Existential crisis, Round 1

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I had hopes that one day I was gonna find the definitive solution to my existential crises and that day I was gonna write a very detailed article sharing my secrets with the world. I don’t think that day will come anytime soon. So, for the moment, I have decided to write this handful of disconnected insights that have emerged from my last confrontation with a crisis. I have no training as a psychologist, philosopher or anything similar so I am fully aware that many of the insights that I have written here are made up and I hope they are seen in that way. However, I also hope that sharing my process may help others to find their own answers (or questions)

Take it easy

When you feel the impact of an existential crisis, the first impulse is to find a way out of this situation as quickly as possible. Suddenly, the feeling of stability that has disappeared and everything is falling apart. You are in the midst of a tsunami that is devastating everything in its path.

It’s a very uncomfortable mix of sensations. On one hand, I feel sad for the things that I am losing, I have no energy and there is a need to mourn those things, even when I can’t identify exactly what I’m loosing. And on the other hand, I feel a lot of accumulated energy. I feel this urge to get out of this uncomfortable situation. I want everything to change. I want someone to come and fix my life, to put all the pieces in order. What I have learned this time, with the help of my psychologist, is to mitigate a bit this primary impulse of wanting to get out of the crisis as quickly as possible. Not only because the more I try to get out the worse I feel, but also because I have begun to understand that, sometimes, crises are necessary and even healthy. It’s the way that my system is using to tell me that something is not working entirely ok.

We are used to thinking about crises as negative events but it doesn’t have to be that way. Each crisis is particular and unique, but I think that in many cases the crisis is the culmination of something that wasn’t working. It is the moment of the trip where the van finally breaks and leaves us stranded in the middle of nowhere. The problem is not the crisis, it is not that particular moment in time, but the noise that I had been hearing for months inside the engine and I have been ignoring.

If what produced the crisis was that I was evading things, wanting to get out of the crisis quickly is to continue with the same behavior. It’s looking for a temporary solution, a patch, a pill that relieves symptoms for a while and allows me to continue with my life. It is going directly against its function. The crisis is an -unpleasant- invitation to face something. It’s a wake-up call. Pressing the snooze button will not solve anything. The way to “collaborate” with the crisis, is not trying to solve it as quickly as possible, but facing it so we can hear what it has to say. It’s difficult, but I think one have to learn to trust the process.

Nothing makes sense

This existential crisis destroyed all the beliefs or projects I was holding on to. My search for meaning is an answer to that, it’s an attempt to look for something that I can grasp in this ocean of nonsense. Behind my search for a partner, or an ideal place, what I’m actually searching for is something that can give meaning to my life. I want to find a solid foundation on which to build again, I am actively looking for that. If I don’t find that stability, it doesn’t make much sense to do or have things, because eventually another tsunami will come and it will take them away. Why should I have a job? What is the point of writing? What is the point of eating healthy? I need to know that what I am doing at this moment is somehow “right”. I want to know that all things fit, that they make sense, that this life is not a complete chaos, but that there are certain things that make sense and that I am choosing those things.

If I would have to describe what I am looking for I would say that it is something external that can orient me in this chaos. It can be something very concrete like a job, a person, an activity or a place; or it can be something intangible, like a new way of thinking or a plan. The important thing is that it should have the ability to give meaning to my life. I want something real, something that certifies that I am on the right track, that what I think is “true”. It’s not just something external in the sense of being different from me, but it is also outside of this moment. Currently, my life has no meaning, therefore I don’t look for it in the present but in a different place: the future. What I hope to achieve by finding meaning in my life is knowing that I am listening to the deepest desires of my being and that these aspirations make sense not only for me but also for the world. I want that sense to be something that arises spontaneously, that exists naturally and does not depend on my participation to sustain itself. I want that to be a solid foundation on which to base my actions or points of view. Something that gives me security and hopefully lasts forever.

While writing the previous paragraph I was very surprised to notice that I have a very clear idea of what I am looking for. Despite not knowing what the meaning of my life is, I am looking for something very specific in a very specific way. Isn’t that strange?

The fact that I can describe what I’m looking for indicates that I’m looking for something I know. That is to say, I am defining what I am looking for, based on a lack. Returning to the example of the van that broke down, I am looking for a spare that can be placed in that same place to make the vehicle work again. I can see the emptiness that it left and based on that I am looking for something that I can put there to feel good again. I’m not looking for meaning as if I were a scientist doing an research, completely open to the possibility that maybe life doesn’t have a meaning. I’m looking to replace something I lost. It is not a disinterested and sincere exploration. There is a psychological need for my search. I need to find a meaning to be able to function again and that is more important than the meaning of life itself.

I have already gone through several existential crises, apparently I have solved them and yet here I am again. If what I’m looking for is something similar to replace what I lost, that implies that this new thing, being equal to the previous one, is also prone to collapse. It is a spare that will last until the next crisis. However, my mind is completely convinced that this time I will find something like the previous thing, but better. I will find something to which I can hold on to in any situation. If I’m lucky, maybe I’ll even find my purpose or my mission in life. It is this hope that leads me to read books or watch dozens of TED talks and videos on Youtube. Right before they start, I can feel within me, this expectation, this hope that maybe in this video someone will say exactly what I need to hear, and that will be the key to my happiness. Maybe that same hope is what led you to read this post…

Beyond the quest for meaning

At one point, I thought about asking in the Facebook group of followers of Adyashanti, what other people had to say about existential crises. I receive a lot of great insights, but something that I found very interesting was to notice that not all people experience the lack of meaning as something negative. Not everyone suffers. While I experience this quest for meaning as an obsessive need that consumes everything, for other people, the lack of meaning is a relief! How can this be?

If the lack of sense does not produce discomfort in all people, perhaps it is my interpretation of what is happening what generates distress. My problem is not that life doesn’t make sense, but that I need that sense to feel well. If this is what produces suffering, instead of focusing on finding a meaning, I could direct my attention to that psychological need to understand what is behind it.

Today, nothing makes sense. That is my truth. Searching for a meaning is a way of opposing that truth, it is a way of arguing with reality. Not only is it a useless activity that hasn’t led me to find a meaning, but also makes me feel bad. It is fueled by the idea that I have control over what is happening, that I can somehow speed up the process, that I can find that meaning. If I can find exactly the key I need, everything will fit and the world will make sense. It is a promising idea and sounds very good but looking at it more closely there is something quite contradictory: I want something external to give meaning to my life, but at the same time it depends on me finding it. How is that relationship? Something external is going to solve my life or I’m going to solve it? Who does it depend on?

This is quite confusing. According to my paradigm, this meaning that I am looking for comes from something external. There is something out there that will GIVE meaning to my life. Meaning is something that is going to be given to me by something or someone. If I really believe in this, I have to accept that I don’t have control over that. It is up to that other thing to give or not to give meaning to my life. Being something external to me, I can’t control, force or accelerate it. Either the meaning of my life is in something external that I have no control over or I have the power to give meaning to my life, in which case it doesn’t make sense to look for something external, I could choose anything and decide that it will give meaning to my life. If I really have the power to give meaning to my life, why am I looking for something external? Why can’t I be the one who arbitrarily gives meaning?

This is a solution that apparently works for many people: The meaning of their lives is the meaning they create. However, for some reason, this approach doesn’t seem to work with me. I can’t simply decide that the meaning of my life is, for example, to draw portraits and immediately self-convince myself that this is true. It doesn’t work. My mind knows that this meaning has been created by me out of thin air and it has no foundation. Despite having the ability to create it on my own, I still believe in the existence of an external entity that will judge the meaning that I have created and will decide if the solution I gave is right or wrong. That figure of something external seems to be a constant that I can not get rid of. I might be able to get rid of it when it comes to defining what the meaning of my life is, but I still feel that it will continue there, judging what I have created and I still care what that entity thinks.

That external entity

As if it were a thesis that I am writing that needs external sources to give it scientific validity, in the same way, I look for something external on which to support myself. I need something from outside to give me that security. Why?

In my opinion, what leads me to look for something exterior that gives meaning to my life is the fear of taking full responsibility for my life. The belief that I am not entirely capable of giving meaning to my life by myself leads me to create and believe that there is actually something external that will give meaning to it. If I wouldn’t believe that there is something out there that has the power to give meaning to my life, I wouldn’t be looking for it. But it is not like that, I believe that someday, somewhere I will find what I am looking for and at that moment, if I choose the right option, I will receive a reward and all my problems will be resolved.

Something else I haven’t thought until I read the comments of other people, is that perhaps what I am waiting to receive from this external entity is not the meaning of my life, but to be loved or accepted. In everyday life, this relationship is not so clear. For example, I do not go through life consciously thinking that I am looking to do things to gain approval from my parents, I just feel that my life has no meaning. In the same way that I can’t always identify exactly what caused the crisis, I can’t identify a particular person who judges me or from whom I’m waiting for something. It’s just an impulse that leads me to look for something external that gives meaning to my life. I don’t know what I lost, I do not know what I’m looking for, I don’t know why I’m looking for it, I just know I’m looking for something. These are very hazy emotions.

What that bothers me a lot when I find myself in these situations, is to see that the rest of the mortals apparently don’t have existential crises. I have a hard time understanding how it can be that most people don’t ask themselves these deep questions. How do they live so calm!? They go to work, they buy things, they have ridiculous hobbies and they never ask themselves if what they are doing makes any sense. They don’t care if it’s right or wrong, they just live. I can’t do that. I feel envious of them because I have the feeling that there’s something that is expected from me and not from them. Of course, this is just another fantasy of my mind, I don’t know what other people are feeling. But still, I feel it is unfair that they can do whatever they want and feel that their lives make sense, while I have to find this specific and wonderful thing that will finally give meaning to my life.

It is not only a quest but a demand that I am carrying on my shoulders. I believe that the meaning of life is not something that will be freely given to me, but that I have to earn it, it is a kind of reward and unless I do something, life will not make sense. The problem is that I don’t know what I’m supposed to be doing. That external entity doesn’t want to tell me what I have to do to get its approval. And that is extremely frustrating! If I am not sure that what I am doing will win its approval, what is the point of doing it? What’s the point of doing anything?

This logic generates one of 2 things: either it leads me to be completely paralyzed, without knowing what to do. Or it leads me to be frantically looking for something. Doing anything in the hope of guessing the correct answer. In both cases, there is a discomfort or insecurity in the back of my mind that comes from not knowing if that is what I’m supposed to be doing. The only thing I’m sure of, it that I have to do something. The only way to obtain approval is through doing.

The idea that my value is derived from what I do may be something I learned in school, where nothing makes sense but nevertheless, one should strive to pass tests. Maybe it’s a dynamic that I inherited from my parents. Or maybe it has to do with being different from others and feeling, very often, that I need to make an effort to fit in. Maybe all those things have helped create the idea that I need to do something to be accepted. Being what I am is not enough to be accepted, I have to work hard, I have to do something.

The truth is that I don’t know where this way of thinking comes from, and I don’t think it’s too important to know its origin anyway. I can’t go back time. What matters is what is happening now. Currently, who cares about this meaning? Who is demanding that things in my life make sense? If I look outside, what I see is that life works perfectly without having a meaning. Life doesn’t care about it. The world doesn’t explode because my life doesn’t make sense. It’s MY life that needs a meaning, not THE real life. Although I feel that I am looking for something real to hold on to, the truth is that I’m not looking for that. The life that I wish to give meaning to, is not real, it’s only a concept. I am looking for an invisible thread that unites all the experiences and organize them in a coherent story but neither the thread, nor the experiences, nor the history exist outside of my mind. To real life, the one that is happening at this very moment doesn’t care if I find meaning or not. It is not a real requirement. If it were, by not fulfilling it I would  have disappeared and yet I am welcome and accepted in this existence. I don’t need to do anything specific to exist. In fact, it is within this real life that I am being allowed to have the experience that nothing makes sense.

As long as I believe that there is something out there that can give meaning to my life and that I depend on it, I will be in constant conflict trying to control something that I can’t control or dealing with things that don’t exist. For example, I would like to find a plan that assures me that in the future I will be fine. In this case, that external entity is the future. I’m waiting for the future to tell me what is it that he needs me to do to accept me. Do I study a career? Do I move to another place? What should I do? I want my plan to work, I want to know that I will survive, that I will be accepted in the future. But for that plan to really work, to make sense, I should be able to know what is going to happen in the future. I should be able to ask Ms. Future what is he expecting from me. But there is no one to ask. I am demanding from myself something that I can not give to myself.

When I see this on paper, I see how ridiculous it is. However, it’s what I’ve been trying to do for years: Be absolutely sure that what I’m doing is ok. There is nothing wrong with planning my future, but if I am honest with myself I will see that any idea I can have about the future, no matter how detailed, will always be an idea. Trying to be accepted by this future is ridiculous. It is trying to satisfy an idea that I have created myself. Both the entity that is demanding a meaning and the entity that is being pressured to find a meaning don’t exist, it is a soap opera that is being broadcasted inside my mind. There is no one outside to whom I can ask what is the meaning of my life and get a real answer. And that is a great relief because if there really were someone external capable of giving meaning to my life, that entity would have a lot of power over me. Even before giving meaning to my life, it would already be exercising power over me because I would know that that is the only way to feel good. But there is no external, REAL, person who goes around giving the secret of life to the brave ones who dare to fulfill his/her demands.

I think that, sometimes, crises are the result of being more sincere. The more aware or more honest I become, the more I lose the ability to believe that certain ideas are real and everything I had built on top of those ideas collapses. I can no longer continue to base myself on those same ideas and pretend that they are real, they are already cracked. In the previous case, I have to accept that this security in the future is something that I can not provide myself in a real way. I’m only going to be really sure that my future turned out well when it actually happens. Therefore, I can’t expect to base my plans on something that I have no real way to obtain. Trying to give meaning to what I’m doing is trying to create something in my mind that is effective enough to deceive myself. It is lying to myself. Maybe this way of moving through life was the only option I had in my childhood when I depended on someone else to receive what I needed and the only thing I could do was wait or behave in a proper way. But if that’s the case, it is a childish belief that at some point I have to let go.

In reality, there are only 2 possibilities: Either life has a meaning, or it doesn’t. In the case that it has meaning, I can remain calm knowing that it exists and I simply can not perceive it. And in the case that life doesn’t have a meaning, I can verify that it still exists, therefore it was never something necessary. It’s me who wants to find meaning and live according to that. It’s not about life, it’s about me. The world is not asking me to find the meaning of my life in order to exist. It is not an external requirement but a self-imposed requirement. If I ever find it, nobody will care about it. The only reward I am going to get is going to come from me. When I find the meaning of my life I will not be loved or accepted by life, I will be loved and accepted by myself.

What’s the point of looking for a point?

What I have realized during these days, is that the search for meaning, in itself, has no meaning. Not only because of all the things that I have written previously, but also because it contradicts the main hypothesis: If absolutely NOTHING makes sense, then the search for meaning, by definition, doesn’t make sense either. Looking for meaning in my life is an activity, it’s something I’m doing. Whether I do it through reading books or thinking about it the whole day, it’s something I’m doing. And in the same way that looking for a job, or watching television are activities that don’t make sense, the same applies to spending hours and hours trying to find meaning.

From that same point of view, perhaps something that makes sense is precisely “nothing”. The same phrase says it: NOTHING makes sense. What if “nothing” if what is going to give meaning to my life?

I am constantly planning, thinking, doing things… and the only place where I am not “looking” is in the opposite side of all that. Doing nothing is something that, one way or another, I am constantly avoiding. It’s what’s left when I can’t find something to do. It is an absence, a void, the lack of something. It had never occurred to me that it’s also something I can willingly choose.

One thinks that the meaning or purpose of life is something concrete, preferably noble and artistic, but that’s just an idea. Maybe it’s not necessary to do something, perhaps doing nothing has the same meaning as anything else. Maybe it’s even something I will enjoy! The only reason I am constantly doing something is the belief that my value derives from what I do. Being able to choose to do nothing is the result of beginning to understand that this belief is false. Simply being, is enough. Which does not mean, necessarily, that I’m going to spend all my life looking at the ceiling of my room, it just means that I stop demanding from myself to be constantly doing something. As Eva says in her video, what you do or your personality, is just a window through which we look at the world. What is on both sides of the window, does not depend on the form of the window.

Let go

Having gone through several crises, I think there comes a time when you begin to understand that perhaps there is nothing eternal to hold on to. I can grasp certain things and they will give my life meaning for a while, but eventually, they will collapse. I can cling to an ideology, a bank account, a plan, a person, a job, a religion, a routine, a career, a place, but everything will eventually go away. To keep looking for something to hold on to or to try to find meaning is to try to answer a question that nobody is asking.

The suffering I feel doesn’t come from the quest itself, but from trying to sustain things that can no longer stand on their own. The crisis is an invitation to let go. Let go of the psychological need to find something that makes sense. Let go the illusion that I will find something that will save me and will give meaning to my life. Let go of the quest, the requirements, the constant need to do something. Let go my attempts to control what is going to happen. Allow the tsunami to take away absolutely everything.

If the van broke and left me stranded, it might be a good time to leave it there and start walking on my own feet.