Nihilism - I Don't Know What To Pursue...

[PetarKa]

The past couple of weeks (approximately 2 months) I have gotten out of a serious state of depression and suicidal thoughts. I won't explain why or how it happened for the sake of being concise. (I've talked about it in another thread.)

Now I'm still in this state of indifferent depression and melancholy. I don't know what I want. I was actually asking myself what the best life for a human was. But does the "best" life really exist? Why is depression, pain, and felling lost in life worse than feelings of fulfillment, passion, and happiness? If everything is neutral in life, then what makes these so-called "negative" emotions bad and the "positive" emotions good. If I am wrong about this notion of "all things are neutral" and positive and negative emotions truly exist, then which emotions and things in life are the positive ones and which are the negative ones? Is pleasure something positive? What about fulfillment? What about growth? How about confusion? Pain? Certainty? Comfort? Uncertainty? You get what I'm getting at...

This is a problem for me because I don't know what I want. Do I want pain and suffering? Do I want pleasure? What about growth and fulfillment? How about a mix of the "positive" and "negative" emotions? I genuinely don't know... This makes me depressed.

[Torkys]

Hello, hope you are getting better! I have little experience with these kinds of existencial crises, but I will try to answer you questions. It may seem like that this mindstate will never go away, but nothing is permanent. Even though it may feel permanent, you can still get through it.

47 minutes ago, PetarKa said:

But does the "best" life really exist?

According to Leo's research, it's a life of a sage. It can be painful to get to - your ego will mess with you alot, it will beg you to live an unconscious life. Notice that "negative" emotions always come from the inside, and that awereness alone is curative.

52 minutes ago, PetarKa said:

Why is depression, pain, and felling lost in life worse than feelings of fulfillment, passion, and happiness? If everything is neutral in life, then what makes these so-called "negative" emotions bad and the "positive" emotions good. If I am wrong about this notion of "all things are neutral"...

 

Because the ego wants it's desires to be fulfilled. If it does not get happiness, pleasure or anything what it values as "positive", it will feel bad. And no, there is no absolute good and bad, it can be proved by logic and direct experience. All religions, cultures and people can have different ideas of "good" and "bad" and you can't prove any of them right.

56 minutes ago, PetarKa said:

Do I want pain and suffering? Do I want pleasure? What about growth and fulfillment? How about a mix of the "positive" and "negative" emotions? I genuinely don't know... This makes me depressed.

This is where I need to be very careful, otherwise I could fuck you up. An easier solution would be to chase pleasure if you can. Go out and find what makes you happy and do it! You will understand that there is better alternatives than being depressed and not doing anything against it. A harder, but more productive solution would be to see how you have low consciousness and dig into your depression. Watch yourself being depressed and see how you create the situation. Go, contemplate and meditate! Get the most out of it to raise your consciousness!

Hope I helped you! I wish you the best!