Have you ever felt like you will eventually just be forgotten by your descendents? Then those descendents eventually get forgotten by their descendents? And then there's no room for the third cause humanity has gone extinct? And in a billion years or something all remnants of humanity will be erased by nature? And in a billion trillion years none of this would matter because the only thing that survives the heat death of the universe are just starving black holes which them too will eventually vaporize into nothingness and we don't even know what happens after that so all we can say to ourselves is just be happy today cause we'll die before that happens but then the cure for aging has been discovered and now this very thing becomes exactly our problem?
There's also times when I notice the undeniable ratio of 1 to 7 billion is absurdly small and budging that second number would seem to give no effect. It's also funny how a little subtraction of a single dot who have a lot of connections through fame and talent can be recognized by millions of dots, making the ratio millions to 7 billion which is rather pleasant, if I have to add. Then you compare that dot to a lonely dot with zero connections and this 1 to 7 bil becomes evident once more. Dots are interesting in their sadism. A dot can disappear being recognized by millions but it can also disappear and effectively nothing will happen.
That second number increases even more through the passage of time. One dot being recognized by history and millions become billions. One dot contributing nothing in history and 1 to 7 bil becomes 1 to infinite. So small and so lonely...
This is why we gotta evolve to a higher level of existence, as sentient energy beings. At least then, the species (whatever it's become by that point) will survive until heat death.
Hopefully by that point, we'll have also found a way to cross dimensional barriers; then maybe we can find one of those entirely chaotic, lifeless universes and just devour it for fuel to keep the heat death at bay.
absolutely. i've had thoughts in a similar vein since i was in my 20s in college - i was seeing my peers get subsumed into the Giant Megacorporation vortex while i was having trouble telling the difference between boolean comparison and value assignment in java (== instead of =, fyi). felt like i was having to struggle so hard with the basics that nothing i would ever do would be important on any scale.
but eventually i learned to take my failures in stride and looked at things from a much more reasonable perspective: my own. eventually it stopped mattering that all of the code i was writing could have been done by someone else more quickly and more efficiently - i was the one there writing it, and it did what my bosses and customers expected it to do. they remembered, and so did i. much in the same way i'll remember your highlight when you recommended that rock paper scissors manga - that title ruled, and its something i won't soon forget.
I've felt that way yes. But came to the conclusion that, if nothing matters in the end, nothing matters. So really anyone thinking about it should just live as they would like to.
I spent a lot of time lying awake at night when I was like 8 years old thinking about how at best, I'd probably live through about 100 years of experiences, and then it'd just be followed by an eternity of blank nothingness. I was having trouble wrapping my head around how for the vast majority of the universe's astronomically, unimaginably long timespan, I'd just be... not existing, not conscious, not aware of anything. That really freaked me out.
As I got older, I just sort of stopped thinking about that sort of thing though, and these days I'm just like whatever let's just go with the flow on most things.
I'm a huge procrastinator though, so if my track record is any indicator of things, I'm going to have to whip my butt into shape if I actually want to finish a good chunk of all the things I want to finish before I die.
I liked how my last history class ended it with MAD (Mutually Assured Destruction) and offered no solutions nor signs of hope for humanity. That killed me for a couple of weeks. Not to mention this date always sparks remorse and a miniature existential crisis for me.
My personal existential crisis inducing thought experiment is:
What if this is all a dream. Everything you know, everyone you know, your life, your memories, their memories, all created just a fragment of a second ago as someone enters their rem cycle.
All the ones you love don't really exist. The past morphs and changes as the dream goes on, people, their ancestors, their thoughts, dreams, and worries pop into and out of existence as the dreamer imagines and forgets about them. And when they wake up, our entire universe flashes out of existence, un-recalled by the dreamer, and thus never to be seen again.
Whenever I manage to recall a dream, I think about this. Almost everything I was worried about or attempting to accomplish in the dreams was conjured up the moment it started. And as the dreams go on, the past often changes. My goals often change. People I know, their faces, everything changes. Yet... I never notice until I awake.
Side note: Love Kurzgesagt
one of my goto educational yt channels for kids. Something I can get them to watch that isn't a gamer screaming 24/7. After all, everyone loves exploding elephants and destroying the world with a giant stack of nukes.
Best way to start your existential crises. Followed by XKCD. Both of them offer a nihilistic view which will help lighten your mood, and a plethora of existential crisis inducing content.
If you want to question the meaning of existence even more, try thinking about it on a biological and physical level. At what point do we consider ourselves to have free will? What lifeform satisfies the minimal constraints you have to consider it alive and conscious?
@DANDAN_THE_DANDAN I mean, it was a long time ago, so I don't remember the exact year. But definitely sometime in early elementary school. I think it was around the same time that I first watched and got sorta traumatized by the asteroids Magic School Bus episode (that episode really scared me...)
@firefish5000 I've seen Kurzgesagt brought up in several different places now, so I really ought to get around to watching all of their videos someday, they all look pretty interesting (but the procrastinator in me is rearing its head again...)
I like dreams. I don't dream as much as I did when I was younger, though. Though not sure if this is a coincidence, but I seem to have more vivid dreams if I do a digital detox and abstain from computer usage for a day or two...
@ununseti Watch Kurzgesagt once and you'll include them into your procrastination schedule. They produce really high quality stuffs. Watch any of their vids and I can guarantee that you'll get into it.
I personally recommend giving it a shot in your free time. It is a fun, visually and auditorily pleasing scientific documentary made by birds which will make you realize just how meaningless your existence is.
They have no time for games, the videos jump straight into the action. So, in a nutshell, you will know in the first 30 seconds or so weather or not you like it.
