Do you ever feel that living is futile?

Question

I'm not depressed, I know what that feels like - I've been there many times before. But sometimes I think about how many people out there only bother with you until they get what they want from you (s*x,money, whatever) and how many people are just putting up a front all the time and it just seems like no one is for real. I feel empty realizing these things and yet I can't just be a fool and pretend that it doesn't happen so often.

I am pretty content with my life and I like metting new people and doing new things but I feel kind of short-changed in life I guess. The quality, for real people, only come once in a while and yet I meet the people who want to take advantage of me on a daily basis. I just feel kind of like what's the point of living if it's just going to be the same c**p over and over again.

Does anyone else feel the same way?

Answer 1

I also exactly feel the same.

I have lived for 66 years. My feeling is what am I yet to achieve.

I do my part of my duty. Wherever my service or help is required, I sincerely try to extend. I do not bother for others observations about me or my actions. I consult and share my feelings with everybody. Also I do not have the feeling that somebody is taking advantage of me. The feeling of people taking undue advantage of me will not come to me because I forget such things as I know these are not going to be permanent. I search for something permanent, genuine and true.

Answer 2

If you look at the "grand scheme of things" then life is certainly futile.  However, this is not the appropriate perspective.  It's also true that many people are userers, self-centered, or shallow.  This too doesn't matter.  

What's important to understand is this:  You own your life and you only live once.  You have very little control over what goes on in this world, but complete control over yourself.  

So, if you feel short-changed in life, the burden is on you to change your way of living.  Forget what you believe to be true, and start exploring.  Life is thrilling and the world is an exciting place!

Answer 3

Well to put forth the supposition of "futility" (that living is futile) is, in effect, to imply that there is a worthy goal, destination, or contrast to this futility (something that is "non-futile").

Put in another way, what would life have to constitute in order that it may NOT be futile?

Immortality? Unending Happiness? Unending wealth? Unicorns?

Life's "futility" must be in relation to something "non-futile". So, what is the antithesis to "life is futile?" To say "Life is futile" is to presuppose such antithesis, which presupposes that which makes life NON futile.

So you tell me, what would make life non-futile?

How do you want life to be? You want people to interact with no end in mind (like s*x, money etc.)? --like some big random get-to-know-all gathering? This seems to be a world of strangers uninterested in each others affairs... this seems to be... delusion.

You want altruism? You want some unmotivated motive?

If such is what you would classify as non-futile, then you want some irrational mode of society. In this mode of yours, people have no reason to involve themselves in the social affairs of each other (because they have no interest in each other--no motive). They don't want s*x, money, etc. Your wife wouldn't know why she is with you. She wouldn't want you for s*x, money, kids, or anything. In this world of yours, social necessity is nil, and every motive is an irrational non-motive. The roles of business and of government would so wane in the absence of demand, necessity, and motive (like profit motive) that their function would merely cater to subsistence. In fact, the lofty structure that is society does not exist... we would all be like spiders. We would weave our webs, and die in them, alone, not needing anyone... The spider dies in its own web when it neither needs nor is needed... irony?

Basically, this world that you characterize as "futile" is not exactly so--if only because you cannot rationally define its non-futile antithesis. It is good to be needed. Stop questioning peoples motives; you wouldn't have it any other way. Just deal with it. Some people take advantage, but you can separate yourself from them if you don't like it. You can choose.

Life is symbiotic. We all suffer. We all need each other. Need = motive = self-interest. And that is not to say "we are selfish"... and people who make the complacent accusation that everyone is "selfish" should go live in some stranded island alone-- in a spider web.

Deal with it. If this is futility, then non-futility to you would be unicorns and immortality.

I'm not being mean or rude or am intending to be offensive, but I hope this makes sense (I'm feeling lazy to explain today).

Answer 4

Feelings aren't facts.

Answer 5

Hey; life may be futile, but It is worth living.

I see your point.  The people you speak of obviously don't appreciate life.

Answer 6

Futile, but inevitable.

All must die, yet not all truly LIVE.