You know, I'm not sure if this kind of thing is even allowed. If not, please delete and accept my apologies.
I must be the opposite of the Springtime of Youth. The Springtime of Youth board makes me smile, but in a way it frustrates me. Why? It's because I can't even remotely find that kind of vigor in myself. I'm 24, and I feel like my life has bled away before my eyes, turned to ash and dust. I'm so tired, physically, mentally, emotionally...
The weariness is understandable. Indeed, I might agree with you in that I don't quite favour entirely the Springtime, either, as I think if it burns to hot, it'll whither and turn to ash. I've never been one for the gaudy dawn, nor the dissembling spring... I look to the twilight and the fall. In part because spring contains too many vain hopes. And it is not in hoping so highly that we find peace, but in understanding what must be, and who we must be.
While everyone around me is moving forward, I feel like I'm literally standing still, at a dead stop that I'm unable to break free of. I do have things going for me, but they all feel colorless and bland, pointless. In fact, everything in my life feels colorless and bland. I have so many things I need to do, but no idea how to go forward.
I know I'm likely depressed. My good friend recently died at the end of August after a four-year battle with leukemia, and it hit me really hard. He was doing better, on his way up after battling bravely, and was scheduled to have a bone marrow transplant two weeks from the day he died. But he'd been talking to his father, and had gotten what he'd always wanted to hear: an unconditional "I love you." Two days later? He died. His heart was worn out, and just stopped. He was 29.
Perhaps you are depressed. In part that becomes a chemical effect, but in part it is something you can draw yourself out of. The only suggestion I have is this, that in acting something you can become it. That is, not acting something you are not, but deciding what you are and being it. That is, if you see things as colourless, make a point to see colour, even the slightest. I will not admonish an artifical smile. Indeed, there's an old saying that says 'a sad face is good for the heart, and wisdom lies in the house of mourning.' This is true. It is in suffering that we learn the most. Or a line from an old Greek play: pathei mathos. One learns through suffering. What you can be assured in is that though you suffer now, though you feel dim and dark, you are learning, and when you come out of the darkness into some new light in a day to follow, that learning will serve you well. Even if you cannot even now see it, it is building in your mind and heart. You are wondering on things and question that you would not ask save through this suffering, and that is the great blessing and benefit of suffering that no amount of passion for life or zeal can match.
The one suggestion I can give you is to read and to watch tragedy. Not the badly written stuff that is depressing. But the true high tragedy. For the ancients thought, and I think they were right, that the way in which to combat melancholic moods were not to bolster with high and jovial moods (which in their fading lead only to darkness worse than before, a rising and falling upon stormwaves.) Indeed, we are cast upon stormwaves. But should we look in the trough of the wave to be risen to the height of the crest? No, that'll lead to our ruin. So we look rather to the leveling of the waves. To the evening of our spirit. You should not look to cheer yourself up, but to calm yourself. That is my admonition, and for this I suggest Tragedy. You'll not see artificial happiness in it. But in good tragedy, you will see beauty amidst suffering. Read Aeschylus, such as the Agamemnon and the Eumenedies, or yet the Persians. Read some Sophocles. Read Hamlet and MacBeth. You'll find beauty in the words, but more, beauty in the suffering. And then through that you will see meaning in your own dismal state. And soon the state will not seem so dismal. It needn't have changed, but you will find it being beautified. Your mind can make a heaven out of it's hell, you know.
And if the things you know to be going for you feel bland, continue on in them. Do it by rote if you must. The meaning in them will return if you don't let your sparks for them utterly die. For you yourself speak the saving words: that you have these things going for you. You know it in your mind, your spirit and heart only cannot feel it. But isn't that just it? It's only a feeling. And feelings can be conquered. Your mind must be your guide. You know what is right and you know what is good. Cling to these things. Tell yourself there is meaning in what you have going for you. Force yourself to see it in despite of your heart.
And if all this is difficult, as it most certainly must be, remember that this one further meaning can be had: the human spirit of rising up against adversity. Of feeling all that weight against you, and refusing to fall utterly. Of having, as it were, a victory against yourself. If you can, even to a small extent, work past this, you will have something to be proud of. And that might be the fulcrum upon all else can be raised up.
Finally, one more word to this part, a lines from the Iliad. This is from book 24, line 49, and Apollon is speaking of how mortals are given to suffering the loss of those dear to them, and how it has happened before and will happen again, in speaking of Achilles and the death of Patroklos. But how we after due time of mourning (note, mourning has its place), continue on. He says:
'For the fates have given to Men an enduring spirit.'
Enduring there is the Greek word Tleton. As a verb it's tlao, and I often say to myself its future. Tleso. I will endure.
His death has made me think very hard on the purpose of life. Is there any purpose at all? Is it to have children? To make discoveries? To die? I don't believe in an afterlife, don't believe in some great beautiful hereafter. So what is the point?
Probably the worst thing is that I don't even know what I want from life. A while back someone (Zeality, I believe) started a thread, discussing the penultimate/ultimate/secondary desires they had in life. I thought long and hard after reading that thread, reluctant to even try to reply, because I honestly don't know. It's stuck with me ever since I read the post, trying to think about what I want out of life. It isn't necessarily love (I don't believe in true "love", anyway), or power, or specific achievements. I mean, I have things that I want to do, but they're not anywhere near the penultimate/ultimate purpose of life level.
Heh, you don't believe in true love either, eh? Well, never mind that one. I was cynical on that too, if you saw my list... cynical to the point where I put one of my wishes to keep myself APART from that. Anyway, this is a difficult question. I must say I cannot precisely answer it because I have as long as I can remember had a certain goal that I have been moving towards. But certainly there are things you know that you enjoy. Even if you cannot now consider them to be great or to the degree of ultimate purposes (which are, you must understand, excercises in understanding one's self... that is, I think the people who were posting those were attempting to glean from their self-knowledge who they were at the core of their being... whether or not they are accurate in that is uncertain, but at least some came to that understanding after much deliberation.) Anyway, take those things that you enjoy, and slowly work on them. Focus on them. Obviously (from the next paragraph), you enjoy writing. Very well. That is one thing. And as you do it, take joy in it. Not in the publishing, but in the act of writing, which is a part of yourself.
My current wish? I want to get a book published. I've written the book, been turned down five times by publishers, only to have the most recent publisher send it back to me three times asking me to revise parts of the story. I want to believe that they're interested and may eventually pick up the text, but I don't dare get my hopes up.
True. Don't get your hopes up. Be content with how things are in the present, and you will be all the more pleased with a good event in the future... but even then, you must not expect good fortune to last. That might sound cynical, but it is a fact of things, and to not be dependant on good times makes one impervious to fortune's turns. So with this, consider the worst case... they don't pick it up. But you have a story that you wrote and that you enjoy. Something that is your own. What do you need the others liking it for? It might be an added benefit, but do not rely on others to keep you content.
That's my problem: I don't dare hope for anything. I don't think I know how anymore. If there's no hope in my life, then there's no point to life. Then why live at all? Why continue to live if I have no purpose and no hopes or dreams? In fact, if there's no real purpose to anything, then why does anyone live at all?
That is a teleological question, and it's tough to answer. If you do not believe in an afterlife, then you must create some meaning in your present. Now, to be a bit Nietzschean here, yes, life may have no purpose, but it can have meaning. And that meaning is in the present experience. Honestly, do you need any hopes and dreams? For most often what are hopes and dreams run far too high, and in not achieving them we fall prey to disappointment. So do not hold to them. Make use of things you wish simply to give you a direction, but if you live for a future, you do not have the present. So what you do is live in the present, though being mindful of the future. It's the old admonition of carpe diem. That is, not fall prey to hedonism, but perhaps more of an epicurean enjoyment of life. It's difficult when one's thinking nihilistically as you are, but nonetheless, I think it to be true.
I would personally suggest trying to be stoic. Read some Seneca.
I don't know if I'm overworked and simply exhausted. I don't know if I need to talk or shut up. I don't know if I need more rest or more action. My family doesn't care, and my "friends" don't care to listen. I'm just so tired.
Well, talk always helps. As such, talk, and even if no one directly replies, at least the act of speaking is cathartic. Do you need rest or action... well, you need both. You need to act, and then in rest contemplate your actions. That is, understand yourself in what you do and in the decisions that you make. If you have done something that you do not like, then decide to learn from it, and do differently next time. Don't vow that you will beyond doubt change - that'll only lead to disappointment - but that you shall do your utmost. And having done your utmost, be content in the knowledge that you have given it a most excellent attempt.
This is difficult to manage when you're tired, I suppose. But if it's weariness overcoming you, then you must first of all step back and calm yourself with something. Sit outside and watch the sun. Read a good book. In this state I'd recommend Seneca. Read 'On Tranquility' or 'On the Shortness of Life'... I've always found those two to be heartening, and when I felt unsure and assailed by fortune and what not, his Stoic virtue is a powerful voice of determination. A stoic, you see, needs be master of nothing about him, about no aspect of life or circumstance, being only a master of himself. A stoic expects nothing to actually happen, so will not be dissapointed when it doesn't (but still works for it); and if some misfortune befalls, why, things were not his to begin with, and he is happy to have had it at all. Therefore each moment of life is a blessing. And so on and so forth, though Seneca says it better than I. Basically, fear nothing and be ruled by nothing.
I need to speak to my father, but I don't know how. He's done a lot of bad things, but I know, somewhere in the deep recesses of my mind, that he loves me. But I'm so upset by his mere presence that I can't even speak to him. The problem is that he doesn't have much time left on this Earth, so what do I do? Do I go with the path of least resistance, the one that will tear me up less? Or do I potentially derail my sanity for a week and go see him anyway?
See him. It will not tear you up less, but far more if you don't. If he doesn't have much time left, it will most likely haunt you that you did not. Even if it's difficult now, later you will thank yourself for having done it.
I'm not exactly sure why I'm posting this here. I've been lurking on this board so long that I feel like I know a lot of you, even if I don't post very much. I'm sorry to whine...sometimes venting helps me figure things out.
Absolutely. Don't feel bad about it. Nor is it whining. I very much understand venting, and its benefit is unmeasurable. It helps put things into order, and is cathartic. I do that myself very often.
Anyway, so for the current moment, I would suggest reading some of Seneca. Read 'On the Shortness of Life', or 'On Tranquility.' Let's see...
http://www.forumromanum.org/literature/seneca_younger/brev_e.htmlhttp://www.stoics.com/seneca_essays_book_2.html#‘TRANQUILLITATE1
And read some Tragedy. Some high Tragedy so that you can level out your spirit with sombre beauty and high melancholy. Read Shakespeare. Read some Milton (Paradise Lost?). Read Homer's Iliad. And Aeschylus. For Aeschylus... if you go to a site called Project Perseus, they have most ancient texts there. Or, here, this is a bloody prose translation, but is alright:
http://www.theoi.com/Text/AeschylusAgamemnon.htmlOr.. here it's performed:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vqFgCGuBn4AAnd here, a very good little bit of Aeschylus' Agamemnon, read by Robert Kennedy at the night of Dr. King's assassination:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FQQ-DwLqoGY