Human Existence

How do you think we are meant to pass our human existence?

(please take advantage of the comment section to share your response)

I sometimes find myself questioning the point of all this. Why is the goal of going to school not just to gain knowledge, why does it have to be to become rich. Why did we put such a bad connotation on the word “work”?

With such little time we have on this earth it should be used to just exist, no conditions attached. It should be like a vacation. I should be able to enjoy my present because that is the only thing I know that exists for certain that I can still change. We know the past exists but it can not be changed so therefore is reduced to nothing, and there is only a possibility that the future will exist. Every time we say “will” it is with raw uncertainty and doubt. But at the same time the present is ever fleeting which makes it impossible to truly process and be in the present, so life is just a huge paradox.

Which leads me to the cycle of getting angry at the world for including me in this economic system without my consent. Leaving me with no choice but to give up my chances at a peaceful existence of nonbeing, in exchange for years of dissatisfaction and endless chasing. Then I circle back to being grateful because even if my situation is not golden I still lucked out compared to other people who would kill to be in my position.

I was recently asked to recall my favorite childhood memory and was so sad when I realized I could not think of any. I spent my childhood in the “continual becoming and never being.” It was going to school and studying in preparation for this moment- college. Never being in the moment, playing with kids my own age, always preparing for the future. Now that I am here at college, the cycle repeats. But I like to think now with my advanced independent thinking skills I am capable of being more “in the moment”.

The fact that I am at the place I had been working so hard for and I do not feel like I am on top of the world makes me so annoyed. It also makes me think back to all the little goals I set for myself and actually achieved and did not even realize I achieved them, that makes me even more annoyed. Annoyed at the world for always taking the little moments away from me, making me feel like they were not big enough. Or maybe annoyed at myself for letting them. We spend the little time we have on this earth chasing the unattainable. That is like going on vacation and working the entire time. It defeats the purpose. So many humans have come back from their “vacation” more stressed than they went. Existence should not be stressful. It is crazy to think about but most of us never truly exist because in Schopenhauer’s words “after having for countless millennia not existed” we spend our short lives in a zombie state (work, eat, sleep, repeat) only to go back to a millennia of nonexistence. So we might as well have never existed.

We spend our lives not living the lives that we want, chasing after the things that other people tell us we want. Which makes sense as to why we are never satisfied. We brought ourselves down to the point where existing is just the same as never existing. The universe lasted so long before us and it will continue to do so after.

Every sign highlights the facts that we are so insignificant. So if our existence will never be long enough to impact the universe, what are we even aiming for? The universe would not notice if humans gave up. Humans don’t even care when other humans give up (less competition). So why shouldn’t I just give up? If everything means nothing, is there a point in even trying?