Is there a term for those who hate existing?

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Just a PSA upfront: if you're depressed don't read this, I was wondering whether I wanted to post it in PPR but its right on that boundary between PPR and Haven topics. All the same - think of it as the same nasty, cynical, no sugar type of thing you'd see in PPR. If you're up for stomaching that feel free to keep reading.


Is there a term for those who hate existing?

I don't mean 'emo', 'idiot', or anything like that. I mean the situation where a person finds themselves at the realization that a) to live within space time means absolutely no free will and no self as well as b) there's absolutely no hope for life being anything other than perpetual contest simply because living beings consume and that the basic premises of the wild and all the things we hate about our own nature are mechanically bestowed and simply will not ever go away. In that sense it seems like there's no peace to be found and what peace you will find is indifferentiable from boredom. Either your hungry, your fighting, you're doing something derivative of those two, or you feel quite ironically that something so devoid as ones own life is wasting away on you because you had one of those days where you barely got out of bed. Its almost like you have to admit to yourself that any day where you're bored or stir-crazy enough to want to break something is a pretty good day in the scheme of things. The whole thing is an itch and when the itch isn't there its the nagging feeling that you should have an itch begins to chase you.

Regardless, I'd love to know if there's anything out there on the subject? Its one of those things where yeahyeahyeah - it exists, some people talk about it, but I've still never heard it spoken of as what it is - ie. its a place you get stuck in when you break away from the flock and chase reality too far, and once you're out here it seems like there's really no conventional way back. I'd never consider myself a misanthrope so that doesn't work but, conversely, I do feel a great degree of anger toward whatever non-sentient force swindled other sentient beings into the same place I am (well that's technically 'swindled them into sentience') to suffer the same world, the same natural mechanics, and the same mountain to climb to where - like Penn talks about in his youtube 'Audacity of No Hope' - there's nothing to be found but a panoramic view below of all the things you wanted to get away from and a realization that they stretch as far as the eye can see in any direction. It seems like you're either a slave to that problem or, your thoughts are divided by zero and there's not even the illusion of self to be aware that you're gone.

Its one of those things you try to run from the best you can or just ignore but, on the days that you're already furious with yourself on what your limits are and what kinds of punishment you know you fully and involuntarily incurring worthiness of from the rest of the world - its incredibly difficult not to ruminate over it. Still, as silly or vain as it might be, I wish there was *something* I could read that possibly gave some rational grounds for hope - however I realize to even talk or think like that is incredibly self-centered. Likely whatever spark I've had in me is still in some phase of suffocation, hence my current squirming.

All the same, diatribe aside, is there a term for this? Is there a place where people dealing with this very specific challenge of outlook go for mutual support or just to talk about what kinds of breakthroughs they are able to make, either in inching their way out of it or even just fully numbing themselves to go along with it? While I love talking to all kinds of people I still feel like its been a while since I've seen a post that's really spoken my heart and I'd love to find a place or something with more of those. Any suggestions?

I think it sometimes goes by names like bored, spoiled, jaded, etc. For me, the crux of your post was what you said about feeling one feeling as if he/she is hungry and fighting or not. It's counter-intuitive, but if you spend time with people who are really suffering and being challenged by hardships in life, they are more likely to say that they hate cancer, living out of their car during the winter, having to turn tricks to support a drug habit, whatever/ fill-in-the-blank than they are to say they hate existence on the whole. Sometimes they even relish the 'little things' they do have and feel happiness on a deeper level when they get opportunities to feel it than those who are comfortable in life. Ennui and privilege are a dangerous combination because they can rob people of the gratitude necessary to experience joy/find joy in experience.

I think the only remedy for it is to find a principle, cause, ideal, etc. that one feels is worth not giving up on and fighting for it. If identifying one is tough, just getting out and volunteering for the less fortunate and hearing the back-stories that got them there could be a good start towards igniting something. Or, maybe digging inward to get back to a place or time before you started hating existence and trying to get back in touch with whatever it was you lost might help?

EDIT: Or, maybe tons of little disappointments and depression just gradually beat it out of people over the years. I don't really know anymore.

Last edited by blueroses on 24 Oct 2011, 6:21 pm, edited 2 times in total.

As for something that might give hope if that is your view:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fallibilism

I read your PSA but decided to keep reading. Well your post really is relatable to me.

Now I know you're not looking for something sugary but here are my thoughts, hopefully they don't sound too sugary. It seemed like I was indulging myself to think that there was a way for things to be good no matter what, but really things are whatever you make them with your mind, there's no good or bad without you, so... I have in my time concluded a few things which I sometimes believe and sometimes not:

- "Human logic" where things can either exist or not exist, yes or no, is not necessarily the only logic. Of course I arrive at that conclusion using human logic. Or did I? Whenever I get really depressed and can't stop thinking it's always this thought which is the end of the line, then I start over again and it ends up this again...

People can argue against faith because faith is irrational. But it's irrational by human logic. Or course it's irrational by human logic according to human logic. Anyway logic undoes itself. Logic always undoes itself and faith is anchored to nothing, you always have to make a leap to arrive at it.

Anyway I don't know if it's possible to try to explain this, I have tried so many times and either I'm an idiot or this is basically the question that every unanswered question is a form of...

So anyway what I've always told myself is how do you know you're going to die. Just because everyone else appears to die and everyone knows everyone dies.. really all I know is what I know. I can't know what I don't know. This life could be the distillation of every life, all that there is, and everything so far could turn out to be only everything so far. There is only one I ever, no matter how many voices use the word, it's only ever one idea, and one thing... uhhh....

Anyway this is how my thoughts dead-end but yes I tell myself "You cannot imagine what you cannot imagine." That uses human logic but. It also uses faith that there is always a possibility of good, which not everyone would think is inevitable but I choose to when I feel able to choose it cause being miserable is horrible.

Wait a minute that started out being a list didn't it. It only has one item. Well anyway, it's long enough!

For the DSM to not even have a term for it though is utterly amazing. Suppose its just not something people can make insurance money off of?



Actually, I think its only counter-intuitive when referenced from the kind of blither that our society passes off as discourse or the commonly held perspective of what life is, what people are feeling, etc.

In a sense I'd have to agree with these people as well - when you fall into true hardship something else also happens, you're struggles stop being invisible. Even in physical pain I think I've felt better emotionally than at the times where I'm, per the world's standards, fully able. Seems like without that its very difficult to find a valid excuse to relax, especially if the world is telling you that you're failing, telling you things as absurd as that you have free will and that you deserve the box that you're being corralled or channeled into. That said though my absolute worst nightmare is to lose my own authority over my own life, I've gotten to see both from my childhood experiences as well as other people I've known even as adults who fell on hard times - what kind of mentality seems to come out of 'rescuers'. Given that, uncertainty and outside coercion are another type of hell altogether that I've been dedicating myself toward making sure that I never fall prey to no matter where I end up (my three days a week measure).


And....slightly sticky subject but... that was really my first and primary when I was looking around at charities and even thinking about Rotary. I really wish there was something that was young adult oriented, not faith-specific, and got adults together both to network as well as pool knowledge and share their expertise in solving local problems in a sort of NGO'ish way.

People make tons of money off of it. About half the country is on anti-depressants.

Yeah, that's also the slippery slope that got me here. I guess its a double-edged sword in a lot of ways.

I read your PSA but decided to keep reading. Well your post really is relatable to me.


I'm a little nervous in bringing this one up just because - I simply have no reason to believe that women, particularly aspie women, aren't going through their own parallel version of this and I don't want to have it come out wrong sounding one-sidedly imperceptive. Pretty much as a guy my strength or weakness is the sign of whether I deserve to have what I have or have it all taken away from me because I can't defend it. Its that predator or pray, 'there's two types of people in this world - hammers and nails' type of thing that for as much as it makes me want to throw up it just doesn't go away. My awareness of self is that I've inherently been too innocent, too kind, have lacked both the killer instinct and the desire to know the games to play and stay on top. Just like how most people who end up really successful have a profound and defining struggle, this has been one of those for me and - needless to say - its a struggle that's sort of subconsciously/preciounsciously told me 'make the wrong move and you're dead'. I've noticed that lots of NT's can both talk like new-agers on philosophical topics and then know all the grimy details on the other side (think of the priest in Count of Monte Cristo) - they can do that, for some reason I'm just genetically lacking that barrier that would allow me to compartmentalize such things and not have one part of the equation rob the other. If I start having faith I soften, if I lose too much faith and get too world-wise I ache from my own hardening. It reminds me of the topic that comes up when people speak of symmetry in nature - ie. that when we see symmetry its a sign that you're looking at something a) to eat, b) that wants to eat you, or c) to mate with. That's the part of this world I absolutely hate - its that walking anywhere technically you're in a man-made jungle but you're still 'in', and as long as you're in a world of organisms that share the same needs you're in a place where the feeling of war seems like it would be next to impossible to ever make go away in any full sense of the word.

Lol, does that make sense or am I sounding a bit crazy?



I agree, I don't know, and when I die I could be off to Silvia Brown's description of heaven where its the most wonderful idealized laissez faire existence imaginable. My challenge in beliving in any of that though has always been 1) It doesn't explain a goal to why we're here or the wealth derived from human suffering in any satisfactory way, more importantly 2) if it doesn't give me a satisfactory way to live my life here or give me a means to adjust to the world as I see it in a way that improves my functioning or makes me leaner/stronger/faster - it ends up being of either no use or worse, negative. In that sense I'm even willing to lie to myself on this, say to myself that I'm sure there's absolutely nothing after this, just to see if I can squeeze one or two more positive adaption tricks to what society really seems to be.


Actually I think you did at least help me in one way - you brought my focus on the fact that my need to talk to myself about reality in the most grim and callous terms possible is based on my need and desire to try and pull more functioning out of myself (this is where blueroses does a facepalm ), I mean yes - I've realized it in the past but, then again I tend to resign the point when I realize that my neural capacity is so at odds that I need to be completely and utterly cruel to myself quite often just to keep my head above water. If I could find some kind of career or monetary solution to that kind of vulnerability I might be in a better spot.

But, the best antidepressants can do is alleviate a mood that you don't have a reason to feel. When you have every reason to feel the way your feeling you can't spray enough Glade over it to make it go away. I suppose that's why antidepressants did little more than just make me feel dopey as a kid - if they can't fix the problem the best you really do is rack up side-effects, at worst you're even less lucid and more prone to doing rather dangerous things.

(Sometimes one *feels* only because of chemical imbalance in which case AD are just fine.)

Almost all philosophy is enriched with the subject, especially existentialism. Just skim through a list of relevant doctrines, I am sure you will find something. Also have a look at Buddhism. You might also want to look at biochemistry as well.. Oh, and do some research on autism itself. The answers are somewhere out there.

Now I realize this is useless but the outlook is not that unusual as you might think.

And the term 'for those who hate existing' is, actually, a misanthrope; for there is no smoke without fire.

Fully agree.


But its still misleading. Even a person who's life is the classic 'happy accident' where they've just been too blessed to notice - its pleasant distraction that keeps them occupied, you don't really need to hate people in order to cross through. They just need to come up with a phrase for hating the natural state - make it clear and concise.

Makes sense! I have never heard that about symmetry before. Well generally yes people who are male have much more explicitly ruthless expectations... well demands placed on them by society. For example I am much more free if I'm in distress to start crying wherever I am and people will not look at me and think "Look at that guy, he's crying" cause I'm not a guy but will actually offer to help me and ask what's wrong. So if I were male I would probably at this point in my life... not have a life, I honestly don't know how I could feel any worse. As a human being I am not meeting the expectations of my kind and even though I'm a girl I'm just unacceptably weak and nonfunctioning and burdensome to others and I really feel that every choice I make at this point is life or death because if I can't become any more unhappy. And yes everyone is competing against each other... there's nothing in this world for free... I mean even when people are charitable towards other people they do it cause it chemically makes them feel good, but I mean it's not like people themselves are cruel, cause they're just serving the higher power of biology... uh... so I guess the good thing that can be taken from this is that if we recognize we are all in some form of the same predicament, and you look at someone looking back at you looking back at them etc etc etc forever that is... that is something where you can't separate cause from effect.... uhh there's no way to talk about this without sounding insane.

Compartmentalization... wow actually I've had several people tell me "You have to learn to compartmentalize things." Can't do it. I've also used the phrase "lack the barrier/boundary" to try to explain why things get to me the way they do.



One thing though is that there is no proof that anything but this moment exists, and that this current brain configuration that includes the belief that I have lived a long life and was a human who was born and will die is not everything that there is... there's also no proof that this isn't just a momentary dream and I'm really someone else and it feels like and "knows like" I've been through so much and been around for so long but really... this is getting Inceptiony but I loved that movie, basically I guess I am spelling out the theme of Inception or the Matrix or whatever. Anyway when I was little and looking up at the stars, I don't know what it is about stars but they had the power to put me in a trance that is like what you describe in a way, about getting away from the landscape and seeing it from a distance... but it was like everything deconstructed and spread out and I saw that this reality is... incidental and may as well be an illusion or dream - it's not absolute. Umm what am I trying to say here. Basically, hinged on that notion/conviction, I think this life is symbolic. Well cognitive science-wise everything is symbolic, everything is one giant organism/robot/computer-thing that can be represented in various ways. I think everything is a symbol of everything else and that life is one giant equation and when it comes down to it there's only one thing that is both the question and the answer. That's not very satisfactory though when you're depressed and not getting what you want out of life like, say, I am now and don't see how I could ever... but it's also the only time anyone thinks about it, when they are not getting what they want out of life, otherwise they are living out their answer already. Anyway obviously those are just my views. Oh and the answer is always something that's good to humans, symmetrical things as you say... but actually I think there is a way to escape the restrictions of our humanity/animality cause look, I have sheets with a very symmetrical repeating pattern of dogs wearing winterwear, and a human created this with the conscious goal of making something that repeated in a predictable way, because it's pretty. Are these linens something to eat, something that eats you, or something to mate with. No. That previous truth has been coopted by art, and now it's no longer absolutely true. Actually though the sun's pretty symmetrical and you can't eat it. Anyway...



Yes I am very familiar with being completely and utterly cruel to myself to keep my head above water. I don't think I've escaped it yet. Well for me the vulnerability you talk about is one and the same as the ability to create new things. Things that the world is obviously still turning without but that make the experience of people.beings on the earth happier as it turns... things people would never know to miss until it appears and then it's just too beautiful and wonderful not to have... art of every kind in the broadest sense of the word I guess. I'm not sure, I mean what are your interests?

techstepgenr8tion this really hit. It reminds me of some things I've written in my old notebooks (your post being more evolved I'd say though) I don't have the answer unfortunately.

I am sorry but I have a hard time understanding your writing. What do you mean by “cross through”? What is the “natural state”? As I understand the feeling is directed towards the laws of life, as in “just the way everything is”. Or is it rather how people are? Are you bothered with the question of meaning/purpose? Is the feeling of hatred/absurd/disgust/dissatisfaction/jealousy/irritation/incomprehension..? It reminds me of medieval christianity for some reason.
Either way – if it is a purely philosophical standpoint you should be able to find precise definition. As for a mental mindset this most likely might be just a concequence of other 'terms'. It is just might be the case that most depressed people hold similar views. Besides, bear in mind that autistic people tend to be almost bothered by the life itself – everything is too bright, too loud, people are too annoying.

Double check misanthropy as well – it might obtain different meanings depending on a philosophical context. The word unfortunately has a very negative aura in casual language.

Cross through from being distracted to hating existence. I don't agree that it takes hating people, IMO hating people is a bit misplaced.


Scientific reality, what it makes 'us', what we have to do in order to get by in life, what our biological prime directives are, how that is at the root of pettiness and all kinds of wonderful things that simply can't go away as long as genetics are as set in stone for a lifetime as they are.

Most people only know misanthropy by one definition though. If the odds of telling someone that another person's a misanthrope and their saying "Ah, he/she hates existence" is slim to none - I'd have to consider it impractical.

I am a bit incoherent today, my apologies.
The odds of telling someone that one hates existence and them understanding that, even without a fancy term, are poor as well. I very much doubt there is a casual word for that or else you would have already known it. It is impractical to hold such view anyway.
We could discuss what ‘hating people’ means. It is not an active hate – more like some kind of rejection of the way how people behave, interact; their intentions and consequently how the society *is*. Which in turn is on the same page as *how everyhting is*.
Or the dislike is of the laws of nature? Now is it?? I would like to think that one is simply impossible. I would argue that in that case the dislike is almost always of the self. How can one dislike something one does not even understand?
Misanthropy is a dislike of human nature there is nothing personal about it.
Also I probably do not understand how can one hate the rules but not those who play by them. People do create many of the rules themselves. They do have a free will to shape our exiscence but instead they only shape their wallets. They are only driven by their egoistical fantasies. Tell me the difference, then.
What does one hate: the fact or how does one experience it? Humans have an enormous capability of changing themselves but all they do is whine and indulge in all the pleasures they can access. And if they can’t they whine even more.
We shall forever be enslaved to the earthly duties, drowning in our gene pools.

See, as a full determinist I don't believe that any of that is accurate - ie. choice is an illusion, no one chooses *anything*, ranging from what path to follow in life or whether or not to buy a candy bar this afternoon. IMHO what you will be having for breakfast on July 31st 2024 is already spoken for and was even spoken for billions of years before you were born. In that sense humans are simply passthrough entities - ie. we exhibit behaviors from motivations and all kinds of things that are pushed up through us rather than coming from any actual choices we made; hence any freedom is complete and utter illusion.

I think they call it, "Opening your eyes."

"Seeing the fnords."

"Waking up and smelling the coffee."

Or, "Waking up and smelling the s**t."

That is the way life is. At its worst and most basic level, that is the way life is.

I've seen it that way for a while. First it made me want to join an demon-worshipping ritual abuse cult and try to get all the power and satisfaction out of hatred that I possibly could. Then it made me want to give my life to God and fight it in any way I could. Then it made me want to die. Now it makes me want to live my life in defiance of that fact, at least as much as I can without becoming a human sacrifice.

The human condition sucks. Welcome to the human condition.