To cope and take comfort from the fact everything is pointless and in 100 years we’ll be dust

[Ramalam]

I have a very stressful job. My coping mechanism is to stop, consider that in the grand scheme of the world everything I’m doing is utterly pointless, and that in 100 years I’ll be dead and none of this will matter one jot?

I used to live opposite a graveyard and it was full of people who had lives full of hopes, fears, ambitious, happiness, sadness. And now none of it matters; it died with them. So best not to
worry.

I don’t know what I’m asking - is this unreasonable or weird?

I’d say health is pretty up there

DD best mate got killed a few weeks ago aged 21. In one split second her life was over, her future taken and the lives of her family and friends ruined. It absolutely shifts ones perspective on things. I have just ended my 8 year farce of a marriage after this as yep life really is too short.

It’s the Ozymandias approach to life
https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/46565/ozymandias
I too find it extremely comforting. DH suffers from anxiety relating to his job and I fundamentally don’t get it. Who gives a shit? How and why would you give a shit? Life is short, enjoy yourself and don’t worry about things you can’t control, most of it really doesn’t matter and you’ll be dead soon.

This thought pops into my head every so often. That and the fact that, given enough time, our planet won't even be around. Humans will have long gone by then anyway 🤷

Of course it's true - it's very comforting to realise that none of us are important and we'll all be forgotten very quickly (unless we're either Mozart or Shakespeare!).

I'm no more important than a grain of sand in the great scheme of life. Some of those single grains do make a lasting impact, but most just get washed away. It actually helps me to not worry about all the everyday niggles.

I'm old now, and realise life is just a blink of an eye, so for all the young people out there, don't put off making yourself happy today and enjoy what's left of life.

I sometimes lie in bed in the early hours pondering life, death & existentialism. I'll get a bit overwhelmed and try and put it in perspective with this thought and that it won’t matter. And that the only thing I can truly appreciate is the here and now. All I have is this moment, and this moment is enough.

When I was younger and would get upset by horrible older people doing horrible things in the world I used to think never mind they’ll be dead soon.

now I’m older and am upset by horrible people
doing horrible things in the world I find it comforting to think well never mind I’ll be dead soon.

They might be, but if they do it's because they are animals living their own lives for their own purposes,.not because they are your legacy. Your grandchildren aren't any more of a thing than anyone else's. That sounds very insulting and rude sorry!! I mean that having a legacy that consists of having spawned other people has no more inherent meaning than anything else- so the comforting nihilism can still remain ;)

Exactly like the dinosaurs before us, and how ever many iterations of life come after. Who knows at some point even the crocodiles who have survived both so far will evolve enough to make nuclear weapons and blow themselves up.

No, I'm saying that we shouldn't be thinking that way at all. This thread is bizarre to me. Of course our existence in our current form is tiny compared to the vastness of time, but that is surely all the more reason that every moment matters. It's literally all we've got, so best make it good. All I see on this thread is people making excuses for mediocrity. Excellence is worth pursuing in and of itself, not because it will stand the test of time, but because it is timeless.

Nor do I need to.

Again, not when you’re dead!!!!

I agree. I have nihilist tendencies. It’s good to have a moral compass and do well in life but also to remember the universe doesn’t give a shit about us and we will all cease to be when we are dead.

Well what good is love when you’re dead?

I have this entirely unscientifically backed theory that the world is infinite is both directions, just like the billions of universes scale upwards to become a multi verses, the also things get smaller and smaller, what an electron buzzing around a nucleus in a atom is actually made up of a billions of really tiny multiverses. They are all expanding like we observe in our universe but at a rate that is barely noticable in a billion years to us. I thinking of writing a book. Maybe in a billion years people will still remember Elbert Bumblebee's theory of infinite big and small things.

Yes, and there was roughly 80-90 million years between they were around. T-rex was around about 60-70 millions before us.

Another similar example is that we would study Cleopatra as ancient Egyptian history (about 2000 years ago), but she should would have also have studied the great pyramid as ancient Egyptian history (about 2,500 years before she was born).

Life is ultimately meaningless. I find it comforting. This is why people have religion, it's a way to cope. If you think about the fact that we're in space right now hurtling towards a black hole it's pretty scary. So we have stories to cope. The suffering in the world has threatened my mental stability before. So I have a story I tell myself that makes it bearable.

We're just here to find our own little meaning and take comfort in that. Mine is my children.

I extract the most pleasure from every day. That's my goal. Happiness.

I'm another one who finds it strangely comforting that nothing matters ultimately.

I do think it matters how we treat others and who we support in that. Anything to make people's time on earth not miserable, violent, abusive, hungry, ill, etc. Because that time is all we have.

For myself, I try to enjoy the small moments of beauty and pleasure. My garden might have one bit that's lovely and the rest of it is an overgrown mass of jobs to do. But in that, there is life, so who cares? Nobody will ever remember.

I also find comfort in the knowledge that everything is meaningless. I’m not interested in family so never had children and not in contact with most of my relatives so the chances of me being remembered are remote anyway. And I don’t care. I decided a few years ago that we can only live in the moment and for today.

Why are people confusing 'ephemeral' with 'meaningless',? Just because something doesn't last or won't be remembered doesn't mean that it has no meaning.

You misunderstand. What is important in life, really? When we are living and when we die. None of that stuff the OP mentions actually matters in the great scheme of things. It doesn’t actually matter what you do for a living but when you reach the end and when you’re gone LOVE is all that matters. It is the whole point of life and leaves a lasting legacy for the next generations.

And I don’t just mean romantic love, to clarify for those who don’t seem to get it.

Being with the dying shows you that love is all that matters in the end - and beyond.

I remember visiting an old country graveyard and thinking that the graves were so old that no-one would be coming to tend to the graves and that no-one on the planet would even know who they were. It freaked me out a bit and made me even more decided in my head that a) cremation is far more preferable than burial after death.

i also thought how silly it is to try to attain all the physical things in life that people aim for because it shows you have “made it”. Just mountains of “stuff”. In the end it all has to go. Someone has to go through it all and sort it and have the burden of deciding what to do with it and the guilt of sending it to landfill. I think of my in-laws’ house and all the junk they have acquired over the years and absolutely shudder at the thought of helping DH to clear it out. DH says it’s just all cheap rubbish (it is) which no one wants so it will all be going in a skip. How sad and awful is that? All that money spent over the years on rubbish which got hoarded. All the stress it’s going to cause others at the end of their lives. And it sounds silly but that film Wall-E is always at the back of my mind when I think about the amount of manufactured stuff accumulating on our planet.

That was the point I realised that “stuff” is pointless. So from then on I’ve thought about every little thing that I buy. I never just buy on a whim. It has to be something I need.

when my working life has calmed down a bit or I’ve retired early I am to have a massive declutter and get rid of 90% of my physical belongings, and just simplify my life.

So, overall, it’s STUFF that I think is pointless on our individual lives . But our actions and words towards the people around us are not. How people FEEL influences their own decisions and actions and that’s how people really do make a difference in their day to day lives, even though their physical self and their belongings will be gone in 100 years.

What is important in life, really? When we are living and when we die

for the living part yes health is important, not so much when we die because we’ll be dead. When we are dead love doesn’t actually matter either