..it was never anything but a jerry rig of presumption and dumb will...

[thegreatvoid]

hi

[daylen]

No one can really help you find meaning for long. That's all you.

[RealPerson]

Early twenties...
I was a semi- professional athlete in my youth .

I thought your youth was just starting! From my perspective anyway.

It is really impressive to speak 7 languages with only a high school diploma, and have a net worth of $150k in your early twenties. Congratulations. But you may be paying too high a price in your personal life. Maybe way too many hours at work? Or maybe you should consider seeing a therapist/psychiatrist because you may well suffer from depression.

Alternatively, you might consider meditation and see if that helps to improve your outlook on life.

[Hobbes]

It does sound from reading this that you've been expecting either some career (or lack of career; see retirement), or, failing that, some relationship (be it friendship or romantic) to provide you with a solid, lasting happiness.
Neither of those paths can really give you that. Happiness that is truly lasting has to come from within.
But I think some of these events may have happened rather recently (the bit about your former male friend and a certain female)? Give yourself some time to recover from that, first. I don't think concluding that nobody can be trusted is a healthy conclusion to draw from your experiences; rather, I'd say that some people can't be trusted (unless they were to change). If what I think happened is what actually happened, then you've found two such people. That's all.
You've got a lot going for you, man. You're in your early 20's, meaning that you may not quite have mastered all the arts of dealing with difficult life events yet. Give yourself some time. But know that everyone steps in the same emotional poo you've stepped in sooner or later, and most everyone comes out the other side.
Perhaps when that happens, a better question would be: what did you hope to do in retirement? Seems to me you know that being a rat on the wheel isn't your thing, but that's all you know so far. But, like I've said, you're young, and you've got alot of time to decide what that may be - and certainly being retired can also make answering that question easier!

[stand@desk]

I've been there..eventually I got to a dead end on my own, then I met my wife to be and things worked out! I needed a partner as being alone was not sustainable forever for me. We even had a child and hope to have one more. Plus, there will always be challenges and would you trade yours for someone else's? Probably not. Ultimately I think we prefer our own problems to some degree more than other people's.

[BRUTE]

and here brute thought it was his job to be nihilist on this forum.

thegreatvoid beat brute to it.

this is as good as it gets.

enjoy.

[Jean]

Dach, do you mean you happen to be in switzerland sometimes? The purpose of life is to live as true to yourself as possible, to let natural selection happen. You Will die in the processus.

[Stahlmann]

Hmm. Buy one way ticket to Third World country. Before that donate all your money to Stahlman's Fund.

Enjoy your survival of the fittest. You can get vaxxed to make this easier before trip.

[FBeyer]

I don't know why nihilism and weltschmertz would be joined at the hip. Why wouldn't a nihilist be perfectly fine saying: it's not going to matter one f**** iota what I do, I'm just aware of the perversity while enjoying it anyway?

---
Regarding the OP.
The dark vision of the world seems to mainly stem from too high expectations about what life, accomplishments, and everyday life should feel like. To my mind, that is why it's much more important to get your day-to-day mindset straightened out, rather than your postable-on-facebook life optimized.

FI (ie lots of money) won't solve your everyday life problems; money is a tool. An education won't solve your everyday life problems, an education is merely a tool. Reading philosophy won't solve your everyday life problems; etc etc etc.

When you spend too much time inside your head asking 'why' you're spending less time in the real world where 'what' tends to make an actual difference.

I've literally got my feet up. I'm listening to Dylan's Isis, and I have finished work at 13:35 on a Friday. This is approximately as much as you're gonna get. On the other hand I've solidly internalized how fucked one's thinking gets when enough little shit doesn't go one's way and how disturbingly alienating everyone else's life philosophies are. In your own words: We're all just upright monkeys on a spinning mud ball. Right? Why would that bring you down, unless you expect that your life is different from everyone else's? We ARE indeed just upright monkeys on a spinning mud ball, but we've also got a four dimensional basis set of neurochemicals that reward us for doing different things. Complaining and Weltschmertz incidentally is one of the most chemically rewarding chemically activities we can undertake. That's also a fact. Learn to manipulate yourself in a non-violent manner, don't fight your human nature.

Do your thing, whatever that thing is; it's not going to make an asymptotic dent in the dent in the universe (thank you thermodynamics), but make certain you do whatever your thing is. Your life is entwined with a billion others' whom you're never going to meet, but it's still your life. Do something, even if that means just Sitting, but Do something.

But honestly, your isolation seems to be the thing, not really anything else. A monkey without his tribe is easy prey. That missing sense of belonging is crazy difficult to build if what you want is a physical community comprised of people like you, but there are plenty of other ways of triggering that same need without actually associating with a pile of other Upright Monkeys. But then again: other people and their non-sensical life philosophies.

You're bringing shit out in the open either because you like airing it out (It feels good -really good- to complain where someone will respond to your complaining) or because you want to change.

It is crucial that you're honest with yourself about why you bitch in public. I know why I do, and I know why and how it helps me. Do you?

Life is suffering.

Life is suffering so get your shit together.

[Riggerjack]

I second all of the above, especially the parts that seem to contradict each other. I hope you eventually get enough experience to understand how helpful contradictory advice can be.

But let me touch on a few things not touched on above.

First, we set young people on the world at 18 as adults. At 18, we think we are adults. Some of us at 18 are better than others at being adults, but nobody expects anyone to have they shit together at your age. To get where you are at your age means you have prioritized aspects of your adulthood (financial, responsible, intellectual) but probably at the expense of others that weren't "important" (at least that is what I told myself at the time).

Developing all aspects of yourself is vitally important to happiness. This is hard, because you may have reasoned to yourself that you are "this", but are not "that". You are who you allow yourself to be, and eliminating areas of weakness, is more effective than building on your strengths. Partially,this is because adding to your strengths gets harder, the greater your strength. Partially it's that knowing you have these weaknesses is more devastating to self image than knowing you have strengths increases it.

Second, if you believe in not adding to the population problem, get a vasectomy, and then go back out there and date. This will be hard at your age. Most Urologists will assume you are too young, and refuse the operation, at least that was my experience. I was turned down 3 times. but having the vasectomy makes very clear that you mean what you say about not breeding. Have no doubt that most people who hear you say you don't want to father children believe you will change your mind as you grow older. I'm 47, and I didn't.

But once you have resolved the fatherhood issue, go out. Date. Have girlfriends, Break someone's heart. Have yours broken. Learn to live with it. Learn to grow from it. And eventually, learn to be the man who can attract and keep the right woman, because she's out there. Against all odds, she's out there. It'd be a damned shame if you missed her because you were busy telling yourself she doesn't exist, or that it couldn't work. There are women who can reason as well as you, with the same information, who are also despairing of finding a partner who doesn't want to breed. But the world works the way the world works, and it's your responsibility to go find her, woo her, and to be the man you want to be with her.

None of that has anything to do with early retirement, it has to do with finding happiness. I have found that my intellectual reasoning rarely lead me on paths that increased my satisfaction with myself or my life. I recommend you try different paths. The one you are on led you to a place where happiness isn't. Question your assumptions.

[FBeyer]

Here's a Youtube-worthy trick to learning how to question your own behaviors and assumptions:
Take the IPIP NEO personality test and then try to live in direct opposition to your results for a while.

I score:
Extraverted: 76
Agreeable: 13
Conscientious: 88
Neuroticism: 23
Openness to experience: 95

So I should spend more time inside my head, rather than engaging with the outside world. I should spend more time empathizeing (sp?) and caring for others and their emotional needs, I should learn to let go of my TODO list and learn to Get Less Shit Done, and I should learn to dial down my information seeking to near zero and try to experiment with a stable routine.


It's one of the simplest and most eye opening experiences I've ever subjugated myself to. It was also free

[daylen]

@FBeyer Fun!

So, I need to go agree with people on a closed plan while in violent mood swings.

[FBeyer]

Close, but no cigar. Pass Go; Do Not Collect 200$.

[daylen]

[Jason]

Scandinavian

You could have just written this and spared us both a lot of time.

[Riggerjack]

@FBEYER

OMG! I scored more extremely unbalanced on that test than I am used to.

Extraverted: 03%
Agreeable: 01%
Conscientious: 62%
Emotional stability: 98%
Openness to experience: 84%

My wife just confirmed that it's accurate, though. So, I figure if I could somehow pull off an hour of being "outgoing, agreeable, and emotional", the "impulsively traditional" part should probably fall into place on its own.

[jennypenny]

JBP's Understand Myself website uses that test but gives you more categories and a longer description of what each score means and how it interacts with other scores. I don't think it's free, but I thought it was interesting (I tried it for free in exchange for a review).

My results were downright frightening. I expected the authorities to show up at my door while I was writing the review.

edit: comparing the two, the results are pretty similar .. save your $

[suomalainen]

@thegreatvoid My kinda guy - you're speaking my language! Keep at it (life); it gets better. Not much better, but better, if you work at it.

[jacob]

@thegreatvoid - I'm mostly going to repeat what others have already said, but maybe for re-emphasis:

FI is a freedom-from option. It's not a freedom-to guarantee and thus it will not solve any or all other problems unless such a solution was otherwise prevented from having to go to work all the time. For example, my freedom-from having to spend 8-10 hours a day on my job allowed me the freedom-to finish the ERE book. However, it was up to me to find a use (writing the book) for that freedom.

There are other good reasons for being in a relationship than just for the sake of having children. The strategy here for you is to find a SO who is not interested in children either and who is not interested in children for approximately the same reasons as you. Then you'll get along splendidly... which leads me to the observation that ...

It's probably best not to date casually when you have constraints on the outcome. You might end up randomly dating someone who really wants to have 5 children and sees themselves as the stay-at-home parent or who wants to work hard and play hard. It's been more than a decade since I last "dated" and I'm not a Millennial, so different rules and different era, and thus I can not advise.

I don't have much advice to give about friendship. I've moved a lot and that definitely doesn't help on casual friendships. On the other hand, I enjoy how it's possible to reunite with friends I haven't seen 20 years and pick up as if no time has passed. Or how I can meet people from the forum/via ERE and how that often feels like we've known each other for a long time already. I suppose how one perceives friendship depends a lot on preconceptions of what a friendship is supposed to be about.

I have not found any sustained joy in travel or hedonistic activities. That goes back to the freedom-to. Meaning is something each person somehow has to find for themselves(*) I've had periods during my FIRE where I've finished or lost interest in something that previously gave me meaning. This was frustrating and depressing. When you're FIRE, the responsibility to find or generate your own meaning is all on you. I suspect many people who still work are somewhat self-sabotaging their potential for freedom so they can stay chained because "working to pay the bills" provide some meaning.

(*) Meaning is different from hedonic pleasure and falls closer to eudaimonia which is a somewhat less shallow version of what a good life is supposed to be about. Many parents report less happiness than non-parents but conversely report more meaning.

[thegreatvoid]