r/Pessimism

Hello everyone. I recently came across a video by a blogger who says that people who are constantly fixated on pessimism live shorter lives because they have elevated cortisol levels, while optimists live longer because they're happy and fixated on the positive. Although it may seem strange, why don't optimists make the world a better place? If there are more optimists, then why are there wars, violence, and other disasters in the world? After all, a pessimist sees all these problems, and that doesn't mean they'll live shorter lives because of stress.

If someone has good physical and mental health, is high in the social hierarchy (and thus has access to the best opportunities, romantic partners, etc), or, more importantly, has specifically chosen to embrace and accept their life, flaws and all, is existence worth it for them? Doesn’t everyone wish to be like this?

What is your opinion regarding a button that ends your life instantly and without any kind of pain? Let's assume that your death doesn't even cause pain to others—you vanish from the memories of the people who knew you.

Would you press it or not?

I would press it.

I'm almost 40 years old, I don't consider myself depressed, and I have various hobbies that give me a certain amount of pleasure, but analyzing things lucidly, I only see them as pastimes to pass the time and wait to die further down the road.

This country has a colonial legacy. The culture is deeply absorbed with oppressor and oppressed sections. The moment you enter a government office, it will "show you your place". You can be easily snapped at, insulted, disrespected. Respect is the monopoly of a certain few.

People identify with their jobs, Oh I mean some people identify with their jobs. The kind of jobs that were inherited from British era. Those who enter the jobs are 100% convinced of their merit, past life merit, entitlements, superiority over others. There's a theater going on. Everybody knows their place in the theater. The moment you meet a government officer, you will unconsciously enter into a submissive, pleasing, back breaking role. It's like hypnosis or trance state. You're no longer you. The officers rejoice in this treatment. They expect you to behave a certain way.

Children are trained from a young age to think in ranks, titles, power, aura. Black sheeps are shunned and not tolerated. You've got to be very mentally tough to survive a system that strips you naked psychologically every single day. The mass men cheer for the very system that looks down upon them. How odd! All empty talks, people know the language of authenticity, they talk the talk but don't walk it.

I don't know if this country will ever heal. It's a deeply traumatized culture. The trauma is passed down to the next generations. Nothing ever changes. Modern Indian, 19th century mindset. It can only change when those in parliament and offices want to change it, but they do not want transformations. They want to preserve the status quo for a century and more because the system benefits them immensely. They're self convinced Gods. The prime minister jokingly (or seriously) said that he is non-biological. It's a symptom of a country where winners believe that they have some incredible past life merits.

This is the first time I’ve ever really been on Reddit and I don’t really have any experience in this area but I can’t stop thinking about this, is there really no way to gain real freedom? (Real freedom to me is not needing to submit to anybody)

This is it. This is your very existence. This is your life. You are not some sort of omnipotent being that can bend the natural laws to suit its own needs and desires. You cannot do the impossible. You are but a microscopic organism living on the crust of a tiny pale blue dot floating in the endless expanse of space, without purpose, without meaning, and without a destination.

There is no grand plan here. There are no guaranteed promises of a transcendent existence beyond this. You are not better than those fragile slugs without shells that are trying to survive. You and your species are not the result of an intelligent, wise creator. You are a mere, unpleasant coincidence—an abomination.

You then proceeded to clone yourself over and over again, although you knew better. Yet you kept going in this futile endeavor, as if there were something here beyond consumption and reproduction: me, me, me. I am the center. I am the truth. It cannot be any other way.

You keep yourself hooked on your fragile little lies like a pathetic junkie in the back of a dead-end alley, praying to the void and fashioning from its glacial silence creeds of your own that feed your malnourished ego with self-importance.

Conspiracy theories, in my opinion, demonstrate people's lack of ability to understand and accept the true nature of the world.

While there are conspiracies that turned out to be true, I'm talking specifically about the more fantastical theories.

Such as:

- The government is run by lizard people/aliens.

- The Earth is flat and the powers that be are hiding the outer rings of the world with infinite resources while keeping us in the center.

- Billionaires are worshiping demons and Satan to gain all their power.

- The world is getting "worse" because we shifted to a different timeline.

And of course there are many more.

People, as people are naturally inclined to do, project fantastical meaning where there isn't any. They believe the world is not meant to be the way it is. But the terrible truth of nature is mundane and boring. The world has always been violent and indifferent. No need to look beyond human nature or nature in general. Just a glance at history shows us there has always been war, tribalism, oppression, genocide, poverty, disease, starvation, destruction etc.

These types of conspiracy theories, in my experience, tend to coincide with religious beliefs, which isn't much of a surprise to me.

I don't understand people who have solid opinions, beliefs, about anything

I don't understand logic. I don't understand thinking, the end point and the meaning of it.

Not to bring my personal stuff here, but I have a lot of experience and maybe I have a right to judge based on it, this world is not logical. It doesn't care about logic.

Never understood all those people who talk about logic, discuss, argue constantly to eternity. It doesn't matter.

I don't understand the certainty, or the hopeness associated with it, believing any change can be achieved

The post is not about venting, but more like a contemplating at the meaning of it all, and why some believe anything can be changed, and how personal experiences ties to this ?

Spawned into it, we writhe about, desperately trying to escape the pain of the needles. Yet, no matter how we shift our posture, the pain merely moves from our backs to our bellies. If there is any way to escape that pain, it is only by using others as a cushion beneath us.

Life is so cheap and fake. Like all the narrative and drama is fake. Have you noticed that most of your behaviour is autopilot. Like all the stupid and cringy things you do in your life is automatic. Also there is so much misery in life, I know some people will assign meaning to it but I don't thing it's applicable. Like it's all crap. The whole narrative feels fake and cheap and whatnot. Even if you by long stretch of imagination apply some narrative to this life ,it doesn't fit. This life is way too stupid and f ed up to be elenquated by some creative or interesting narrative. Its just you slapping it forcefully ,not that it is that in actuality.

God is a cheapo and a fake idiot that is running a fake life. I can't believe this life is so broken and whatnot. Seriously this god doesn't look like a benevolent god imo. Cuz all his shenanigans point towards misery and fakery and stuff.

I hate my birthday. I shouldn't be here to begin with, and year after year it's a reminder that I still am. I'm closer to 60 than 50 now, you'd think I'd have built up a giant vault of wisdom and survival tools and loving friends and family around me. But I'm still the empty wasteland of loneliness, rumination, and self-absorption I always was, now with added physical pain and ailments. Yes, I've tried therapy. Yes, I'm on an antidepressant. Yes, I tried HRT. Yes, I get exercise eat right don't drink don't smoke. I'm a ball of joy, I tell you. I'm not all bad. I'm sensitive, which leads me to care for orphaned animals with great success. I work online, so noone at work ever really sees the crazy in me. But others know, they pick up on it even if I try to pretend. No one likes a negative nelly, someone with no filters to add a nice pastel hue to the bullshit of the world. And I can't change. This is who I am. There's a predator in my brain, and I'm the prey. I can't escape it.

I've been wondering something for a long time: how do you stop being so pessimistic ?

Every time I see injustice, corruption, wars, greed, or people treating each other horribly, I can't stop thinking about it. Then I look at history and realize that so many of these problems have always existed. It feels like humanity never really changes.

Sometimes I think we're just intelligent animals driven by selfishness and greed. Those traits helped us survive and build civilization, but I also feel like they'll eventually destroy it.

What I don't understand is how some people stay optimistic. Are they genuinely happy because they've had loving parents, good education, financial stability, good friends, good mental health, and maybe even good genetics ? Or are they just coping like everyone else but choosing not to think about the darker parts of life ?

When I was younger (7-23 years of age ), I believed God had a plan for everyone. That belief gave me comfort. Then one day I realized I didn't believe that anymore, and since then I've struggled with the idea that life might not have any inherent meaning.

I also became interested in politics, and all I seem to see are empty promises, misinformation, polarization, and a lack of education. The justice system often feels unfair. The world feels unfair. And my brain seems to remember every terrible thing happening in the world instead of the good.

I don't actually want to be this negative. I wish I were an optimistic person. But my mind constantly focuses on suffering, both in the world and in my own life.

Has anyone here been like this and genuinely changed ? How did you stop seeing everything through such a pessimistic lens without simply lying to yourself ?

Is there any actual philosophy or logic behind being pessimistic ?

or is it just a mental illness or a symptom of underlying psychological issues ?

And how do you define pessimism ? Is it giving up hope completely that things will get better ? or believing that they will only get worse ?

As a modern reader, what are your thoughts about romanticizing suffering… did Dostoevsky intend that notion when he created his most notable characters, so they become down to earth and more relatable. Or he simply meant to say suffering is a source of revelation?

I mean I always come away with the impression that profound wisdom requires profound pain. As we all know he himself had quite a challenging time in his youth.

This is me personally saying: I use to believe that “suffering” steels the soul. Though slowly but surely, I’m beginning to realize reality could be a cruel mistress.

I hear everyone saying: “chase your dreams. Take the risk.”

Well, I’m not probably the first to admit that it’s not that straight forward. I will even dare to say everyday feels like the world is ending.

Maybe when you hit rock bottom there is nowhere to go. That is what keeps me going. I have long found myself in this inglorious position.

To be honest I’m currently writing this in a dark room so my land lord would think I am not in. I have actually been avoiding her for the past three and a half weeks. Some days I can hear her standing on my door way listening in before asking the tenets next door if they had seen me come in, and of course I stay as quiet as possible. If work comes by, I either sneak out very early on the morning or wait till she goes out about her day and leave.

Work has dried up recently but I use to paint houses, any labor work that doesn’t eat the whole day so can spare time for my writing. Plus when I am out I don’t socialize much, ok that’s a lie, I don’t socialize at all. I use to have a roommate but he has long been struggling with some mental issues, and had to move in with his relatives… let’s just leave it at that.

I too in fact on some days would go to my parent’s house when they aren’t there. I would raid the fridge take 2 or 3 eggs a bread and some cooking oil.  Look for some things that wouldn’t be missed. When that got hard and I couldn’t find anything with much value I started to get a bit creative… about a month ago I started to takeout the fuel from the tank, it was something unsuspected and had much more value… gas is expansive and I would sell it on the black market with a reduced price.

But on this Wednesday I came back with a can to do the same thing but the car key had been moved. I remember it being at the spot for my entire life. I don’t know how they would suspect as I would take out 2 sometimes 3 liter a week. I know they can’t possibly think it’s me as they still think am at my day job as a bank tailor.

Oh and about that job I should probably mention… some 4 month ago, I clocked out on a Monday and never clocked back in again. I mean I haven’t been to that place since then.

I always said to myself that I would call back and say I had a family emergency or something, but a day turned to a week and another week then a full month and I just never went back again. The office use to call me and leave texts but just gave up eventually. My co-workers especially call me till this day but I don’t know what to say after picking up.

As I was saying at the start… a serious of inglorious decisions led me to this unenviable position that I am at now. I don’t know why I was so confident at the start, maybe I thought since I got my childhood friends in the U.S they could help me out with finding editors, I mean we in touch and they always send me pictures and videos of their cars and apartments… they have good lives there, and some even own a successful business… and that being said it was a surprise to me when I asked two of my closest friends like about a month ago for 40$ loan and that one was actually for rent, and I got a response saying they got me… and then I never heard back from them. They stopped sending all that stuff in my D.M but I still see them posting popping bottles every other weekend on a night out. (They don’t own me anything, so that’s that.)

I even tried the YouTube thing, I do book and movie reviews, even reached a 1000 subs and all is REQ to be monetized but only to find out no monetization in the location I live in. Now that depressed me a whole lot more than anything else. What’s worse is YouTube runs ads along my videos, so yesterday I unlisted all the videos even deleted the app. Well I did delete the app because I am actually scraping all my personal info from my phone as I have decided to pawn all my electronics when the pawn shop opens on Monday. got to make rent somehow plus I haven’t taken a shower close to 3 weeks now. And my land lord has cut the power that goes to my room.

At this point I had over drafted my account…  I even get a text from the bank every day, reading they will take me to court if I don’t payback. (the debit keeps on pilling up by the day.)

But, but all that pressure had lit a fire under my ass and the matter of fact is I have completed my fourth draft and feel confident about it also. And mailed it to a few agents and I got a request for my full manuscript from 5 agents out of the 18. I had been biding my time till now. So in hindsight, I learned a lot about myself about the world, even read all the books I had planned to.

And every day I wake up I realize that I would have never gotten to where I’m in my writing if I had still been on the same lane I was on previously… an interview with J.k rolling found me when I was actually on my lowest and she was saying if I done anything else instead of getting up every morning and get back to my writing I wouldn’t have succeeded and that was like a moral boot for me. Not saying she is the a great writer or anything but she is a success story no matter what… any ways down to brass tacks…

I am not sure why writing this now, maybe it’s for myself… maybe it’s because I can’t fall asleep right now, plus before deleting the all the apps on my devices and since I’m going to pawn them, I guess I want to leave a thumbprint somewhere out on the internet like here on reddit.

But the moral of the story is not for anyone to feel sorry for me but say as to serve as a cautionary tale for anyone who asks the question “What if I risk it all, to chase the dream?”

///

(And finally here is a shard of myself in my main character from my novel.)

I was the kind of kid who thought of starting revolutions from his bed. I used to lie awake under the covers, drafting manifestos by flashlight, convinced, so terribly and beautifully, that I was meant for something more. There was a certainty in it. Bone-deep. The sense that destiny had marked me for something seismic.

I don’t know how to explain it, only that I knew I was separate. There is an intangible urge still burning low in my stomach, prophesying: a voice insisting on importance, on becoming. It was never about delusions of grandeur or fame. I wanted to leave something scarred. I once believed I would carve my initials, however faintly, into the spine of the world.

Life has no objective value. All value assessments are down to the individual being and without greater justification. The individual's actions are a result of their desires which they do not have meaningful control over (determinism/indeterminism). These desires are the source of all suffering and are insatiable for as long as a being is to live otherwise they would not act. Desires are acted upon because lack of fulfilment of desire causes suffering. Life is internally inspired slavery.

All living beings are to die and become non-existent, all life will go extinct. Life is temporary. When any one being dies, all of reality may as well have ceased to exist for them.

Even if one tries to avoid violence as much as they can, their existence alone has consequences for other living beings that just cannot be avoided. The competition of life and process of evolution ensures the cycle of violence maintains itself as long as living beings exist. With no value to justify suffering and with life being finite and motivated by the desire to avoid the unavoidable, pessimism is just an observation of what sentience on this planet entails. To come into existence is futile and of no benefit to that who is born, nothing is achieved except prolonging the inevitable. I wish it was not true, but I just cannot see it any other way no matter how hard I look.

The arrival of the heat has affected me more than I expected. The sweat, the body odors, the inability to go out for a walk without risking death, the chronic fatigue… all of this reminds me that this body is nothing more than a filthy latrine with nothing truly appealing about it. As stated in the Nalaka Sutta, a text from the Buddhist Canon:

“Look at this image, made to appear beautiful: a mass of festering sores, held together with great difficulty; diseased, the object of endless schemes, yet devoid of anything lasting or secure.”

And you, how are you coping with this hellish heat and the looming omen of summer?

I was overthinking a new hobby lately, worrying I’d be bad at it. Then I realized: if you try something and fail, you just join the other 8 billion normal humans trying to figure life out. The downside is literally just being regular. But if it goes well, you find something incredible. It made me realize the "floor" of trying new things isn't actually scary. It just lands you right back in the same boat as everyone else.Has anyone else had a little mindset shift like this lately? What’s a low-stakes thing you’ve been wanting to try?

Optimists think that life is water, food, sex, relationships etc.

Pessimists think life is rather thirst, hunger, inceldom, lack of deep relationships without abuse.

This is the issue to be settled and resolved in this post. I have described clearly the basic difference in thinking of pessimists and optimists. Now I shall reveal as in who has the truth on hand and it's lack thereof.

Revealation : Pessimist are right ;)

Is this self-praise? May be. But the reverse could also be true but that is taken for granted. So let us defend a controversial assertion that life is deprivation not fulfillment.

Shall we?

First, optimist A says that life is good because "food" is good. Apparently dead matter which is definitely NOT life is the reason why life is considered good. Did you read this? A nonsensical statement. FOOD IS NOT LIFE. It's a life-object.

Then optimist B goes life is good because "sex" is good. More like...breasts, vagina and big dicks are good. Atleast that's what I figure from the porn industry especially AI porn, you guys should see it and the fact all insults are based on degrading sex especially r#pe. Never seen someone say sex is good without thinking about sex objects such as breasts, vagina, dicks. If you find a person who when thinking about sex, sex objects don't appear in mind -please report to me. I will duly correct myself.

You never see someone purposely seeking to fuck with inferior genetic quality person but the reverse is true. This means people don't like sex, they like sex objects. Again breasts, vagina, dicks, good face signalling superior genes ARE NOT LIFE. They are life objects!

Third, optimist C makes an entrance and declares life is good because of "relationships". By the way prey and predators have a "relationship". While it can be considered neutral, it can never be considered as good. A r#pist and it's victim has a relationship so does a murder with murdered and a vast majority of parents in the world who beat children whom they have a relationship with.

Summarised - LIFE IS NOT LIFE-OBJECT.

Life cannot be quantised because it is a qualitative no-thing. Scientists say "life began". This is obviously bullshit. Every definition of theirs end up defining a life-form not life. Furthermore the fact we can't measure thirst and hunger but can instead measure water and food proves that objects cannot be considered life.

Let's hypothesise that life is indeed water then what is thirst. What is the this bad sensation is all of our lives that doesn't leave us? The primary discomfort that troubles us. It is LIFE itself.

This is why Pessimist consider life primarily bad and life objects simply as way to starve off infinite suffering instead of deriving excessive pleasure off them. A gambler is an optimist - remember that. The master capitalists - the father of all gamblers are also optimists.

Optimists are perverts of highest order while Pessimists atleast in theory are more reserved.

Optimism is a morally degraded ideology which priorities rick taking over creating suffering. I am 100% sure that it is not ontologocially true.

as the title suggests i’m a beginner and a total newbie to the ideas of philosophical pessimism and honestly philosophy as a whole, i’ve been into philosophy for about a year and mainly watched video essays as i think im still too stupid to read dense texts (only really read Camus and Dostoevsky but i think they’re more of novelists imo)

i recently discovered that apparently there was a thing called philosophical pessimism and honestly i think i’ve been a pessimist or at least sympathetic towards it for years without knowing even before i got interested in philosophy. with my experiences with mental health and acceptance of the fact life is meaningless and possibly being in an existential crisis right now i became very curious and did some research and discovered Emil Cioran

i would say my current philosophical beliefs are a mix of pessimism and absurdism, i agree that suffering is some universal constant and i believe pleasure is temporary cessation of pain, i also read some of Cioran’s aphorisms online and generally agreed with them, i think the reason why i got into philosophy in the first place was to answer my questions on life and pessimism seemed to answer many of them in a way i generally agree although i do have some questions on consciousness and lucidity and Schopenhauer’s Will (although i must admit i don’t really understand it very well). i must say i do find absurdism comforting and pessimism as well to an extent, when i ask myself existential questions i often find myself talking about the universe’s indifference to us and the absurdity of suffering, and the cycle of pain and pleasure and how we’re never fully satisfied in life

i think Cioran made me really consider the questions on consciousness and lucidity, i think while suffering can generate pain and pleasure (in the form of beauty and the arts, many people who were in despair expressed it via writing or other creative mediums), i’m not entirely sure if in that case consciousness can still be considered a net-negative or is it neutrally valuable, and the question on “unaliving” i’m still very unsure about or does “more truth=better life”, i probably won’t give all my questions on pain and pleasure here since it’ll be too long but yall can ask if you’re interested, also i think it would be really helpful if somebody could give a quick overview of Cioran’s beliefs and i’m not entirely sure about the little nuances in them or how he may differ from other pessimists

finally, i was just wondering if there are any recommendations for me to better understand pessimism, im considering reading On The Heights of Despair by Cioran but are there any other books? perhaps philosophical fiction if there are any on pessimism, thanks!