The point of living

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I feel like life is like a free-for-all. You enter it and are immediately put into this world where you have to figure out your place in it as soon as you begin to fully experience consciousness.

Questions immediately begin to unravel to you, such as who you are, what your environment is and your place in that environment. But once you've become acquainted with your environment you begin to have a clearer understanding of what makes you happy and what makes you unhappy. Once you've developed that understanding well enough you can consciously pave out the path you wish for yourself. What should be the primary goal for you to strive towards in life? A family with children? Surely that seems to be one of the most fulfilling experiences a person can go through. What if you do not feel you're equipped to have a family and children? What then? You must decide for yourself.

Our society tries to map out the ideal life so that it's easier for us to make these decisions. We are told that wealth makes us happy, we can use it to buy lots of nice things. We are told to find love and have children as mentioned previously. Some go the more hedonistic route and pursue drugs and high risk ventures, some believe that life is grand when you get to experience new things that others don't get to experience often, like going abroad to new countries and exploring the scenes there.

But anyway surely you get the point of what I'm saying. Our world is very 'absurd', and we are just trying to figure out our place in it. We have narratives fed to us from our social stratum that define clear paths and clear understandings of complex questions to guide us. But these narratives are just narratives and they are shallow. We are all very unique individuals with no clear set path to happiness. It could be that my fellow autistic people can see this to a slightly stronger degree than the average person? But because these narratives are so shallow we can see the meaningless of them which along with an increasing dissatisfaction of life can lead us to feeling very nihilistic, like life is not that interesting and there is no purpose to it.

Sometimes I try to fight against this nihilistic dread, but sometimes it gets difficult.
I don't know if my rambling means much but if people like it after all I'm hoping for some responses. I'm pretty new here. What do you think makes your life worth it? How do you avoid nihilistic dread? Have you ever faced any serious existential crises and how did you get out of them? I'm very curious to hear from others.

I suppose I'm something of a nihilist, i.e. I don't think there's any cosmic plan etc., but I don't experience any nihilist dread. To me it's just the way things have always been, and I think it gives me a sense of freedom, that there's no overarching meaning of life to search for or to worry about. I don't see that life has to have any particular point.

No point...
Just make the best with the cards dealt you in life...

Oh, oh, and don't procreate.

Coffee is the point of living.

I'm a Christian but still don't see any point in living. If I converted when I was six years old then died....I'd be in the same place. So what's the point of the other 39 years? None.

Depression is the natural conclusion to nihilism. After all, the simplest definition of depression is "a mental state of low mood and aversion to activity." Why participate in a world you find no meaning in? Happiness in the exaggerated sense comes from a state of investment, built on delusion and subject to decay.

So if you don't want to play at the casino, melancholia is the stable state to get used to, supplemented by simple, safe pleasures - food, art, friends. I like taking flights of fantasy in my head. I can't beat depression, but this philosophy has beaten despair.

Maybe, but I also wonder if it's the other way round, i.e. when somebody gets depressed they may entertain nihilistic thoughts to rationalise their dark mood - they may say things such as "what's the point of it all?"

I don't think happiness has to depend on an external meaning or purpose to life. Why do so many people think it does? I suspect they've never quite come to terms with adulthood. When we're very young, there are these powerful caregivers around who watch over us, protect us, and have plans for us. They're very important to us. Eventually we grow out of that, the caregivers vanish, and we're on our own to watch over, protect, and look after ourselves. By then, some have accepted the idea of a theological caregiver - a religion - that replaces the real caregiver. Those that don't go that way have a lot more responsibility to take on, with nobody to tell them what to do any more. But there are plenty of human parent figures that people can latch onto, if they feel they must.

Taking responsibility is playing at the casino. Sometimes you win, sometimes you lose, games are set to the house's favor. You can play if you want, but what if you don't like the games? When it's no longer fun, quit while you're ahead.

it is easy to develop a nihilistic atitude ..for instance when everybody you ever originally cared for are dead or murdered . But then the challenge of moving on becomes the ideal thing to do , And inspite of years of set backs and depression . You might run into a few people whom demostrate some apparent values , And treat you with some reciprocity .It does change things alittle a that glimmer of hope that seems to be but an ember starts to glow again .
And you find you must be self reliant. And occassionally you find you accomplish things,that you might not have expected you could do alone . And you go on just one more day. Eventually you might realize it all has to end someday . And you hope you do not have to suffer when your time comes . But its still the inbetween that Counts

I've never figured out a way to leave the casino. If I entrust my decisions to others, I'm gambling that they'll make good decisions for me. Even if I stop making decisions without delegating them to others, I'm gambling that I'm better off that way. If I buy health insurance, I'm gambling that I'll be ill enough to need it. If I don't buy health insurance, I'm gambling that I'll be healthy enough not to need it. I suppose I could stop caring about whether I'll be better or worse off than I am, but for some reason I can't.

You life is your adventure. The only adventure you will ever have. You get to decide what happens on that adventure.

Are we really told these things like having kids and all that?

The purpose of life is to have a good life, no more no less.

Drugs are pretty good in a legalized setting, I wouldn't mess around with underground markets. If you are dying of something you definitely want Xanax.

Personally I live for playing video games and spending time with my family. The reason I want wealth is not to buy nice things but its to give them a good life and I'd like to make enough to money to provide for them even after I die.

I think video games alone are a great reason to live. Video games 30 years from now will be amazing.

I'll be 70 though..

Disagree.
Not being able to accept the Truth is the problem, IMO.

Disagree.
There is no INHERENT meaning in life.
We are the effect of a cosmic accident.
Simply another form of animal as a result of the evolutionary process.
It makes no difference whether humanity does or doesn't exist.
Wishing for something doesn't make it so.

But all YOU can do is to try to have a good life.

The purpose of our biological programming is to procreate and perpetuate life.

There is something like this in the bible,a chapter written by a king who has done everything.
He comes to the conclusion that it's best to enjoy your work.