and expect to actually feel fulfilled. It doesn't work that way. Unless someone is profoundly, unshakably convinced of that singular mission—and stays that way for decades—it won't provide any real satisfaction. Without that deep-seated conviction, the project won't sustain you.
It might sound a bit naive, but all those "heavy" life struggles? They’re actually pretty trivial. Life is about doing what makes you happy. If nothing brings you joy anymore, then you’ve got a real problem on your hands—and you probably need to go find some professional help.

It follows that trying to condense one's entire purpose into a single point is an incredibly ambitious undertaking. Only exceptional people manage it—and they are exceptional precisely because they can. If you catch my drift, by successfully focusing their entire meaning into such a narrow aperture, they create an immense amount of pressure on a tiny surface area. They become incredibly piercing.
That also means those people are getting an intense, singular rush from that one specific thing. Most people find joy in a wide variety of things throughout their lives, and what brings you happiness shifts as you age. What excites you at twenty probably won't hold your interest when you're fifty, and vice versa.
Furthermore, you can’t just make a conscious decision to pick your purpose. That would imply it’s some kind of intellectual calculation. It’s like saying, "I should probably dive into quantum physics because that leads to fame," or "My life's calling is software engineering because the paychecks are massive." That isn't how it works. A person's true purpose is simply to ensure their existence is fulfilling. You only achieve that by focusing on the things and actions that actually bring you joy.

I’m not sure if I’m hitting the mark here, but you can’t force a sense of purpose onto a specific moment or stage of your life. You can't just decide it's there by sheer will. It’s a messy mix of cognitive processing and raw emotion—something far too complex to be reduced to a simple mantra like, "My life's purpose is my career." If building a career actually thrills you—if you get that genuine adrenaline rush while you're grinding at your desk, or if you look up and realize it’s already 9:00 PM and you’re still at the office because you were too deep in the zone to care—then maybe that’s it. That's your thing. But if that isn't happening? Stop pretending. Keep looking. 🤷

There’s also an inverse approach: finding purpose by actively dismantling the things that weigh you down. Take my own life, for example. One of my main outlets is animal rights activism—I work within civil society to fight for them. Essentially, I use my actions to systematically reduce the number of things in that sphere that cause me grief. Every single step forward toward progress fuels my drive; seeing even a small shift toward a better outcome makes the struggle worth it.
Look, this isn't some lifelong commitment, nor am I planning on doing this forever. Who knows? In twenty years, I might not even remember this phase existed—I'll likely have found entirely different purposes and things that actually bring me joy.

Dennis Bailey2 said:It's not a bad philosophy, but I see things differently.

I believe meaning isn't something you find; it's something you have to manufacture for yourself. Even just the act of traveling suggests movement, so sure, "forward" is a solid motto.

As for fighting—you have to choose your battles. 🤷 It doesn't matter if your cause carries weight in the eyes of quantum mechanics or the vastness of the cosmos; what matters is that it carries weight for you.

The trouble starts when you begin questioning whether your priorities actually matter at all by weighing them against the scale of the universe. That’s when you pause, recalibrate your focus, and then get back to work. 🤷

I neglected to mention that during our walk, the butterflies were stunning, and we kept a sharp eye out for snakes... but once we hit the water barrier, we had to stop and figure out how to navigate around it.

Actually, let me throw in another quote from Christian F.—*My Life as a Teenage Gangster*... wait, no, *My Life at the Zoo*...
"When we discussed National Socialism in school, I had very conflicted feelings. On one hand,
my stomach would turn just thinking about the sheer cruelty humans are capable of. On the other,
there was something comforting about people having something to believe in back then. During class, I even
said:
'I think I’d like to be a young person during the Nazi era. Back then, youth knew what they wanted; they had
ideals. I think it's better for young people to have the wrong ideals than to have none at all.'"

And let's not forget that Christian eventually overcame her worst addictions and became an icon—a case study for the greatest psychologists.
But she found an ideal that she articulated herself: "I realized that
high school actually offers something if I'm working for myself, rather than just for some useless diploma.
I read an incredible amount. Quite haphazardly, too. Goethe's Werther and more Werther,
that East German writer Plenzdorf, Hermann Hesse, and most of all, Erich Fromm. Fromm's
book *the art of love* became my bible. I practically memorized every page,
simply because I was constantly rereading it. I even transcribed parts of the book
and hung them above my bed. That cool guy really knew how to connect the dots. If everyone
actually followed what he wrote, life would have meaning... because you could simply grasp it."

Like I said, it doesn't matter if you're heading left or right; the main thing is moving forward, because even that leads somewhere. (And if you take a wrong turn, you can always double back and let everyone else know it was a mistake.)🙂

Patrick Peterson said:I neglected to mention that during our walk, the butterflies were stunning, and we kept a sharp eye out for snakes... but once we hit the water barrier, we had to stop and figure out how to navigate around it.

Actually, let me throw in another quote from Christian F.—*My Life as a Teenage Gangster*... wait, no, *My Life at the Zoo*...
"When we discussed National Socialism in school, I had very conflicted feelings. On one hand,
my stomach would turn just thinking about the sheer cruelty humans are capable of. On the other,
there was something comforting about people having something to believe in back then. During class, I even
said:
'I think I’d like to be a young person during the Nazi era. Back then, youth knew what they wanted; they had
ideals. I think it's better for young people to have the wrong ideals than to have none at all.'"

And let's not forget that Christian eventually overcame her worst addictions and became an icon—a case study for the greatest psychologists.
But she found an ideal that she articulated herself: "I realized that
high school actually offers something if I'm working for myself, rather than just for some useless diploma.
I read an incredible amount. Quite haphazardly, too. Goethe's Werther and more Werther,
that East German writer Plenzdorf, Hermann Hesse, and most of all, Erich Fromm. Fromm's
book *the art of love* became my bible. I practically memorized every page,
simply because I was constantly rereading it. I even transcribed parts of the book
and hung them above my bed. That cool guy really knew how to connect the dots. If everyone
actually followed what he wrote, life would have meaning... because you could simply grasp it."

Like I said, it doesn't matter if you're heading left or right; the main thing is moving forward, because even that leads somewhere. (And if you take a wrong turn, you can always double back and let everyone else know it was a mistake.)🙂

One of those superior books I've already managed to forget! Definitely goes into the "must reread" drawer. 😉

Look, one major hurdle in finding "meaning" is the simple fact that humans are pack animals. We thrive on being accepted by the pack. Being cast out of that circle is a fast track to depression—a total absence of joy and, consequently, a total loss of purpose.
Nazism and similar ideologies offer a person a sense of purpose, and more importantly, a purpose that is widely accepted by society. That’s what we call identity. Perhaps the crisis of our modern age is this vacuum of identity; everyone feels somewhat alienated from the pack, left to fend for themselves, often unable to even define which pack they belong to (Is it family? Friends? The city? The country? The continent...?).

Furthermore, the "my purpose is my career" mantra is incredibly dominant right now. But when someone finds joy in less "productive" things—like just lying around watching the clouds—they run into trouble.

And yeah... it seems to me... your purpose isn't just "moving forward." Reading your other post, I see that was misinterpreted: your purpose, and everything you're describing, converges on "conveying information about the path ahead to the pack" or, to put it more romantically, "leaving a mark behind." 😉 That isn't a bad purpose. And it’s one the pack can actually accept.

Dennis Bailey2 said:One of those superior books I've already managed to forget! Definitely goes into the "must reread" drawer. 😉

Look, one major hurdle in finding "meaning" is the simple fact that humans are pack animals. We thrive on being accepted by the pack. Being cast out of that circle is a fast track to depression—a total absence of joy and, consequently, a total loss of purpose.
Nazism and similar ideologies offer a person a sense of purpose, and more importantly, a purpose that is widely accepted by society. That’s what we call identity. Perhaps the crisis of our modern age is this vacuum of identity; everyone feels somewhat alienated from the pack, left to fend for themselves, often unable to even define which pack they belong to (Is it family? Friends? The city? The country? The continent...?).

Furthermore, the "my purpose is my career" mantra is incredibly dominant right now. But when someone finds joy in less "productive" things—like just lying around watching the clouds—they run into trouble.

And yeah... it seems to me... your purpose isn't just "moving forward." Reading your other post, I see that was misinterpreted: your purpose, and everything you're describing, converges on "conveying information about the path ahead to the pack" or, to put it more romantically, "leaving a mark behind." 😉 That isn't a bad purpose. And it’s one the pack can actually accept.

I haven't quite wrapped my head around the whole "mob mentality" issue—or what some might call the psychology of the masses—but I've been meaning to dive into Elias Canetti's *Crowds and Power*...
If I had to put a finger on it, I’d say we’re all just walking around carrying ten liters of water on our backs... or, as Jorge Bucay might put it if he were telling you a story...
Once upon a time... there was a different kind of king.
He was once the ruler of a tiny little nation called Grape-land...
His kingdom was nothing if not a vast expanse of vineyards... and everyone...
His subordinates were strictly focused on the wine business... mostly handling the exports...
In other parts of the country, we’re looking at fifteen thousand families who...
They settled in Grape-land... making just enough to get by...
They’re doing alright, I suppose... paying their taxes like everyone else, treating themselves to the occasional luxury...
Pure luxury...
The king has been deep in the weeds studying finance for several years now...
The kingdoms... The ruler was just, and possessed a certain level of understanding...
And he wasn't exactly thrilled by the idea of reaching his hand into...
He was looking to line his own pockets back in Grape-land. That’s exactly why he was investing...
He’s pulling out all the stops... just endless, exhausting efforts to find some loophole to dodge the taxman...
One day, he was struck by this brilliant vision. The king...
He decided to walk away from his taxes altogether. And as the only contribution to the state...
The king of the treasury would probably demand that every single one of his subjects... once in a while...
Every year, right around the time they’re busy transferring the wine into barrels... they show up...
A courtyard palace, complete with a one-liter carafe of the finest wine from...
They harvest their own grapes, only to pour them all into one massive vat of wine that’s destined to become...
Designed specifically for that purpose... and for that exact moment in time...
If I managed to move those fifteen thousand liters of wine... I'd be looking at...
Funding for the kingdom's budget... specifically the healthcare sector... it’s becoming quite an issue...
The sheer cost of educating an entire nation... and the weight of that responsibility on our shoulders...
The news spread across the entire kingdom via official proclamations and public notices...
Down on the main city streets... just pure, unadulterated public revelry.
It was truly beyond words... In every single house, the king was being boasted about, and the songs just wouldn't stop...
And so, the songs were written in his honor...
Then came the day of reckoning. After an entire week of...
In every single neighborhood, at every local farmer's market, out on the town squares... everywhere...
Back in the day, people used to head to church just to remind one another which congregation they ought to be attending...
Remind the other guy not to forget the agreement. It’s all about how citizens coexist...
It was only fair, really... a just reward for the king's gesture.
Since the crack of dawn, reports have been trickling in from every corner of the kingdom...
Whole families of vineyard owners, out there in the countryside with their own private jugs...
With the hands of the family patriarch... one by one, they pulled themselves up...
climbing the stairs that led up to the top of the massive royal
vat, emptying their jugs and descending via different staircases
where, at the bottom, the royal treasurer would stamp the king's
seal onto the lapel of every single citizen.
By mid-afternoon, once the last citizen had emptied
their jug, word spread that no one had missed out. The massive
fifteen-thousand-liter vat was full. From the very first
to the very last subject, everyone had passed through the garden on time
and poured their jugs into the vat.
The king was proud, quite satisfied, I suppose. Once the sun
set and the people gathered in the plaza before the palace, the ruler
stepped out onto his balcony to the cheers of his people.
Everyone was happy. The king requested that they bring him
a sample of the collected wine in a large crystal chalice, an heirloom of his ancestors.
As the glass was being brought forward, the ruler addressed them.

"Wonderful people of Grape-land: just as I suspected,
every inhabitant of the kingdom came to the palace today. I wish
to share this royal joy with you, now that I have seen
that the loyalty of the people to their king is equal to
the loyalty of the king to his people. And I can think of
no greater honor than to toast to you with the first glass
of this wine, which will surely be divine nectar—a blend
of the finest grapes on Earth, tended by the best hands in the world,
watered by the greatest blessing of the kingdom, in other words, the love of the people."

Everyone wept and cheered for the king.
A servant approached the king with the glass, and he raised it
to toast the people, who were clapping with pure euphoria. But a sudden surprise
halted his hand mid-air: when he
lifted the glass, the king noticed the liquid inside was
transparent and colorless. He slowly brought it to his nose, practiced
in sniffing out the aroma of the finest wines, and realized
there was no scent at all. Being a skilled connoisseur,
he brought the glass to his lips almost reflexively and took a sip.
The wine had neither the taste of wine nor any other
flavor whatsoever!
The king ordered a second glass from the vat, then
another, and finally tried to take a sample from the very top. But it was useless: everything was the same. No smell, no color, no taste.
Chemists were urgently summoned to analyze the composition
of the wine. The conclusion was unanimous: the vat was full of
water. Pure water. One hundred percent water.
The ruler immediately sent for all the sages and prophets
of the kingdom to find an urgent explanation for this mystery.
What sort of magic, chemical reaction, or sorcery had occurred
to turn this mixture of wine into water?
The oldest of the king's ministers approached him
and whispered in his ear: "A miracle? Magic? Alchemy? None of
that, sir, none of that. Your subjects are merely human
beings, Your Majesty. That is all."
"I don't understand," said the king.
"Take John Doe, for example," the minister replied.
"John Doe owns a vast vineyard stretching from the hills to
the river. He harvests grapes from the finest vines in the kingdom,
and his wine is always among the first sold and at the
highest price.
This morning, as he was getting his family ready to head down to
town, a thought crossed his mind: What if I substituted water
for wine? Who would ever notice the difference?
Just one jug of water in fifteen thousand liters of wine:
no one would notice! No one!
And no one would have noticed, Your Majesty, except for one tiny thing.
Except for one tiny thing.
Everyone thought the exact same thing!"

In this way, the author of this thread loses himself in the crowd, in nothingness, in the distance of mirrors. His mirror is too far away for him to see or recognize himself, so he simply wonders, "If I am not here, will anyone even notice?"
Well, if he just considered that he asked if something was there, and that someone actually answered him... and more importantly, that it was a second, third, or fourth person... who read it and it helped them, he might conclude that his existence did not go unnoticed. He could place himself back in that perfect moment when, acting as the predecessor, he pushed that mass, that herd, forward...

I mean, if you decide to treat life like some kind of endless battle, then yeah, it’s gonna feel like one. But maybe it could also be more like an ice rink—one where the people you love have your back, and you've got them too, and the universe just sort of looks out for you.
It really just comes down to how you see things, I guess.

Patrick Peterson talking about kingdoms is a bit much! "they're just human beings" haha 😁.

Paul Thompson3 said:Look, I'm not looking for a pity party or an SOS here—I just want to know what everyone else thinks.
I was watching The Bridge the other day and it got my gears turning. Beyond the usual stuff like mental health struggles, debt, or heartbreak, it feels to me like most people end up checking out because they just can't stomach the sheer emptiness and lack of purpose in life—at least, I personally find it unbearable.
You wake up in the morning knowing there isn't anything great waiting for you. Every single day.
It all feels pretty pointless. How do you guys deal with it?

So, is our resident drama queen planning on checking out?
Change what you can within yourself, accept the things you can't, and just keep moving forward...

Drama queen 🙂 You misread the intro.

You just hit the nail right on the head, exactly what I was thinking...

Trust me, getting out of bed is a struggle for all of us more often than we’d like to admit. I feel it too—not just as a person, but as a woman and a mother... and yet, somehow, I still manage to pull myself up. I throw myself into this exhausting, relentless daily grind because, honestly, I have to. Every single day feels like I'm living it for the very first time, rather than just repeating some old routine... okay, fine, I need a little time to find my rhythm... but once I do, everything starts feeling interesting again, fresh, and unique. By the end of it, I collapse into bed completely drained, but happy...

Paul Thompson3 said:I was going to post this in Philosophy, but since everyone in the psych group seems to share the common denominator of being "totally screwed," I figured I'd drop it here instead.
Life is a struggle—blah, blah, blah... But what happens when that struggle doesn't actually have a goal worth fighting for? When you’ve just been spinning your wheels for ages, staring at a wall, knowing full well nothing is ever going to change? You get those little bursts of ego, thinking you've made it, only to crash back down again—just an endless cycle of highs and lows against a backdrop of absolute, impenetrable nothingness. There's no safe harbor, no handhold, nothing actually worth living for.
Is this the headspace most people find themselves in right before they decide to end it all?

There’s always something worth fighting for, even if you can't see it at first. It really just comes down to whether we decide to step into the ring or not.

When you've been spinning your wheels for a while, staring at a brick wall, it gets obvious nothing is changing. So you try to act high and mighty, then you crash, playing this endless game of ebb and flow... all against a backdrop of total, impenetrable nothingness. There's no safe harbor, no handhold to grab onto that actually makes life feel worth living.
Is this the headspace most people end up in before they take their own lives?

We can't predict how things will play out. Tomorrow could look completely different from today. We don't fight for ourselves nearly enough. That might sound selfish, but it isn't. We lose our anchor when we forget that we should be living our lives for ourselves first. When that happens, we try to cling to other people instead, and that's when it becomes so easy to fall.

The highs and lows are just part of being alive, and one side never stays dominant forever. And honestly? That's a good thing. At least for me...

Life is a fight.

Life just is—but how you fight? That’s your call. You can’t control every single thing that hits you—it's like trying to stop a rainstorm with your bare hands—but you can always choose how you react to it.

"Happiness belongs to those who accept things as they are." Now, don't get me wrong—that doesn't mean you shouldn't aim for something better. It just means you don't let the current mess break you; you acknowledge it and move forward.

With no safe harbor in sight and nothing solid to grab onto—nothing actually worth holding on for.

And what even is "security" anyway? People tend to trip over their own feet when they think they're finally standing on solid ground.

Just to add my two cents to this thread: I am constantly fighting the urge to look people straight in the eye and tell them exactly what they are—you know, morons, idiots, total hypocrites...
And when I talk about "fighting," I really mean this internal battle—just trying to master my own impulses and that dark, heavy urge to just give up on life entirely ...every single day...
It reminds me of that Dostoevsky quote: "If we could truly see how the world works and uncover all its secrets, we wouldn't have anything left to do but sit on the curb and cry..."