What Are You Living For?

Like @Noodle, I live not for but because happiness, exhilaration, love, being alive all feel amazing. I don't need to know or understand how everything works—I'm glad to embrace the mystery of what, why and how, and part of that fuels the exhilaration. I was miserable a little over a year ago, trying to claw my way back into a marriage already destined for failure and very seriously contemplating hurling myself into oblivion at midnight on New Year's Day. I don't want—or plan—to go back there again.

 

The alternative doesn't look that attractive?

 

This is the first place I've heard the "because" argument, and it's intriguing.

For people who say the alternative is unappealing...I dunno, there have been times when the alternative looks extremely appealing. Even if it is unknown.

 

I live because @damnitall makes me feel alive.

Cue the cheese.

 

There have been bleak times when I'd say the main thing keeping me alive was the impact my death would have on others. Overall that hasn't been the case, but I'm thankful that during those times I had those others to keep me going.

For the most part, I live to experience. And typing that out, putting some thought into it, makes me feel that I've for the main part been failing at that, with how mundane and repetitive my life has become lately. That's the main part, but also the desire to enrich the lives of others comes into play.

 

I live for my wife, whom I love. I live for raising my son, to pass on to him what was given to me, and whatever I have been able to figure out or make. I live for my people, for my tradition, for my responsibilities to those who will come after us. I live because I believe my life is a gift from the Creator. I live because this world and the people living in it endlessly fascinate me. I live for literature, philosophy, theater, art, cinema, music. I live for cooking and sharing meals with friends. I live because my life is a privilege, a chance to help others find wisdom or happiness or enlightenment, to help try to make the world a better place than I found it. I live because I want to see what happens. I live because our time in this world is breathtakingly short, and there is plenty of time afterward to see what death is like. I live because to experience life is to know radical awe and amazement.

I had my angsty moments when I was a teenager, thought about death and whatnot. But I grew up. A little angst is understandable, especially in a kid. But ennui, especially in an adult, just means someone's not paying attention to what's going on around them.

 

Hmm. Well, I'm not sure I'd be so quick to point and judge adults who feel angst and "ennui" as the same as kids or adults not paying attention. Some people are more sensitive than others to outside stimuli. Your angst is another persons horrific tragedy. May be they're paying too much attention to what is going on around them. Last I heard, we have a few science specialties called psychiatry, psychology, and a huge chunk of the pharmaceutical industry that's dedicated to things like this. I think at times it's more than just "not paying attention".

 

Obviously I don't mean reactions to actual crises or catastrophes, or to clinical trauma or biochemical imbalances. I mean angst or ennui in the absence of critical medical or social stimuli.

I do also tend to believe, however, that psychopharmaceuticals are very over-prescribed, especially in America.

As for sensitivity, yes, some are more sensitive than others, but basic life skills involve learning who you are and how you work, and figuring out how to find a healthy and productive balance within yourself. In the case of sensitive people (like myself, as it happens), that means learning how to manage your sensitivity so it doesn't overwhelm you, and learning to filter out most of the buzz of minor everyday negative emotional stimuli.

 

I live for my cars, the more derelict the better, and never have enough. They are indeed my kids.

 

Or the alternative starts to look too attractive.

Not wanting to add to the burdens of those left behind can be a strong motivation to continue living. Not a healthy motivation, but a motivation nonetheless.

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--- merged: Apr 30, 2014 at 5:03 PM ---

Levite, have you ever had days when the following were major accomplishments for you? I'm guessing not.:

Taking a shower (even when you knew that you were overdue for one).
Leaving the house (even when you knew that the errand was something very important that had to be done).
Paying your bills online (facing late charges).
Making simple, brief phone calls (even just one).
Etcetera.

 

I've had diverse answers to this question at different points in my life.
In my younger years it was to change the world.
I was a punk rock, anti-nuc, local politics addict.
There was a point when I managed a restaurant at night, helped run a political campaign during the day and wrote for a fanzine somewhere in between.
Then I had kids.
They became why I lived.
In some ways it made my politics more radical because I wanted to make the world a better place for them to grow up in but I also was a stay at home dad for a while and ran a daycare so I could be with them.
They are still very important to me but kids grow up and should never really be the center of your existence.

When I got divorced it was to survive.
Everything felt bitter and blasted but I there was something inside me that said I had to live no matter what.
Than I found Jadzia.
She told me something though.
She said she didn't want me to make my life about her because it was impossible for one person to live up to that.
I did my best to listen, to find purpose in my work, and the chance to create new stories.
But a I still found myself focusing on the most special thing that had come into my life.
Now I'm back to living to survive.
But I'm lucky in a way.
I've had some practice, never so deep a cut, I've never felt this eviscerated but I know deep down inside I will survive.

 

What I am living for:
For the next touching, funny, graceful, gleeful, heartrending, heartbreaking, exhilarating, magical, whimsical, nostalgic, cheesy, affirming, scary, sad, depressing, fleeting moment. Life is a series of moments to me. Moments that mean something.
The only moment that I will not live is a boring one. Boredom is death.
Not ready for that yet. Too much to see and do, people to meet, life to be had.

 

I live simply because I haven't died yet. Purpose? Not sure that's necessary, but I'll keep trucking as long as I last. While I'm here I'm going to try to get my daughter ready for the world, maybe have some fun and learn some stuff. I have had hope to develop some ambition, but it hasn't come to fruition. I have a lot of aimless ambition, but no focus. Bright shiny things are great though.

 

Cos its probably better than being dead.

Really nothing much else... and I dont mean that to sound depressive, just that living is all there is which we can be sure of (or that I can be sure of anyway)

 

For me it's more literal. I don't live for, or because, but rather out of sheer spite. I'm still alive because I'm incapable of violating a covenant which forbids me to kill myself... and as long as I'm stuck here I'm going to do my best to crush my enemies. For the most part they're all substantially older than I am, so as long as I don't screw up too badly I win by default. Given that one is down already and I've had the opportunity to literally salt the earth and rubble some have walked on (keeping a promise to see that place in ruins) I'd say my strategy is working so far.

I guess you could say I'm just too stubborn to quit and too mean to die.

Everything else is just a side effect of not wanting to be miserable or half-ass things while I'm here and having the drive of Alexander.

 

Wow, that sounds totally pathetic.

 

Rude.

 

Really? How about how rude it is to everybody else in his life?

Sorry, it's hard to see it as anything else. Especially in this community. It'd be like any one of us saying something like that.

And TFP goes: "Really? You don't have a better way of dealing with things? You don't have anybody you can talk to? You've been at this site for a decade. We know your dreams. We've seen your crotch plumbing."