we fully atomized now son, don't got no social spaces free of the ever present pressures of modern economic system. can't even sit down to play a game or read a book without wondering if you're wasting valuable money-making time.

i have been keenly aware of how passionless and directionless i've been since i was a teenager. used to think I was just depressed but it took me a long time to realize the system is letting me down, and i shouldn't be expected to change my very human wants and needs to conform to the soul crushing market-driven system we're cursed in

I think this feeling is shared by 80-90% of people at minimum.

Personally, I've never found a way to do something meaningful (like, materially help people) that would also keep me and my disabled family members out of debilitating poverty. So I have no choice but to dedicate my working days to unethical profit-making shit.

Yeah, man. Meaningful callings that also pay your bills are few and far between. It's capitalism baby best system in da world

I'm on antidepressants!

You're not alone. We're told our whole lives that we're supposed to follow our dreams and contribute to society in some unique way, but the reality is that you are just a proletarian and you will probably just have a shit job, a completely pointless one if you're lucky, you just end up doing, and you may bounce around a bit before you land in it. A few hundred years ago, you would probably be a serf and you wouldn't have any weird ideas about contributing to society or your inner motivation to do something, just fucking planting and harvesting all the time. Same thing, a shit job you end up doing. If I have kids, I think I will probably not tell them any bullshit about having a "dream" because I doubt it will be possible to reconcile it with the world in any way. Finding creative hobbies and fun, pride in doing a good job and helping people, maybe duty and financial skills.

I honestly don’t have any direction in life. Many people I know my age have high level positions or expertise and multi year outlook and plans, and we’ve barely hit 20 a few years ago. The only thing I think about in advanced is whether I’m going to sleep early or late.

If I did what was expected of me, I would be married with a family by now. Instead I’m materially okay and likely will be in the future, but I am just extremely lonely and have no desirable qualities outside of keeping a job.

People say that you should live for yourself and be happy with yourself first and everything else falls into place. All sound advice. But my desire is to be desired by others, and I don’t think any amount of hobbies or muscles or money will ever fill that hole. Everything else is meaningless to me; job, passion, wealth, politics, life itself.

“Comparison is the killer of joy” - sure, but when I have 0 comparable milestones to my peers, i don’t even know why I bother finding direction.

Absolutely (I mean if I had a path in life).

It has always boggled my mind some people just like... Pick something and stick with it. Like, really? You just decided you wanted to be a teacher, went to college for it, graduated and now have the job you've wanted for years? How the fuck?

For someone like you, it seems like the "how you do it" is more important than the "what you do." You'd be happier doing the same thing for the union than for the boss. You might be looking in the wrong place for meaning.

You might also be depressed and/or suffering under capitalism. You can never divorce any philosophy of the spirit from the reality that society is designed to make you suffer

I'm known to be absurdly stubborn and don't do what anyone asks me to. Bonus is I've always followed my own plan for life no matter how many people tell me its stupid or wrong.

My goal? Play as many video games as physically possible, everything else is secondary. Its been my hyperfixation since I was like 6 and I've played hundreds and remember every single one down to being able to identify them from a crop of a wall texture in guessthe.game/

My parents call me sad, my friends/colleagues think I'm a freak, even leftists have shit on me for it and I refuse to do anything different cos other people can honestly go fuck themselves telling me how I'm supposed to live. I WILL play every single game and nobody can stop me.

The job I work is a means to an end to support this although currently I'm actually enjoying it but thats just cos i like being good at something. I guess thats also another drive is to be good at something, don't even particularly care what i just like being good at it

thankfully my parents never asked anything off me and never gave me any direction in life, meaning i coasted along on my interests for the last decade or so and am pretty sure i am just going to run into a wall within the next three years (this is only half-ironic).

If possible I'd just live like a bohemian, but with rents rising all the time and social spaces no longer existing in any meaningful way that really doesn't seem possible anymore.

man life in the 21st century just sucks, I can't imagine there was any time in the last like 80 years that was any worse than this

that's how I started out, going to community college because my parents had forced me to. but I didn't have the drive because I don't really have any direction or goals in life, so I dropped out and they kicked me out. that was years ago, these days I have a job where I barely work part time and have flatmates to split the bills with to make this lifestyle work. I don't consider myself an enemy of the world but I definitely feel tired of participating in it when the things I love won't support me in it, I don't want some normal life with a 9-5. I don't plan to ever get married or have a family when I'm older, I'm just kind of riding shit out and hoping for the best.

Yes but what I'm supposed to do was determined by me to be:

• Become fully independent of my parents
• Avoid poverty thereafter

Unfortunately this in itself forces me into a path I have little conviction or desire for, but so far it seems like it was worth it.

yes 100%. shame it took me this long to figure that out but better late than never

Death to America

:yea: all the time

Do you have a conviction you feel you can't follow? Or do you generally feel like there isn't a conviction you feel called to?

I wish I could do the things I'm supposed to do, like have kids with a house and a real career, or I wish I could do what I want to do as I did when I was younger, like travel and party with friends or other things.

I feel like I neither do what I'm supposed to do nor what I want to do, but I just do what I need to do to survive. I have a decent job but I'm just kina stuck between steps, I can no longer have the fun of young adulthood but I can't reach the milestones of an adult, and that realization makes me so depressed.

I think often about it. To me there's the life that happens to you, and it's not necessarily a life that you want or choose. I think most people accept what life brings them, and are largely passive observers of their life. Its not some innate thing like "NPC" language implies - but I think our society is built on people not being too active in choosing their own destiny. for those of us who have "destinies" and circumstances that are contra to our own desires, there is a dysphoria present.

Overcoming the inertia of life and the expectations present at every level of lived life isn't easy - at times it demands lurching into uncertainty, danger, and facing the unknown in a way that humans get conditioned to avoid at most costs. But I think I would personally rather die than submit to the mediocrities on offer for my compliance with late capitalism. It's too much of a spiritual death, a soul death, to bear. There is true living and love for life where finding a destiny we can all abide.

I don't have specific answers, but i know the feeling and i know that comporting myself to the influences of the world as it is fucking sucks and is loser behavior

I kind of have the opposite problem of like "Sure my life is disorganized and not very impressive, but at least I'm not doing what's expected of me"

I feel like I always resisted the path put out for you because I knew my family was dysfunctional and I liked the arts, so being a normie was always off the table, but I also hated being poor. I feel like I stride a pretty fine line in my adult life. I am becoming a pretty good drummer and I have a decent job.

Somehow I think I got it to work, we'll see. I try not to let myself frame my life as stuck at any point. I've seen many times where I thought my life was over but it wasn't and it got better. It definitely takes some effort though. It also takes doing things you dont want to do and a degree of faith which I think many people have a hard time applying in their life.

The more i get what i want out of life (least amount of work for the most money, more play, more arts, more free time) the more liberated I feel. The world sucks and is wrong, why would I entertain anything it explicitly wants me to do.

Yes.

I tried doing what I was "supposed" (expected?) to do for a while. By age 23 it was clearly not working out, everything seemed to be falling apart in my life and even if it wasn't, it didn't have the promise of going anywhere.

Finding people doing actual organizing in controversion of capitalism and empire made a switch in my life. And while I'll never have a "regular" professional career or suburban lifestyle, life is much more rewarding and true to myself than it ever was before.

Definitely. I tried doing an office job once but it was clearly not for me. And the funny thing is, my dream has always been to become a writer... welp, I'm now a writer (not the fun novelist kind, but the bullshit marketing kind) and I hate every minute of it. Ruined my passion for wordsmithing because now I can't do it just for creativity's sake because I don't have the time and I kinda need the money