the desire to simply not exist

i think that a rarely discussed but commonly felt desire is to simply not exist this should of course be distinguished from its far more violent and permanent cousin an act that admittedly still holds tightly to this longing for nothingness but the former sensation is far more vague to not have to experience this anymore to never have been born to go to sleep forever i feel it when i'm embarrassed or ashamed house parties with strangers social rejection isolation sometimes at its heaviest it springs forth from the paranoid pondering of solitary thought would i want to live on a dying earth am i a burden to others am i enough [Music] and sometimes i simply find myself condemned within a mind of misery within me emerges a deep longing to not be there and sometimes to not be anywhere in these moments the hypothetical comfort of losing all awareness and sensation can be a little too inviting which is quite strange in a sense in the presence of immense suffering and discomfort we find this capacity to fetishize oblivion fetish is i think an appropriate word here as it denotes the obsessive and frantic pursuit of a fantasy that will likely fail to live up to its hype however the pursuit itself fetishization is already of such an immense degree that this promise of dissatisfaction is soon forgotten and so the struggle continues but with this unique pursuit towards nothingness we reach a radical attempt at this fantasy of non-being if we succeed we will never experience it fully and that's kind of the point we won't be satisfied we simply won't be anything but the escape hatch is always there all that's needed are a few carefully drawn out plans and more often than not some substance of pacification the idea that one could step out the fetishized alternative to finally exit lingers at every corner of self-hatred and boredom and despair and fatigue i suppose it's this feeling that we have some autonomy despite it all we have a say in the matter but i'm always several steps behind from the practical planning process and the moment of longing rarely lasts it makes little sense one moment of freedom for an eternity of nothing of permanent silence is this a worthy sacrifice i think not there are enough paths to experience this sort of nothingness while still being able to stick around sure there are those many deaths we engage in when life becomes too much i scroll instagram and sink into a burger and plunge into conscious nothingness but rarely do i feel better afterwards these small retreats from torment do little in the face of this godly ability to self-reflect on my own insignificance fortunately there's also just enough moments i've experienced in my life that have made me feel this prospect of escape and simultaneously feel a preference towards being over nothingness if that makes sense moments of the sublime of pure awe in the face of something larger than myself i'm nothing in the presence of a beautiful song or piece of art or moments of shared connection between friends and lovers or making something that others enjoy and perhaps even relate to those fleeting seconds that force me to stare into the fragility of it all to realize that being itself is pure chance my own existence is a brief moment awake i'm barely anything to begin with and that's perfectly fine because at every moment awaits some beautiful potentiality i am not yet prepared for and i know this only because i've experienced it before but if i give up now there's no going back non-existence will come to me soon enough so why not stick it out for just a little bit longer you

Channel: Sisyphus 55

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Id: 3mb3A3uCWjk

Length: 5min 1sec (301 seconds)

Published: Wed Nov 10 2021