Struggling to find a purpose in life

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I'm finding myself struggling to find a purpose in life as well as getting myself involved in social activities like participating in this forum. But I've been put off the past two and a half weeks due to constant schoolwork and while the midterm grades has gone through and got all S's for satisfactory (as usual), I don't know where to start. Especially since I tend to think things through in an organized manner. But since I mentioned social activities, I guess I'll start with that. Just today and yesterday, I've been clearing out all of my "friends" comments from myanimelist and steam just so I could move on. But now that I'm all alone, I feel lost and confused. Even then, I still feel like I haven't gotten over it.

Back a couple of threads ago, I mentioned being on a discord. Granted, things got out of hand like I said and not too many people took a liking to the fact that I was half-french considering how France won the world cup. But it's stupid that they would kick me out because of that. Almost everybody in that discord server looked up to me like I was some sort of big brother figure who had their life sorted out, but it was until recently when I realized that I was deluding myself, among other things.

I'm not sure why I think the way I do. Perhaps it's my family, or school, or just my outlook on life. I can't help but feel that our world is run by some sort of proxy or that we're restricted and formatted into certain "types" of people, be it personality or whatsoever. Or maybe it's just the world. What if the world's just one giant server? But then again, philosophies like that tend to be vague. Now I know that I may have mentioned stuff about my family not helping me out as much, but now I just think that they're masochists because they're really just gluttons for punishment after what happened last year. I've moved on, but it's like every day now they're reminded of the fact that they f****d up and now were paying the price because of it. And don't pull that crap by saying "oh, they're dealing with much more than you know" BS. I have no one to help me upstate. Hell, as an example, I had to move EVERYTHING BY MYSELF last year and they couldn't bother doing it themselves because they were too busy finding a f*****g job or whatever.

And while I'm not angry as much, I generally despise them for the way they act. You'd probably ask me to give them a break still, but I'd say it's just the same old song they play that pisses me off. And honestly, nothing annoys me more than how they all behave like children.

College, well, sucks, as usual. But I'm beginning to think that it's really just high school for adults without parents involved. But then again, I'm really started to get annoyed by walking around people, holding doors for them (having to say to some of them "your welcome" so they realized that not a f*****g ghost is holding the door, but there's always at least 1 or 2 people who can't get it into their thick f*****g heads), just not having a moment's peace to myself. In addition, why the hell do so many people facetime on their phones while walking. I get that maybe you want to see the person, but nobody ever considers how annoying it is. Plus, professors don't seem to be doing any better. My Macro professor tends to border between by-the-book and just annoyingly strict (not that she has any problems with me at least). Plus, given how she's also an adjunct-professor, that might as well mean she just gives a s**t half of the time. Plus, I've only seen her smile once or twice and those were when she talked about how "fun" macroeconomics is. Except that we literally haven't done anything "fun" apart from writing a project in APA format (The Dark Souls of citations if you will (overused joke, I know)) and how mine was about the economic growth of Africa. While sounding interesting and all, couldn't help but feel that writing references to Toto like blessing the rains would give me points taken off (not that I did, but whatever).

Other professors include chemistry, college algebra, philosophy, and the same walking professor from last year but with healthy lifestyles and activities instead. Now i know I mentioned STEM in one of my previous threads, but I was mainly referring to chem and algebra so I wasn't in a STEM major...yet. But they seem to be the only two courses piquing my interest because I need them if I'm to transfer to Electrical engineering at (maybe) Stony Brook. But it seems now that the only professor who I know has their s**t together is my chem one and given how I'm a peer tutor, I'm oh so forced to have myself hold the mantle of making sure I pass chem and math so I can at least have some traffic in how many people come and see me so I wouldn't be completely useless or expendable to the club, even if I'm vice-president because I felt like I wasn't going to make it to the club every friday and I really just don't give a s**t about anything at this point. No, I'm not nihlistic. I'm not suicidal. I don't watch Rick and Morty and take after Rick's philosophy. I'm just...tired of this BS and how people can't get their s**t straight, but that doesn't mean I'm going to kill myself because my fairy ass family is a piece of s**t or my gf dumped me. Weird examples, I know. But I've basically just elevated to a sarcastic state and can really just see through people's BS now. I have no minimal level of trust. My math teacher is basically making me go see the psychologist next Friday (if that ever helps), although I already filled in the appointment myself. My philosophy and PE teachers are basically just self-insert A-grade courses. Which really adds to the fact that college is kinda like high school, especially given how no one cares what college you went to. In fact, it's kinda funny too how I worked at a $60k per year college that had no technical math or science courses (apart from maybe sh***y anatomy and biology ones) and while I can't give away the name, let's say it's Sarah...something named after David Lean...like the guy who came from a desert and asked if he could order a glass of lemonade. But yeah, while that's happening, the place I worked at at said college had a bookstore that was no better than mine. Basically, this just convinced that it's really just an overgrown daycare center. Just like the Ivy Leagues are doing right now.

I think what perplexes me the most about life is finding out about myself and growing as a person, where everyone else I know is either letting themselves wallow in self-pity and drought or those who lose themselves or let themselves go. It all seems like a game, and that's the problem. Even if I could play through with it, where's the fun knowing that life is really broken down into a bunch of monotonous things with no real purpose or the purpose given seems to be specified that we're just being run by a proxy. It's not right, but it's the way it is...or is it? Not to mention, how would know if I mean something to somebody? Given how I feel that our 20s are basically an extension of our teens so waiting until the person I'm with whose maturity levels are both equal in a way would be like waiting for Duke Nukem forever all over again (and no, I wasn't trying to crack in a sex joke. I was just trying to refer to the development of the game because of how long it took and how bad it was afterwards). Plus, early-to-mid 20s relationships are no better than pump n' dump situations and think that our experiences with a girl is one in a million to a guy or whatever. That's why so many memes just stress out so much about social status and having six figures to guys in their 20s when you'll later realize in your 30s that that meant jack s**t and people just stress it out the same way they stress out high school and such. Honestly, the 20s are just built up to be the most number of times you'll be disappointed because as the buddha said, it's dukkha, but that doesn't mean it's suffering or make it pointless.

So, then what's the point of this thread then, you may ask? Well it's just me discussing my philosophical diatribe of my innermost frustrations with my life like everyone else, but now it just seems that I come across as more of an as*hole when I put it that way.

Now I know that I shouldn't be alone and that everyone'll tell me to go see the psychologist, yet, I really don't know what to say. I'm not really sure what I want to do either. But then again, I also realize that last week or whatever I stupidly slept with my laptop in bed and because it fell off, now it's got two dents on the right side. Still works fine. But damn. Barely 3 months in and I'm already having problems. I can't remember s**t.

Is there a single "purpose" in life? Probably not.

How are your grades? Are you attending class? Do you intend on going to Grad School?

If you intend on going to Grad School, you should seek to maintain at least a 3 average; otherwise, a 2 average is fine.

I don't care if other people don't have their crap together; what's important is that I have my crap together, and I'm doing my own thing with freedom.

I feel philosophizing the way you do can be useful; but if become obsessed over it, it might become something which stymies you---keeps you down. I understand you are seeking your identity, and trying to make sense out of life.

People are people, I feel. As long as they're not taking my money, or keeping me down, I don't care if they have their crap together.

What you have to do is to keep your goals in mind. Make sure you attend class. Read the syllabus. Do the assignments. Don't get too drunk. Don't get into stupid situations with girls.

Keep your feet on the ground, in other words.

Dude, you must be some sort of guardian angel because you're everywhere I go on this forum lol.

My grades are fine, I suppose. I have an A- in algebra. As in PE and philosophy, I suppose. B in chem (might be a B+ considering how well I did on the sapling learning HW and had 39 points from the extra credit), but I'm not sure what grade I have in macro. I'm still attending class and haven't been absent for one day yet, so that's good. As for grad school, I don't know. My roommate and I have been discussing about it, but only because he plans on switching from computer networking to psychology, whereas I still stand my case on Electrical Engineering. But I'm starting to notice something about myself and economics. Even though we're covering up unemployment, I feel that I have, or anyone has, no idea what's going on. Not just what we're doing in class, but just what's the point of it. Kind of funny on how it goes with the thread. I guess I found myself being more "invested" in finance rather than economics.

I guess you're right that I have to worry about myself more so than anyone else, but the point of this thread was to discuss on how I interact with people, and I probably went off by a margin considering how I discussed too much on how I have difficulty interacting with them, rather than just trying to get along. But the case being was that for myself and my age range, obviously, like you said, was that it was about self-discovery. Though given how I'm at the point where I'm finding myself where my parents are starting to lose themselves in (i.e. mid life crisis, I guess), it's becoming difficult to find myself properly relate with anyone so to speak.

Just like Batman in Injustice, I might have to consider widening my circle of trust a bit. There seems to be some ambivalence going on between my transfer advisor, the english tutor at the ASC, and the adjunct math tutor who is in my college algebra class, considering how much trust they seem to put in me, since when I sent an email to 6 faculty members (2 of whom I didn't have, although I have one of them now, but I assumed prior that they would teach seminar), my transfer advisor said that had she taught seminar again this year, she would've definitely recommended me to her class. The English tutor said that he'd recommend me for college writing if given the chance and the adjunct and I seem to be on pretty good terms as well. However, the point of the email I sent was that due to my job as a peer tutor, I'm required to visit 2 of my previous professor's classes and give a sales pitch (if that's right) about what I do and just reaching out and all.

My idea of philosophy is still developing. But given how I am putting off relationships and all that mixed mumbo jumbo, I can't help but feel like I'm already jump starting into another stage of my (mental) mindset (if that makes sense), considering how I realized that everyone's 20s is really a mere exploitation of their income, job prospects, career building, etc. and more or less a proving ground on who's up for the most grabs or whatever. Whereas in our 30s, it's more about settling down (besides in the parental sense) and just gradually building up to where you are now. I guess that getting rid of that "stinking thinking" helped cleared my mind in a way.

Although my early posts seemed blatantly comparable to a 4channer (and should probably edit those while I'm at it), keep in mind that I was in a very desperate situation and I had no one[b][/b] but myself to rely on, and given how messy this January was, it certainly was not a great place to start in. I'm not frustrated by people as much as it sounds, but I am kind of annoyed that I don't have anybody to talk to about this and it might not be as sloppy as it is now here.

Granted, though, I have been picking myself just fine and have maintained a pretty good consistency with where I am right now. My only gripe is not that I have to deal with my family now, but knowing that I've only got a year more of this left until I'm finally able to go and transfer (if I can transfer) to Stony Brook and major in EE. And I am keeping my goals in my mind, on top of everything you said that I'm supposed to do, which I am. And just like I told you, college is really just high school for adults and I don't plan on drinking. Plus, having a relationship would just mess up my grades and I don't really trust people well.

You're doing pretty well, by my estimation.

Just relax a little LOL

Yep. I've heard some people say that they didn't learn anything useful until they did a postgraduate degree.

I admit that I didn't read all of the original post, just to be clear.

What you're talking about results almost invariably from what your esteemed countryman, M. Durkheim called "anomie". What you need are personal values that mean something to you. If you're religious, this is the obvious source of such values; if you're not, as I'm not, try reading Dawkins, or JS Mill or Bertrand Russell; these helped me enormously in that regard. I'd particularly recommend Russell's Conquest of Happiness, which is available for free online, being out of copyright and is only a hundred pages or so long.

I'd also recommend, if you prefer your own language and cannot find adequate translations of the above, the poetry of Charles Baudelaire and the philosophical writings of Auguste Comte. Stay away from Voltaire, as brilliant as he is.

I've also developed a passion for Arthur Schopenhauer recently.

Why?

I find Voltaire too cynical to be of any help to someone in the situation mentioned.

It is hard to read your thread because there is so much anger in your words. Which probably means that you are dealing with a great deal of stress at the moment. Also it is hard to relate since I went to college 50 years ago. Grades of "S" really. Is that how college is taught today. A's B's C's D's F's no longer exist - seems like you are being cheated.

When I went to college the goal was to "learn how to learn". It had nothing to do with acquiring facts but rather to become an expert problem solver.

Not too sure I can make any meaningful suggestions to you, but maybe you should shake it up a little. In college they normally have core class requirements associated with your major and then there were electives. I didn't much like electives. They were course in subjects that I had little interest in. But you had to take them. Most students took the basic elective courses, the 100 series. But I strayed away from the herd. I noticed in the fine print that most of the upper level courses read, "in order to take this course you had to have certain prerequisite courses or THE PERMISSION FROM THE PROFESSOR who teaches the course". So I would meet with the professor and explain my passion for taking one of their courses and then generally I was in, they waived the prerequisite requirements. So instead of taking English 101, I took Shakespeare, or advanced Poetry. Instead of a basic Sociology course, I took a course in Field Archeology. We spend Saturdays at a dig site looking for artifacts from an early tribe of Indians in California called the Chumash. It was like becoming Indiana Jones before there was even a movie about Indiana Jones. So you might shake it up a bit. I didn't go to college to have fun, I went to work very hard and graduate. But having said this, it is still a little important to shake things up a bit and experience the world in different ways and find a little joy in the process.

To Prometheus18 and jimmy m:

I can understand what you're saying and I apologize if my posts can be discerning, given the great deal of anger that I hold in them. But I think that's due to not being able to express myself properly. Not in an emotional manner, of course, but mentioning everything that's on my mind as if it were some progress report. But whenever I get too caught up with life, in this case, academics, I tend to become really frustrated and crammed just like everyone would. So in this case, I apologize. But I'm not really used to posting often on forums ever since I've had some very bad experiences with people in the past and it's taken a lot for me to cope with dealing with being lonely in general. But at least I can focus more on my own happiness.

As for Prometheus18, I can understand your recommendation, but I'm not variably interested in sociology, and I tend to follow Max Stirner's philosophy, albeit not entirely, especially considering how he was often at a standstill with Russell's philosophy as well, of whom I also respect. For writings and poetry of those you mentioned, I'll stick to the writings instead.

jimmy m, well a grade of S just means it's satisfactory. Plus, it might vary for colleges so who knows. Plus, my grades are different from what they were beforehand and I feel that I've made the mistake of enrolling myself in philosophy and macroeconomics since my professor in philosophy makes us do 10 minute quizzes which should've been saved for later since it adds onto the stress and macroeconomics as I've mentioned before, has become tougher despite it being a social science. Granted, we've been told that we'll be doing case studies after thanksgiving (3, actually), which can bring our grade up by 5 points (15 in total) and I really need those points because it turns out that I haven't been doing so well than I thought I would. So I gotta bring my grade up in that class along with chemistry in order to do well and not bring my GPA into suicide and lose my job at the tutor club, especially given how the school budget was cut due to lower enrollment. However, chemistry (which is a 76 unfortunately, but could be brought up to an 88 given the sapling learning so far but due to how I have about half of the extra credit remaining, it's staying where it is until otherwise) can be brought up a little better compared to macro. I just wished that I learned to figure out what I was getting myself into rather than waste time with my dumb family and job since those two always hold me back.

But another problem with chemistry considering the lab part is that my partner screwed me over and treats me as obsolete or a third wheel if you may ask, given how the tables in the lab room are split into four and the one of the two adjacent to us dropped out considering how he thought he was going to fail, even though according to the professor he was doing fine, leaving his partner to work with me and just ignore me until the lab was nearly complete or when they felt the need to give me results.

So by the time the semester is nearly over, I'll probably find it upon myself and tell it to her straight on how she can't treat people like me expendable because of how I don't share as much "chemistry" with her like her "new" lab partner considering their interest in screamo or whatever.

But that's another problem. Granted, my interest in people has become far beyond obsolete to the point where understanding them just isn't my thing. But just as I mentioned before about the doors and facetiming on their phones, now a problem has arisen where I literally can't stand people looking at me. Now it's gotten to a problem where I'm starting to slowly grumble: "what the hell are you looking at" and it might escalate to yelling "what the hell are you looking at" if this doesn't stop.

My plan before this semester was to major into engineering and take college algebra and pre-calc prior over the summer. But given how college algebra was not available, my advisor and I went on a scavenger hunt to find one and this would take much of my time considering how I had to find a job to finance this. But given my parents sh***y situation and how they planned on divorcing, that situation became obsolete and so it was down to me and advisor to figure out what my purpose at going to college was for. We then laid out a plan but considering how physics and tech writing were online, I saved them both for fall 2019, especially given the difficulty of physics. So for now, next semester would be:

College Literature
Writing Workshop
Early world Civ.
Pre-Calculus

Seems pretty easy enough for a GPA-raising semester, followed by:

Technical Writing
Writing in Electronic Media
Calculus I
Physics I

I understand that I should shake things up, but with the english courses, I don't find myself taking Shakespeare or poetry. After having worked at Sarah Lawrence, even though I had no interest going or working there (had to, cuz it was a job n' all), it makes me think about how much of an overgrown day care center it is without any common core classes and titles like "calling a wolf a wolf", "when my brother was an aztec", and "they can't kill us until they kill us" makes me realize how much of that stuff could just go in a dumpsterfire for all I know. With Shakespeare, it seems to be a matter of a cutoff point because once you go down to any list of him featuring his best plays, especially when you go down to Trollius and Cressida or Cleopatra and Mark Anthony, that is, none of those stories will be nearly as memorable or have the same impact compared to the Tempest, Hamlet, Macbeth, Julius Caesar, Midsummer's, and however many Henry's there might be. Plus, if I bother taking them, I'll spend more time on the No Fear's than reading the actual material. I'm not dissing him or criticizing him. But I think that it is important to gain an understanding of Shakespeare, just not to the point where one goes out in my case. We all don't have much time on this earth, so why waste it on stuff that I won't enjoy.

Plus, given my parents' stagnant relationship, my mom doesn't really think that dad fancying himself as an artist has ever really helped them in their relationship, especially given how my mom earned more money than my dad who majored in architecture, compared to my mom who dropped out of college and became an entrepreneur or so she thinks. So with that, I find myself cutting down on that and partaking in more "meticulous" hobbies like HAM radio, computer programming/coding, model kit building, games like mahjong and poker (not for gambling though, but as an extracurricular in case things go wrong with my life), lockpicking (helps for when I forget my keys or when I'm locked out of the house), chess, learning new languages (even though I suck at communicating and hate talking to people), cooking, reading, etc.

I don't know about my purpose in life but my purpose in death will be to feed all the hungry little worms that live in the ground.

When Chris Persig asked his dad Robert what he should be when he grew up, he thought a while, and replied "Kind." (Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance) While you are school age, you should just find out what you enjoy and are good at, and try to fix anything you really need but lack. Most well-known people have learned a lot in one field, and then applied it elsewhere. Two or three changes of course are not unusual, but each one feels like it could be a lifetime when taken up and thus gets full attention, or it can't develop. Life is full of experiments and false starts. One big reason that Silicon Valley worked is that you could start a new business for pennies on the dollar by shopping the bankruptcy sales.
Then, from your list of talents, separate the hobbies from the possible professions, and look for opportunities to make a difference with your special abilities. If you want to be happy, make a difference that is based on better co-operation and efficiency, rather than winning a conflict.
By the time you are middle aged, most people will probably be struggling just to stay alive, unless we turn this economy around and stop burning carbon, so you probably want to get involved in saving the planet, not just surfing on its doom.