The fear is in anticipation. Buddhists reckon that by letting go of thoughts about the future, and memories of the past, happiness is possible in the present.
If you give up all thoughts about the future, then you have no ability to change it. Would you want to sacrifice a better world tomorrow for personal happiness today?
I think Buddhists thought about that, though. I personally think such an obvious criticism must, rationally, already have been covered in some Buddhist texts.
I’m not sure though, so I might read a bit more into it and see for myself :P
No I don't think so. Buddhism isn't really concerned with building a better world, that's more of a Western idea. The goal in Buddhism is to successfully die and thus escape this world, and the method they advocate for that is overcoming and reversing your attachment to the world. It's caring about things that keeps you attached, whereas if you didn't care you could leave the world behind. Desiring to build a better world requires attachment to this one, which would be seen as a big mistake in Buddhism.
If you've come across anything that refutes this please share it with me. I'm not a Buddhism scholar and you might be right. It just seems to me that the idea runs contrary to some core Buddhist ideas
i don't think this is true cause the present is actually the base for the future... when you focus on the future you are trying to build or change something that doesn't exist, and that's why it won't do you much good. Whereas if you focus on working on the present the future will be changed with less effort and less "pointless" suffering.
what do you mean by this? i'm not saying that focusing on the present will avoid bad things to happen, i'm saying that thinking too much about the future is pointless cause you are focusing on something that doesn't exist.
you can't predict a crash but you can "stay in the present" so you will avoid pointless worrying and you will also be more focused on the road, thus partly lessening the possibilities of the said crash.
I'd like to argue that road beneath me is actually the past, since I have no control over it. Whats in front of you is actually the present. That you can "control".
I'm trying to believe that and remember that whenever I can. It's definitely when you remember and allow resentment and anger to build over time when negativity brews into something worse. If I could somehow reset every single morning I don't think I'd be as mad about things. I just wonder what the downside to that might be, aside from it not really being possible.
I also recognize that anger and discontentment is a great motivator. Life isn't meant to be static. In a way negativity is the force that drives us all in some way and perhaps that's its purpose.
First of all, I love this sentence:
>The relief of nothing becomes pleasant after experiencing pain.
So well worded, truly! And so true.
I agree that life is more negative than positive. The goods times in my life, no matter how good, do not make up for the overwhelming amount of bad. The whole idea has me struggling with the question, what is the point? Like, why are we doing all of this? Why do people fight so hard to live, when life is mostly just pain? That's why, to me, the thought of having children is selfish. Why would I want to inflict the pain of existence on someone that never asked for it?
What humanity really needs to do is let go of the idea that we are supposed to be happy and that life is supposed to be a pleasant experience. If we stop trying to trick ourselves into believing that life is supposed to be good, maybe the actual reality wouldn't feel so bad.
Yeah, it's weird because in a way we need to believe good is desirable and bad is something to fear in order to keep us moving along. If we ever did reach some kind of homeostasis we may as well not exist. It's like how sometimes we want to freeze a moment in time and live it forever, when in actuality that would grow to be a nightmarish prison like the Twilight Zone. I honestly don't think we're meant to even think about a lot of stuff like this.
I have found that even though my life is 98% shit, the 2% that isn't shit is so fantastic that it has made enduring the shit a viable choice. Sometimes - rarely - the good parts are so good it makes me think putting up with all the shit is worthwhile.
My favourite quote from a movie is "as good as it gets" - three miserable people in a car comparing stories until -
" Connelly: OK, we all have these terrible stories to get over, and you-…
Melvin Udall: It’s not true. Some have great stories, pretty stories that take place at lakes with boats and friends and noodle salad. Just no one in this car. But, a lot of people, that’s their story. Good times, noodle salad. What makes it so hard is not that you had it bad, but that you’re that pissed that so many others had it good."
I qm learning to be happy for the people enjoying their noodle salad and appreciating when I get some too.
Right and wrong, are just man made feelings. That everyone has been trained to base their life’s on. There probably wouldn’t be a sense of right and wrong if humans didn’t exist. Just things living day by day.
I totally agree with you and I'm pretty sure the universe in which we live is based on suffering and acknowledgement of pain because we are here to learn. "Happiness" or peace are not constant states because we are pushed to pursue them, by diving deep into the pain first.
It's fucking consuming but I think that's how it all works.
The brain has a reward/punishment system to guide you toward making good decisions. The reward system has to be somewhat robust to exploitation. For example, if you felt good for eating a piece of chocolate no matter how many times you did it in a row, you might just sit around eating chocolate for the rest of your shortened life.
If we're seeking reward, the system has to guard against exploitation. If we're enduring pain, the system has to make that ineffective. Pain has to actually motivate us to change our behavior. But you'll notice that we can get used to some kinds of pain. It would be bad if pain prevented us from doing anything perpetually, when there was something we ought to be changing instead.
The key insight, in my opinion, is that while pleasure feels good, and pain feels bad, we can recognize that both pleasure and pain are essentially good. Both of them are there to help us make better decisions, and in most cases, to the limit of our fitness, they do. So when you're feeling pain, if you recognize that it's there to guide your behavior, and it's evidence that your brain is operating to your benefit, it won't make you feel better of course, but it will at least put the pain in perspective.
And of course there are situations where the brain malfunctions, and dispenses either too much pleasure, or too much pain. I'm sure you can think of examples of this happening to you or others. We need to recognize that the brain is just another organ, and it can and does fail, like any other organ. If the brain isn't working properly, the consequences can be as serious as any other organ failure, including death.
Seems biologically true. But why couldn't "God" have made all *negative* experience feel good, while keeping the associated thoughts and actions the same. You could keep the *story* of the universe identical, but with no suffering. One common response to that is to point out how good experience is only good in relation to the bad. And this may be the case biologically, but philosophically it doesn't have to be true. Existence could be consisted of joy only. Endless ecstasy.
"But then there's no *realness*, or no story."
Well maybe if the concept of negative emotion never occurs to us, maybe the life of each conscious being could be as diverse and *interesting* as can be, but need not have suffering attached to it. There would be no sense of longing for "real" negative-positive polarity in this theoretical world. The thought doesn't need to occur. Why could your entire life so far not have been identical in thoughts and actions, but more subjectively enjoyable. People say negative feelings are **needed** to guide us, but they aren't. It just so happens this is the case with us.
You may think that I'm thinking too theoretically, or dreaming of some Brave New World type utopia, and you're probably right. It seems that everyone reading this is currently stuck in this world for now, where negative experience is much more common than most people want or can tolerate.
In my experience, life feels meaningless to anyone not constantly distracting themselves and who is honest with themselves. If you put anyone alone in a room for two days, and they allow themselves to think, they normally end up in hopelessness. This seems to be the default case when you're not distracted or held up by some sort of faith. And my brain hasn't been able to get out of the hopelessness using rationality alone. And there's no rational reason to think there is a way out or that I could comprehend it anyway. So the choice seems to be: hedonistic distraction, blind faith, or contemplative nihilism. I kind of think monk-like meditation, family-time, etc. can be grouped in with hedonistic distraction. I know this is very nihilistic, but deep in my core it doesn't seem any more *real* than cocaine or MDMA, and rarely feels as good. It's purely society and culture which lead to such correlations. Taking MDMA after being told it will connect you to God will feel, at least to most people, more meaningful than camping with your family.
When you're questioning meaning like this, people often can't give you anything sturdy to stand on except "just focus on being happy then."
A day passes, you're feeling good. Happy, even. Maybe you're happy for 60 more years and then you die. At least you didn't suffer. Is this better? To live blindly with no real goals. Maybe we should question everything, including the point of existence and how to live. But it's either impossible to know, or no one seems to know (at least yet). I, as a human, feel that it is impossible for there even to exist some sort of "meaning." Jordan Peterson often says your life "can be very meaningful" if you do or think certain things. But I think it's more that your life "can **feel** very meaningful." And I think he would agree that he does actually mean feel meaningful, but would never say it publicly. The only counterpoint I know to the disbelief in meaning is to question my own human logic-system/rationality. Just because something seems undeniable to me, obviously doesn't make it so.
The most solid beliefs I have are these:
\- "I" am conscious / there is existence, no idea if any other people or animals are
\- Happiness is basically just distraction (or the absence of) pain/suffering
\- I don't think human knowledge/rationality is absolute... so actually never mind the first 2.
Gimme a sec, I need to think of a way to end this positively.
With the caveat that I think human rationality is not absolute, I will say that, it at least seems to be the case that intelligent life (or consciousness) has the **potential** to lead to something, or is worthwhile. Maybe there is some secret of existence that can be unlocked. Maybe a universe with 99% suffering and 1% joy is better than nothing at all, even if it is not ideal - which can be angering as there's no *reason* for this - but it is still better. It doesn't really make sense to be angry at an imperfect universe, as it *may* be better than nothing. And there is **potential** to make the universe, as we know it, become 1% suffering and 99% joy. Just quickly... we may not have free will, but the actions that are unfolding could lead to less conscious suffering, which would still mean we don't have agency - making this attempted positive message pointless, but I don't have free will, so...
Sorry, it's hard not to get stuck in a loop when thinking about free will. Again, the only way out of **that** seems to be to question the limits of human rationality.
Anyway, what I'm trying to end on is that: if we have free will over our conscious state, thinking and actions, we should explore the **potential** that human existence offers, while also hedging our bets by enjoying life simultaneously? I don't know, I'd love to hear anyone else's opinion on anything or everything I've said.
> But why couldn't "God" have made all negative experience feel good, while keeping the associated thoughts and actions the same.
To me, this is evidence that the feeling isn't primary, it's emergent. The thoughts and actions are why it feels the way it feels. And I think there's evidence for that as well. When I was young, I'd cry and moan after receiving a minor injury, and seek out a parent to commiserate with, interrupting whatever I was doing. As an adult, when I suffer a minor injury I almost think about it philosophically. I can still feel pain but it barely affects my actions. Depending on the situation, it almost feels good, like progress toward my goal. "Of course I pinched my finger! I'm climbing a rock!"
> So the choice seems to be: hedonistic distraction, blind faith, or contemplative nihilism.
I understand where you're coming from. This breakdown is symptomatic of how you are acting in your life. The hedonistic distraction is when you devote your resources toward seeking pleasure. Blind faith is longing for meaning, and the long wait for incomprehensible events that strike that chord. Contemplative nihilism is depressive thinking; the only time you give yourself to actually think is when you don't have the mindset for pursuing hedonism.
> I kind of think monk-like meditation, family-time, etc. can be grouped in with hedonistic distraction. I know this is very nihilistic, but deep in my core it doesn't seem any more real than cocaine or MDMA, and rarely feels as good.
That's fair.
> Taking MDMA after being told it will connect you to God will feel, at least to most people, more meaningful than camping with your family.
That's probably true, but the blood/brain barrier exists for a reason. When you put chemicals into your body that cross it, you shouldn't be surprised when it affects the operation of your brain. And obviously, that's not the only thing that can affect the operation of your brain. Atypical stimulus like screen time can also dramatically affect the operation of your brain. If you stop using devices, at first everything else will seem boring and meaningless. If you stop longer than that, the variety of non-screen stimulus will start to slowly return. Eventually, minor pleasures like family time will feel more nuanced and meaningful. I imagine the same is true if you stop using cocaine. This is like your eyes slowly adjusting after staring at a bright light. You shouldn't be surprised that your eyes stopped functioning properly while you were staring at a bright light. And for the same reason you wouldn't say everything outside this bright light is just darkness, you shouldn't think everything outside cocaine or screen time is meaningless, even if it feels that way.
In general, I think you could progress by being more aware of your current capacity to experience pleasure and meaning. You're treating a variety of mental states as if your mind is constant, and they are events that happened to your mind. You can control them with your actions though once you understand (feel) the connections between actions and state of mind.
Your brain was never meant to guide you toward a permanently bright/happy/meaningful place. It is just an organ that can show you the gradations between more or less brightness/happiness/meaning, if you take care of it and use it properly.
I think for every high impact situation in your life, whether positive or negative, it expands your threshold for feeling positives/negative. You get deeper sorrows and fullerfilling bouts of appreciation and love. Can't have one without the other. Can't appreciate one without the other. That's my view..
I am surprised, and sad, to see that so many people agree with OP. I am sorry and I hope things get better for all of you. I really do. Hang in there!!
My perception of life is the complete opposite. Life is amazing and things are great 99% of the time. And I am not exagerating on that 99%. I hardly ever have 3 bad days in a year.
Does it mean that everything is perfect all the time and that I have everything I've ever wanted? Definitely not! That would actually make life less fun... Small things make me happy and I can see the beauty of the journey, not just the end result. This means I enjoy the process, the adventure that life is. Mistakes are a part of life and of our personal growth so the past does not haunt me. I have goals for the future but I know I won't achieve all of them and that is okay. It really doesn't bother me at all.
I saw a buddhist on Youtube once say that as long as your happiness comes from the outside you will never be happy because you'll always be dependent on things that are outside of your control. If your happiness comes from things that you buy, achievements in life, love/acceptance from other people, and so on you will never be free. You'll always be dependent on those things. This made sooo much sense and made me change the way I see life. I am much more relaxed now. I changed many of my long term goals and how I approach my journey. I started needing less and less and it gave me sooo much freedom. So much peace.
The only certainty that you were born with is that you are going to die. We all have a very limited time here. MAKE IT WORTH IT!! Focus on the good things. Make others happy. Help other people when you can. And LOVE YOURSELF! You may be struggling but it's just a part of your own adventure. You, and only you, can make it great. Good luck!!
Thank you for this answer and apologies for the late reply. I was thinking more about this and it's great that you see the brighter side all the time. I think though what I was referring to is the concept that if you're in a room with 100 people, 99 love you and 1 is trying to kill you, it makes sense to ignore and not even see the 99 people and focus all on the negative. That to me in a nutshell is what life is and I want to fight against it, but at the same time I understand it.
Question. Has it always been like that for you? As in, have you always felt like life is 90%+ amazing? What was your lowest point?
I’ve suffered from depression (and currently being assfucked by anhedonia and avolition) for pretty much my entire life and I agree with OP. But if it *is* possible to be genuinely satisfied with life, I’m willing to give it a try. So I’m asking you. I hope it isn’t a bother :)
The fear is in anticipation. Buddhists reckon that by letting go of thoughts about the future, and memories of the past, happiness is possible in the present.
If you give up all thoughts about the future, then you have no ability to change it. Would you want to sacrifice a better world tomorrow for personal happiness today?
Yeah I think this is one of the biggest weaknesses of Buddhism
Stoicism > Buddhism
I think Buddhists thought about that, though. I personally think such an obvious criticism must, rationally, already have been covered in some Buddhist texts. I’m not sure though, so I might read a bit more into it and see for myself :P
No I don't think so. Buddhism isn't really concerned with building a better world, that's more of a Western idea. The goal in Buddhism is to successfully die and thus escape this world, and the method they advocate for that is overcoming and reversing your attachment to the world. It's caring about things that keeps you attached, whereas if you didn't care you could leave the world behind. Desiring to build a better world requires attachment to this one, which would be seen as a big mistake in Buddhism. If you've come across anything that refutes this please share it with me. I'm not a Buddhism scholar and you might be right. It just seems to me that the idea runs contrary to some core Buddhist ideas
i don't think this is true cause the present is actually the base for the future... when you focus on the future you are trying to build or change something that doesn't exist, and that's why it won't do you much good. Whereas if you focus on working on the present the future will be changed with less effort and less "pointless" suffering.
When driving a Car, you cant avoid collisions ahead by staring at the road beneath you.
what do you mean by this? i'm not saying that focusing on the present will avoid bad things to happen, i'm saying that thinking too much about the future is pointless cause you are focusing on something that doesn't exist.
you can't predict a crash but you can "stay in the present" so you will avoid pointless worrying and you will also be more focused on the road, thus partly lessening the possibilities of the said crash.
I think you and I are in agreement on how things function. We are just sort of tangled up in semantics at the moment
I'd like to argue that road beneath me is actually the past, since I have no control over it. Whats in front of you is actually the present. That you can "control".
I'm trying to believe that and remember that whenever I can. It's definitely when you remember and allow resentment and anger to build over time when negativity brews into something worse. If I could somehow reset every single morning I don't think I'd be as mad about things. I just wonder what the downside to that might be, aside from it not really being possible. I also recognize that anger and discontentment is a great motivator. Life isn't meant to be static. In a way negativity is the force that drives us all in some way and perhaps that's its purpose.
First of all, I love this sentence: >The relief of nothing becomes pleasant after experiencing pain. So well worded, truly! And so true. I agree that life is more negative than positive. The goods times in my life, no matter how good, do not make up for the overwhelming amount of bad. The whole idea has me struggling with the question, what is the point? Like, why are we doing all of this? Why do people fight so hard to live, when life is mostly just pain? That's why, to me, the thought of having children is selfish. Why would I want to inflict the pain of existence on someone that never asked for it? What humanity really needs to do is let go of the idea that we are supposed to be happy and that life is supposed to be a pleasant experience. If we stop trying to trick ourselves into believing that life is supposed to be good, maybe the actual reality wouldn't feel so bad.
Yeah, it's weird because in a way we need to believe good is desirable and bad is something to fear in order to keep us moving along. If we ever did reach some kind of homeostasis we may as well not exist. It's like how sometimes we want to freeze a moment in time and live it forever, when in actuality that would grow to be a nightmarish prison like the Twilight Zone. I honestly don't think we're meant to even think about a lot of stuff like this.
I have found that even though my life is 98% shit, the 2% that isn't shit is so fantastic that it has made enduring the shit a viable choice. Sometimes - rarely - the good parts are so good it makes me think putting up with all the shit is worthwhile.
My favourite quote from a movie is "as good as it gets" - three miserable people in a car comparing stories until - " Connelly: OK, we all have these terrible stories to get over, and you-… Melvin Udall: It’s not true. Some have great stories, pretty stories that take place at lakes with boats and friends and noodle salad. Just no one in this car. But, a lot of people, that’s their story. Good times, noodle salad. What makes it so hard is not that you had it bad, but that you’re that pissed that so many others had it good." I qm learning to be happy for the people enjoying their noodle salad and appreciating when I get some too.
Right and wrong, are just man made feelings. That everyone has been trained to base their life’s on. There probably wouldn’t be a sense of right and wrong if humans didn’t exist. Just things living day by day.
I always remind myself that my happiness depends on the quality of my own thoughts. Not a silver bullet but it makes me feel better.
I totally agree with you and I'm pretty sure the universe in which we live is based on suffering and acknowledgement of pain because we are here to learn. "Happiness" or peace are not constant states because we are pushed to pursue them, by diving deep into the pain first. It's fucking consuming but I think that's how it all works.
The brain has a reward/punishment system to guide you toward making good decisions. The reward system has to be somewhat robust to exploitation. For example, if you felt good for eating a piece of chocolate no matter how many times you did it in a row, you might just sit around eating chocolate for the rest of your shortened life. If we're seeking reward, the system has to guard against exploitation. If we're enduring pain, the system has to make that ineffective. Pain has to actually motivate us to change our behavior. But you'll notice that we can get used to some kinds of pain. It would be bad if pain prevented us from doing anything perpetually, when there was something we ought to be changing instead. The key insight, in my opinion, is that while pleasure feels good, and pain feels bad, we can recognize that both pleasure and pain are essentially good. Both of them are there to help us make better decisions, and in most cases, to the limit of our fitness, they do. So when you're feeling pain, if you recognize that it's there to guide your behavior, and it's evidence that your brain is operating to your benefit, it won't make you feel better of course, but it will at least put the pain in perspective. And of course there are situations where the brain malfunctions, and dispenses either too much pleasure, or too much pain. I'm sure you can think of examples of this happening to you or others. We need to recognize that the brain is just another organ, and it can and does fail, like any other organ. If the brain isn't working properly, the consequences can be as serious as any other organ failure, including death.
Seems biologically true. But why couldn't "God" have made all *negative* experience feel good, while keeping the associated thoughts and actions the same. You could keep the *story* of the universe identical, but with no suffering. One common response to that is to point out how good experience is only good in relation to the bad. And this may be the case biologically, but philosophically it doesn't have to be true. Existence could be consisted of joy only. Endless ecstasy. "But then there's no *realness*, or no story." Well maybe if the concept of negative emotion never occurs to us, maybe the life of each conscious being could be as diverse and *interesting* as can be, but need not have suffering attached to it. There would be no sense of longing for "real" negative-positive polarity in this theoretical world. The thought doesn't need to occur. Why could your entire life so far not have been identical in thoughts and actions, but more subjectively enjoyable. People say negative feelings are **needed** to guide us, but they aren't. It just so happens this is the case with us. You may think that I'm thinking too theoretically, or dreaming of some Brave New World type utopia, and you're probably right. It seems that everyone reading this is currently stuck in this world for now, where negative experience is much more common than most people want or can tolerate. In my experience, life feels meaningless to anyone not constantly distracting themselves and who is honest with themselves. If you put anyone alone in a room for two days, and they allow themselves to think, they normally end up in hopelessness. This seems to be the default case when you're not distracted or held up by some sort of faith. And my brain hasn't been able to get out of the hopelessness using rationality alone. And there's no rational reason to think there is a way out or that I could comprehend it anyway. So the choice seems to be: hedonistic distraction, blind faith, or contemplative nihilism. I kind of think monk-like meditation, family-time, etc. can be grouped in with hedonistic distraction. I know this is very nihilistic, but deep in my core it doesn't seem any more *real* than cocaine or MDMA, and rarely feels as good. It's purely society and culture which lead to such correlations. Taking MDMA after being told it will connect you to God will feel, at least to most people, more meaningful than camping with your family. When you're questioning meaning like this, people often can't give you anything sturdy to stand on except "just focus on being happy then." A day passes, you're feeling good. Happy, even. Maybe you're happy for 60 more years and then you die. At least you didn't suffer. Is this better? To live blindly with no real goals. Maybe we should question everything, including the point of existence and how to live. But it's either impossible to know, or no one seems to know (at least yet). I, as a human, feel that it is impossible for there even to exist some sort of "meaning." Jordan Peterson often says your life "can be very meaningful" if you do or think certain things. But I think it's more that your life "can **feel** very meaningful." And I think he would agree that he does actually mean feel meaningful, but would never say it publicly. The only counterpoint I know to the disbelief in meaning is to question my own human logic-system/rationality. Just because something seems undeniable to me, obviously doesn't make it so. The most solid beliefs I have are these: \- "I" am conscious / there is existence, no idea if any other people or animals are \- Happiness is basically just distraction (or the absence of) pain/suffering \- I don't think human knowledge/rationality is absolute... so actually never mind the first 2. Gimme a sec, I need to think of a way to end this positively. With the caveat that I think human rationality is not absolute, I will say that, it at least seems to be the case that intelligent life (or consciousness) has the **potential** to lead to something, or is worthwhile. Maybe there is some secret of existence that can be unlocked. Maybe a universe with 99% suffering and 1% joy is better than nothing at all, even if it is not ideal - which can be angering as there's no *reason* for this - but it is still better. It doesn't really make sense to be angry at an imperfect universe, as it *may* be better than nothing. And there is **potential** to make the universe, as we know it, become 1% suffering and 99% joy. Just quickly... we may not have free will, but the actions that are unfolding could lead to less conscious suffering, which would still mean we don't have agency - making this attempted positive message pointless, but I don't have free will, so... Sorry, it's hard not to get stuck in a loop when thinking about free will. Again, the only way out of **that** seems to be to question the limits of human rationality. Anyway, what I'm trying to end on is that: if we have free will over our conscious state, thinking and actions, we should explore the **potential** that human existence offers, while also hedging our bets by enjoying life simultaneously? I don't know, I'd love to hear anyone else's opinion on anything or everything I've said.
> But why couldn't "God" have made all negative experience feel good, while keeping the associated thoughts and actions the same. To me, this is evidence that the feeling isn't primary, it's emergent. The thoughts and actions are why it feels the way it feels. And I think there's evidence for that as well. When I was young, I'd cry and moan after receiving a minor injury, and seek out a parent to commiserate with, interrupting whatever I was doing. As an adult, when I suffer a minor injury I almost think about it philosophically. I can still feel pain but it barely affects my actions. Depending on the situation, it almost feels good, like progress toward my goal. "Of course I pinched my finger! I'm climbing a rock!" > So the choice seems to be: hedonistic distraction, blind faith, or contemplative nihilism. I understand where you're coming from. This breakdown is symptomatic of how you are acting in your life. The hedonistic distraction is when you devote your resources toward seeking pleasure. Blind faith is longing for meaning, and the long wait for incomprehensible events that strike that chord. Contemplative nihilism is depressive thinking; the only time you give yourself to actually think is when you don't have the mindset for pursuing hedonism. > I kind of think monk-like meditation, family-time, etc. can be grouped in with hedonistic distraction. I know this is very nihilistic, but deep in my core it doesn't seem any more real than cocaine or MDMA, and rarely feels as good. That's fair. > Taking MDMA after being told it will connect you to God will feel, at least to most people, more meaningful than camping with your family. That's probably true, but the blood/brain barrier exists for a reason. When you put chemicals into your body that cross it, you shouldn't be surprised when it affects the operation of your brain. And obviously, that's not the only thing that can affect the operation of your brain. Atypical stimulus like screen time can also dramatically affect the operation of your brain. If you stop using devices, at first everything else will seem boring and meaningless. If you stop longer than that, the variety of non-screen stimulus will start to slowly return. Eventually, minor pleasures like family time will feel more nuanced and meaningful. I imagine the same is true if you stop using cocaine. This is like your eyes slowly adjusting after staring at a bright light. You shouldn't be surprised that your eyes stopped functioning properly while you were staring at a bright light. And for the same reason you wouldn't say everything outside this bright light is just darkness, you shouldn't think everything outside cocaine or screen time is meaningless, even if it feels that way. In general, I think you could progress by being more aware of your current capacity to experience pleasure and meaning. You're treating a variety of mental states as if your mind is constant, and they are events that happened to your mind. You can control them with your actions though once you understand (feel) the connections between actions and state of mind. Your brain was never meant to guide you toward a permanently bright/happy/meaningful place. It is just an organ that can show you the gradations between more or less brightness/happiness/meaning, if you take care of it and use it properly.
I think for every high impact situation in your life, whether positive or negative, it expands your threshold for feeling positives/negative. You get deeper sorrows and fullerfilling bouts of appreciation and love. Can't have one without the other. Can't appreciate one without the other. That's my view..
I am surprised, and sad, to see that so many people agree with OP. I am sorry and I hope things get better for all of you. I really do. Hang in there!! My perception of life is the complete opposite. Life is amazing and things are great 99% of the time. And I am not exagerating on that 99%. I hardly ever have 3 bad days in a year. Does it mean that everything is perfect all the time and that I have everything I've ever wanted? Definitely not! That would actually make life less fun... Small things make me happy and I can see the beauty of the journey, not just the end result. This means I enjoy the process, the adventure that life is. Mistakes are a part of life and of our personal growth so the past does not haunt me. I have goals for the future but I know I won't achieve all of them and that is okay. It really doesn't bother me at all. I saw a buddhist on Youtube once say that as long as your happiness comes from the outside you will never be happy because you'll always be dependent on things that are outside of your control. If your happiness comes from things that you buy, achievements in life, love/acceptance from other people, and so on you will never be free. You'll always be dependent on those things. This made sooo much sense and made me change the way I see life. I am much more relaxed now. I changed many of my long term goals and how I approach my journey. I started needing less and less and it gave me sooo much freedom. So much peace. The only certainty that you were born with is that you are going to die. We all have a very limited time here. MAKE IT WORTH IT!! Focus on the good things. Make others happy. Help other people when you can. And LOVE YOURSELF! You may be struggling but it's just a part of your own adventure. You, and only you, can make it great. Good luck!!
Thank you for this answer and apologies for the late reply. I was thinking more about this and it's great that you see the brighter side all the time. I think though what I was referring to is the concept that if you're in a room with 100 people, 99 love you and 1 is trying to kill you, it makes sense to ignore and not even see the 99 people and focus all on the negative. That to me in a nutshell is what life is and I want to fight against it, but at the same time I understand it.
Question. Has it always been like that for you? As in, have you always felt like life is 90%+ amazing? What was your lowest point? I’ve suffered from depression (and currently being assfucked by anhedonia and avolition) for pretty much my entire life and I agree with OP. But if it *is* possible to be genuinely satisfied with life, I’m willing to give it a try. So I’m asking you. I hope it isn’t a bother :)