Catching Up - End of 2020

[Big Bad Bug]

Wow, it's been awhile. Truth be told, I thought I had long since moved on from ever posting here. I thought I moved on. But instead, my life has completely stagnated. It's no secret that there's a massive pandemic going on, and the isolation has affected me quite terribly unfortunately. I feel like I’ve lost a lot of who I am this year - some of which for the better, at least. Yet I still miss the kind of self-confidence and comfort that I felt back in the days when I used to be active here. That actually melted away more due to Discord and as I talked to JB more, but those changes have since snowballed into something much more severe now. I’ve become much more nihilistic and depressed. Pretty much every day I struggle to keep the motivation to anything towards my future, for I dread it so intensely that I don’t want to bring myself any closer to that future. I expect myself to not be happy because I can’t find meaning in anything; life feels inherently pointless, the knowledge that nothing lasts forever keeps me from enjoying it, and the only advice I ever get in response to things like this is that I just shouldn’t think about it. But my life feels like a hollow facade when all I can do is to distract myself from the fact that nothing happening around me really matters.

To clarify, I’ve come to realize that I can’t come up with an everlasting purpose for anything I do. If I was to try to be successful to make my parents proud, it ultimately wouldn’t matter. Their opinion of me doesn’t have any meaning in the grand scheme of things. If I wanted to make something that impacted the lives of others, so what? I could change the entire world and it wouldn’t matter, because there's nothing that makes anyone else in the world matter. Humanity exists for itself. If mankind was to stop existing, then there would be nothing left to miss it. Its existence is tied in a circle that is ultimately finite. Everything that I once thought or believed in is trapped in a sphere of purpose that has no significance outside of itself. I can’t describe or imagine the kind of purpose that would have to exist to satisfy me. It is beyond my comprehension to imagine something that has everlasting, worthwhile meaning. I don’t even understand the concept of meaning anymore. Meaning isn’t something that really exists, but rather floats around in our minds as this vague idea that we don’t even realize how little sense it makes. Without any concept of meaning, I’m left feeling like nothing matters.

I really wish I could still be the hopeful, energetic person who constantly shared new ideas and dreams. But over time I’ve given up on dream after dream. I no longer expect myself to ever be able to make my own video games. I don’t even expect myself to be able to learn computer science; I’ve tried and failed every time, at a massive cost with each attempt, too. I’ve even had to step back and withdraw from university in order to get my life together, because I was just flushing money down the toilet this whole year. Really, I’ve become as pathetic as I could possibly imagine myself becoming.

But my persona on the forums isn’t s goal to strive for, either. I deeply apologize for my behavior in the past. My 14-year-old self was also just as insecure, but it was masked with a veneer of showing off in order to force myself to get the validation I thought I deserved at the time. It was the driving force of my motivation, and while I’m glad to no longer be motivated for such a purpose, I do sometimes wish I had some sort of motivation at all. After all, I know plenty of people go the rest of their lives without ever sorting out some of their deepest concerns and insecurities. I would like to find an altruistic motivation if I could, but I can’t bring myself to believe in what I do when all logic points to the inherent meaninglessness of life itself.

I’ve never been in a worse spot before. There have been a few times where I thought I hit my lowest point, but this absolutely trumps everything else so far. None of the wisdom I’ve searched for anywhere has been of help. I’ve become so desperate that this is all I end up talking about to other people now. It's the only thing on my mind; what else could I even possibly care about when the meaning of life is in question? All this flowery stuff about how life is about making your own happiness doesn’t do anything for me when nothing matters. To be honest, the pandemic has had little influence on my mindset. This is something that I’ve thought since 2018, but I was at least able to remain productive up until this point. Now I don’t know what to do. I’ve even let myself get peer pressured into posting here, where there are only a handful of people that will ever see it. But I guess it doesn’t matter any less than anything else I could do, right?

Let me know how you guys are doing. At least I’ve set the bar pretty low for you all.

[MalikHammerfury]

"If you are going through the hell, keep going" Winston Churchil

[EpicPhantom999]

The excitement I felt when I first saw this thread is nothing in comparison to the remorse I feel now. Sorry.
I hope the self-confidence you once felt will come back to you soon.

[Ashley897]

Hi, sorry I'm "a little" bit late. I hope everything is going well, I'm sorry to hear that And yeah EpicPhantom please do not criticize me again on how cringey this post is. Ok bye have a great day everyone!!!

[Big Bad Bug]

Hey guys. I should apologize for being quite negative in this post. I'm not really one to complain publicly, as I find that it gets pretty embarrassing to look back on the complaints once the problem is solved.

I can't say that the things I vented about are completely resolved, but I can certainly confirm that I feel a lot better these days than I normally do. I should have waited before doing a post, because I would have otherwise been able to catch up at this moment instead, where I have good news to share! I've been very happy as of late, and while I don't want to get into too many of the specifics, suffice to say that things are nearly a 180 from what they were when I first made my post.

I want to say that I am tremendously grateful for all of the experiences I have had on this forum. I would not have been shaped into the person I am today were it not for the people I've met here and the memories we've made. Then I would also not be able to enjoy my life now to the extent that I currently am, so, thank you, all of you.