Alright, i will share some of my thorns, and there is point to it all. Hopefully you can stay until the end.
Being shy and anxious is not easy, i suppose a lot (or some) of you might know about that. That being said, though, there is a bright side of it, at least that is how i’ve spend my life thinking: you can work these very rooted problems as a challenge, as a thrill, it almost feels like a purpose for your life to make it go away. Meaning, if one asks you “what is the purpose of your life?”, you could say: to make myself overcome shyness and anxiety. I honestly believe this is a very optimistic way to pursue life, the future, and most importantly: meaning… The last one is a troubling concern for the ones who can spend hours exclusively thinking.
As a man who is not that young, i can very safely say i did overcome shyness, which is a victory for me, right? Yes, it should be, i mean, it objectively is. Now, if that is the case, how come it feels so empty after doing it? I’ve been wondering, in a full open-minded way, HOW? How is it that something that deeply bothered my throughout my teenage years and i came to surpass [after so much trying] seems to mean nothing in the end? I must admit i did not come to an answer, not a satisfying one, at the minimum. Time goes, as it is supposed to, and my work continues with the anxiety, a disturbance that goes beyond reckoning in anyone who suffers from it should know, and once again i would wonder: “is this gonna solve my life? Is this gonna make myself satisfied?”. This questioning by itself is a massive turn down, since once you did achieve a goal of yours and realised it didn’t mean much, then you inevitably will reflect on the results of other goals being achieved, being solved.
I will, again, admit that i still did not find a way to [naturally] solve anxiety, but it could be that those reflections are in the way, and it makes sense, right? If that is the thrill of my existence, the great adventure, then by definition you don’t want to end, but the ambivalence of not wanting an adventure to end and still feeling sickly anxious can’t be fulfilling to anyone, i am certain you will agree with that. I’m aware this is not some deep discovery here that i am making, that the concept of ‘eternally running for something until you die’ is as old as one can remember, and yet there is no answer. With no answer, how come we still keep setting goals. and not only that, we encourage people who feel the existential blank to do the same. Hopefully you won’t see this as a “nothing is good and we should all give up” post, but it is something to wonder, isn’t it?
One possible answer, some say, is that we live too much into the future, and goals are useless since the beginning, at least mid and long term goals, and that we should all go for an hedonistic way of life. I have seen people who are completely satisfied with life in this way, mostly with an empty (when you think philosophically) existence, living off sex, drugs and if tomorrow is uncertain, why bother? How sure could i be, though, that this will be worth in the end? I also have tried to imagine this style of living for me, which did not do a thing, i know i couldn’t be that way, there is something inside me (and inside a lot of us) that yearns for a deep meaning, a big thing, could go from a family and descendants to move on with your blood to an ethernal existence of our soul. Do any of that resonate with you? This constant pondering and unsatisfaction, not only with your present life, but even with every single possibility of its outcome?
