Why My Life Has No Meaning — Revival Through Naviety And Nihilism

Nothing feels important anymore, not even existence itself. But perhaps that in itself is a significant step to progress.

Meaningless Narratives

The year is 2025. A quarter of a century has passed, as with a quarter of my life. I've made progress, but still feel nowhere close to the dream. As with every year.

Perhaps I wanted to create a thematic narrative out of the date. Or convey ideas commemorating a milestone. Instead, it's been months since I've touched the text editor.

What a waste, one would think. Another year, another futile endeavor. How unproductive, what a missed opportunity. Maybe an inkling of that feeling lies within me.

But that emotion is largely absent.

Partly because I'm exhausted. Things have had to go between volunteering, work, hobbies, and leisure. I don't have enough time or energy for everything. Some activities are higher priority, some have greater rewards.

The trade-offs are the greatest they've been. Cutting down hours in software to rest. More income from online casinos instead of working on more creative endeavors.

My job is never-ending. Some days I'm fine with it. On nutty days, I have those emotions that make me want to quit. I don't actually, but I bounce between the two thoughts.

I've become accustomed to frustrations with the job. I care less about altercations and external thoughts about me. Physical wear, mental wear. Not just with retail, but all activities.

The people make or break my experience – thankfully, there's plenty of good to be had.

Despite that, allergies are killing me now. Sickness tortured me before. I fade in and out of consciousness from the summer fatigue. I even tried my first energy drink to curb the energy deficit.

I feel like a psycho without emotion. Nothing matters, and if it does, it fades away quickly. Perhaps I always wanted to be able to do away with negative feelings with this ease, but I sometimes wonder if it's gone too far.

Am I too desensitized? Too complacent or uncaring?

Have I lost sight of what's... important?

Throughout my entire life, I've been bombarded with notions of importance. It's important to do this, or think that. That heavy word towered over my minuscule confidence.

If my feeble mind couldn't grasp the significance of such things, I was insane – evil. Issues in the world I'd have no desire to resolve. Mindsets that were naive and dangerous.

Either my experiences were that, or they were nothing. To question the mainstream was stupid. My conflicting experiences were just my problems, so it was believed.

As I've learned throughout the years, what I'm coerced to believe is important isn't always so. What I've been conditioned to ignore isn't always benign.

Perhaps the polarized view isn't the right way to look at it though.

What determines what is important and what isn't? That notion has shifted from an objective to a subjective one – I believe an individual determines significance for themselves.

My values may not always align with those of another, but both concepts can be true for separate selves.

I feel neither guilt nor pride for exploring my beliefs – consciousnesses that have continued to evolve. They simply exist.

Much has lost its meaning at this point, though. All facets of life seem like a never-ending cycle. Unloading trucks, facing aisles. Watching slot machines spin endlessly, ordering food to shove into my digestive system.

Maybe I'll fit an hour or two of development in until I'm too brain-fogged to continue. Too tired to relax, too lazy to calm down.

3 years have passed since I graduated, expecting to immediately become employed in the software field. 8 years have passed since I worked on multiple artistic endeavors, hoping to improve and utilize them. I hardly use this knowledge anymore.

Does the fact that those dreams have gone by the wayside make this a sad story?

If my journey is deemed a failure, I should surely be depressed. Disappointed, maybe even angry. I felt every one of those things before. Hell, I wanted to die before.

But why do I feel more content than ever in the face of this so-called "failure?"

Societal stigma and pressure convinced me these outcomes would be pathetic. My "vanity projects" had no value under this narrative. I'd waste my education only to be verbally abused and mistreated, doing what "anyone else could do" for the least amount of pay.

There are issues. Yet through this path, I've mitigated the bane of my problems – my lifelong social ineptitude. I won't say I'm adept at being... normally conversational. But I've certainly improved.

I've met and connected with more people in 6 months than in the last ten years combined. Sometimes I lose my mind and want to quit, but the calm periods balance the scales.

Plus, the stormy emotions are more in the background.
I can still function – perhaps even live now.

I've released new ideas and thought more broadly about issues I've encountered. If anything, my horizons are a bit wider, even if I've realized how fallible I truly am through the process.

Ironically, I've never felt more demeaned, unwelcome, and disrespected attempting to enter industries supposedly filled with professionals. Yet I feel more human than ever elsewhere.

I used to hang onto every negative. To be perceived maliciously and in the wrong, to have situations cut short without a say. I don't have time to let anything but the outliers torment me anymore. My psyche has adapted to stop caring and forget quickly.

The day flies by, as does the week and month. It's all insignificant.

Goodbye Humanity

I encountered this pretentious saying that, despite the judgment, has an underlying point about my past anxiety. The message – "Some people are too dumb to even realize they should be worried about this, so why should you?"

While I worried about a random pedestrian's thoughts of me as I passed, someone else would've been yelling and screaming in public without a care. That was the supposed point.

Younger me might've reveled in how much intelligence my worrying must've indicated of my grand self. I'd never be "some people." Yet, I've become conscious of my propensity to screw up.

That doesn't mean I disagree, though. I just think some words need to be changed.

Perhaps this is where the cuckoo clocks sound in response.

But I think – maybe it's not that some people are too dumb.
All of humanity is. Especially me.

I was once under the notion that human existence was special. The epitome of intelligence, far beyond any other species. To say otherwise would be insane. Yet the more I observe our workings... even introspect on myself, the less I believe we're different.

This existential crisis already kindled months ago, as I noted how utterly bizarre our physical construction is. Secreting bodily liquids all over, with our strange appendages, consuming the carcasses of animals.

Everything seemed normal because that was my life. Every person had hands and legs. Many ate chicken or beef, largely disconnected from the emotional aspect of the food industry.

But a strange situation would arise if another species opened a store. With products to benefit the efficacy of one's "glands," showing images of fleshy body parts and slender figures on the boxes.

Or seeing factories that grind other life forms into paste for the "population" to eat. Bathroom humor, too. To think one finds amusement through jokes about forcing gas and solid matter through a cavity in one's bottom.

One could emerge before a crowd of thousands, each person reduced to a speck. They emit throat sounds like a siren, flail appendages in a rhythmic manner, and that somehow captures their attention, hypnotizing them with awe.

Social interaction is just as bizarre. Social anxiety plagued me due to how complicated interpersonal communications seemed. In retrospect, maybe it wasn't.

Share stories, ask questions. Make some funny gestures. I sometimes now imagine a nature documentary narrator speaking over this act, and it puts the whole charade into perspective.

Watch as the human speaks and vigorously sways their head.
Observe the exaggerated expressions as they humor their peer.

I never felt like I was socializing well enough. I'm often still awkward. But all the complexities worrying about not engaging or understanding enough were overblown. It wasn't rocket science to speak my mind, it was primal.

Perhaps with the right words, anything can sound less significant. But the same goes for my concept of significance – much is a human construct.

Through this constructed lens, humanity appears more like an animal or organism. I can't unsee this perspective on my life.

On the grand scale of things, when a customer or someone else gets unruly, the situation now feels like that documentary.

Watch the pure animalistic aggression as the human roars. One human being aggro-ing another, as happens in nature in their corporate chain habitat. Therefore, it is of no surprise to me, as it is simply instinctual nature.

Is that not the epitome of a psychopath? To see humanity in this animalistic light? Is that just a coping mechanism for reality?

Or is it freedom?

Complex human values weren't present in my head from birth. They were taught, ingrained, and fortified through my time in education systems and society.

Only then was I conscious of optimizing my limited time. How behind I was in this whole race, valueless and skillless. I discovered the opportunities wasted, the responsibilities ignored, and the foolishness of my feelings.

The stress was unbearable. I'd think of that feature I neglected work on, or that paragraph I hadn't written yet. I compared myself to what I was "supposed" to be, and how far below the bar I was.

But what if I were to rid myself of that notion?

The sense of responsibility, the sense of importance, and the reverence for maximized productivity. What if I relinquished everything I was pressured to believe gave me worth as a person in society?

With everything gone, I return to a primal state, where the fundamental purpose of life is... to live. Preserve the self, or preserve another's in one's stead.

One's logical, philosophical purpose is a cold, bloodless one focused on utility. That makes one indistinguishable from a tool, an object, or an automaton. The latter can hold true, in the sense that my primary objectives are happiness and self-fulfillment.

Emotion supposedly reminds us we're alive, yet I've neglected that motive in becoming human. I sacrificed my life for a supposed purpose. Yet there was only pain, no payoff.

What if I embrace my primal state? If I focus on what makes me happy and fulfills my needs? What if I spend my time watching shows or ordering expensive food, instead of slaving away blindly?

I hereon cultivate experiences as just that – experiences. Not a formula of input and product, but exploration and emotion. There is a reason behind these longings – my life's purpose is to feel.

I don't care to stress what's important or what's an issue. That goes against everything taught to me. Undoubtedly, it would let negative influences prevail. I'd become complacent and ignorant.

Yet that is the contradiction. If feelings are not fact, then why is it's absence a negative indication? I used to flee from conflict. Now, my job is to jump into those adverse situations and mitigate them.

I don't feel that paralyzing, deathly void within me anymore. The lack of that terrifying presence emanating from others when I had crippling anxiety makes it hardly feel like I'm speaking to a person anymore.

But regardless of how I feel, I'm doing exactly that.

What does invoking change take? Must I feel an aura of significance for my work to mean anything? Then why did my worst mistakes stem from the belief that my actions were for a greater good – a greater importance?

Injecting a narrative into the equation complicated and created justifications to stray from my optimal path. The harder I felt I tried, the further I declined.

I've learned a lot through my eyes and ears over 8 years. My satisfaction with my work is increasing. Perfection is impossible, but perhaps I'm finally closing the "taste gap" – a concept I've only recently become conscious of.

I'm achieving milestones I never could've fathomed. The results often come better and faster than ever... yet I don't feel I'm trying as hard.

I sought to create a soundtrack. Yet, my ears would hurt. The mixes sounded bloated, and the composition was too crowded. I piled on plugins and processors to no avail.

I started a new track months after my theme song attempts. There were more pauses and fewer instruments. And as an experiment, I decided to collapse all samples into mono.

That choice solved a problem I'd internally screamed about for god-knows-how-many years.

The phase issues and muddiness were gone, and I could now hear the subsequent changes I made to EQ and compression. The dynamics felt comparable to the references I listened to.

My best result took a few days. Countless bad outputs took years. I hardly adjusted anything or thought of the technical should-dos. Instead, I went with the flow and what sounded right.

Ironically, I tried this before and thought the mix sounded dull. I ignored the issues in my pursuit to be exciting. I always heard these nuanced differences, but I believed the problem... and target, lay elsewhere.

It's quite remarkable what came from tossing together a few drums, a repeated piano progression, and "cringeworthy" AI-vocalized lyrics about emotions and self-preservation.

Everything feels chaotic and haphazard. Childish, not professional.

But perhaps my feelings mean nothing.

My writing endeavors haven't fared well either. I started with big ambitions to go from 0 to 100, injecting symbolism and uniqueness, only to result in embarrassment and failed premises.

This next project, when I ever make it a reality, might have metaphors. But the writing will more likely be akin to – "whoosh, bad guy, big monsters. zoom~".

I will not forget that fiction should evoke emotions and stem from truth. And above all, writing should be fun for not just the reader... but the writer too.

That may sound childish and mindless.
Yet it'll result in my best work so far.

Even quintessential stuff like finances. To think, within six months, I've gone from one credit card to having over eight, funneling a cumulative $200K through online casino sites.

Credit score and money are revered. They are the most important assets in this life. Yet, here I am, treating it as a game... no, literally playing games.

A single button click to spend $1000. The significance of this monetary value, reduced to video game credits. It's naive, foolish, and a surefire way to a life of ruin.

Yet I've earned less working my full-time job than I have through this "stupidity." I've gained enough reward points to redeem hotel nights and flights. And I have more available credit than ever, while continuing to build a solid payment history.

Sure, this isn't without risk. I'm not immune to the gambling tendencies and desensitization. The risk of scams is real, and I've nearly lost some profit to them. However, the risk is calculated in.

I can treat life like a game, but that doesn't mean I'm not meticulous.

I recall my past addiction to stat-grinding in video games, always having to optimize strategies and maintain streaks. Meaningless metrics in life, other than enjoyment.

Games are not life or death... well, not anymore. I'm past the addictive state. Yet just because my goal is simple entertainment, doesn't mean I cannot become adept and competent.

How many breakthroughs have come from someone merely thinking – "What if I tried this? What if I did that?" Does that motive, or lack thereof, change the action's impact on the world?

Instead of piling this perceived pressure and complicating the path forward, what if I just acted because... I wanted to?

I can help someone in certain ways, like paying for them when they're short of money. Is it an act of kindness, reminding us that we need to do more to avoid selfishness and cultivate a community?

Or, do I donate because... I want to? It feels nice. I have spare dollars. Gratitude feels nice. Human connection feels nice.

Do I study the social systems of society to reinvent an alternative platform through technical prowess and system design to cultivate a better future?

Or, do I make a website because... I want to? Because I recall how isolated I felt, how difficult improvement was without guidance, and how social media was not the answer.

Intuitively, based on those experiences, I'm trying something out... for the heck of it. Because it feels interesting. It feels right.

I don't know how to change the world. I can't make history or solve social dilemmas on my own. Those words are meaningless – it's no wonder I stressed over those concepts.

But I can live my life. Doing what feels right. What I want. No matter how unimportant, no matter how slow it seems. Anything will move the needle, even if just a bit.

If I'm not changing the world, I'm changing mine – and mine is certainly not unique. It's one I understand and have the power to change the most.

Sure, that may not sound grandiose. But when have my feelings ever mattered then? Nothing is important, but the purpose I cultivate for myself.

Such a task is certainly within the realm of achievement.
And with possibility, there is hope to progress.