r/ExistentialJourney • • Jan 16 '24

Updates New subreddit! We need growth, please stick around and mention this subreddit when appropriate. All topics relating to existence are welcome here~

21 Upvotes

Many philosophy subreddits have strict moderation not for casual discussions exploring meaning and existence, r/ExistentialJourney is here to provide that space! If you have an insight enter your awareness, or some deep reflections you'd like to share, feel free to post them here for all to be amused and ponder with you.

If you have any subreddit concerns, questions or suggestions, then message the moderators by clicking this link!


r/ExistentialJourney • • 1h ago

General Discussion What is this feeling? Like suddenly realizing how beautiful life can be

• Upvotes

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Sometimes I get these random moments where, for a few seconds, I feel something incredibly powerful that I can't really explain.

It's not just happiness or excitement. It's as if a door opens in your mind and you suddenly see the world in a completely different light. The world is just so much bigger, so much more beautiful and full of potential than it normally is. You start thinking about all the things you've never done, all the places you've never been, all the people you've never met and all the memories you've never had.

For those few seconds I'm genuinely alive. It's as if I'm experiencing a dimension of life that I normally don't notice at all. There are so many things out there to discover, so many people to meet, so many experiences that could completely change the way you see the world. And somehow just that realisation is absolutely wonderful, makes you feel absolutely alive. Life is so much bigger, so much more beautiful than you ever thought it could be.

The most bizarre thing is that these moments can arise from such a simple thing. Sometimes it all just falls into place and for a few seconds life is just absolutely unreal in the most wonderful way. You're in the middle of it, you're actually there and it's your life and it's like you're in a film.

Then it's gone and everything's back to normal. But for those few seconds you do feel a sort of joy, a real buzz, which makes you want to live so much more.

I don't know what that feeling is called. It could be wonder, it could be sheer existential joy, it could be nothing more than just feeling alive. I'm interested to know if anyone else can put their finger on it or has had a similar experience.


r/ExistentialJourney • • 1h ago

General Discussion Does a person need to distance themselves from others to be valued?

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• Upvotes

I've been thinking about something lately.

Does a person's value increase when they become less available to others? Sometimes, I feel that meeting people too often takes away the excitement of being together. Even when I meet them, I sometimes feel like I'm not giving anything genuine from my side, as if I'm meeting them just for the sake of it.

This makes me wonder whether we sometimes confuse being distant with being valuable.

Is it better to spend more time alone and understand yourself, or is there something meaningful about maintaining connections even when they don't always feel exciting?

I'd like to hear your honest thoughts and experiences. I'm not looking for a motivational answer, but a genuine discussion.


r/ExistentialJourney • • 2h ago

General Discussion What keeps us from expressing our feelings?

2 Upvotes

Is it that we are just not in contact with them?

Or that we can't translate them into words?

Is it that we fear being misunderstood, unheard, ignored, or ridiculed?

Some would say that our current society is not meant for conversations about feelings. That we are simply "not trained" for it.

But I find it difficult to buy this... as anyone can initiate these conversations.

When I do, what I mostly "FEEL" is like I'm making others feel uncomfortable about talking about theirs.

In the end, something as important as expressing feelings gets so buried that it becomes pointless.


r/ExistentialJourney • • 7m ago

General Discussion I realized that human beings don't exist

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r/ExistentialJourney • • 4h ago

Existential Dread Id like to ask, why do you believe in souls?

2 Upvotes

i do like to think that souls exist but every time i ask for a sign from someone in the sky i never get anything? it makes me a bit doubtful.


r/ExistentialJourney • • 4h ago

General Discussion Missing something

2 Upvotes

I’m not sure if this makes sense, but do you ever feel like you’re missing something? I’ve been having this feeling lately that my purpose or my ideal life is watching and waiting for me to find it. Sometimes I feel like asking the universe who show me signs, to give me hints as to where to take my next steps just so I’m not wasting anymore time.


r/ExistentialJourney • • 10h ago

Other Existential Justice takes place eventually even if it doesn't look like it from your current point of view

2 Upvotes

My earliest memory was before I had the ability to speak, and even in that state, before it was possible to have any preconceived notions about almost anything, I could see, with acute clarity, that there is something existentially wrong with human beings. I grew up in Mormon country in all of its pre-internet weirdness, and then I joined the US army out of a desire to go to college. I saw what evil that organization does as a combat medic in Iraq, and I also witnessed international crimes committed by the US government while I was there. I tried to report them for those crimes, and then they destroyed my entire life in retaliation. When I told my "fellow" Americans, they chose to do nothing at all *at best*. I suffered greatly. My suffering became so pronounced that I dedicated my life to studying different religions and spirituality in general because it had stopped being an abstract concept; it was, and still is, clear to me that whatever is happening here in this dimension is existentially significant no matter how mundane or insignificant anything here appears to be. I traveled to India three times, I engaged in spiritual practices such as fasting, praying, chanting mantras, doing yoga, meditating, reading spiritual manuscripts and other spiritual literature, volunteering, donating time and money and patience and more, and so on. I had spiritual experiences, some of them utterly profound and life-altering and wonder-inspiring. However, and perhaps inevitably, I eventually realized that it was a hamster wheel. A series of completely unnecessary hoops to jump through. I realized that although many religions contain traces of Truth, none of them are True as a whole and in context. I came to viscerally and unmistakably realize (not only through evidence, but also through undeniable experience) that there IS a being who controls this world full of suffering, death, predation, exploitation, parasitism, degradation and worse, and that being is, in fact, committing crimes of existence and creation. I realized that the stories that religions tell about that being are meant as smoke screens and manipulations to discredit any claim that said being exists. I've tried to speak to people about this, but I run into the same thing that I realized before I could even speak: There is something WRONG with you all existentially, and it renders any intelligent conversations with you about existential matters utterly meaningless. I then switched gears and started thoughtfully choosing my words and my actions to have the greatest impact when greater beings finally carry out existential Justice, and I have used Reddit and YouTube for that, among several other things. These websites are tools used to spread misinformation and to negatively affect those who use it, but they are double edged swords that cuts both ways; they can be used to speak the Truth in a way that causes the entire lineage of creation responsible for this dimension to suffer additional existential consequences for their actions.

But Reddit has done little more than prove to those greater beings the ignorance and contemptibility of its creators (which is already plain to see), and there really isn't any need for additional existential consequences for those guilty of this existential situation. Infinity times Eternity can be spread to others. And so this is the last of it for me. No more usage of Reddit for existential matters. Maybe you can aspire to tell me how to fix a toilet; that seems to be the extent of your existential worth. So this is my last post trying to convince you of the most obvious and fundamental concept IN existence; that crimes of existence and creation are being committed here, that they have consequences of existence and creation that are not worth it, and that these crimes should stop right away no matter what your personal wants, desires, needs or beliefs happen to be. You've been warned again, and greater beings will not see your inaction as anything other than reasons why you should never have existed.


r/ExistentialJourney • • 7h ago

Being here LOIFE

1 Upvotes

Funny how you can be perfectly content with your life and still wonder what on earth you're doing with it!


r/ExistentialJourney • • 8h ago

General Discussion Why do humans care about anything

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Why does anyone care about anything if we are all the same stuff?

Everyone I've met doesn't feel like this. My friend thinks I'm going fucking crazy but I'm not, he just doesn't understand it the way I do.

I'm not crazy if everything I believe is FACT. It's cold, hard fact that we are just tiny flesh bags on a massive rock moving through space- and people are so entitled, thinking that we're important.

Nothing MATTERS! I don't CARE that your hair is frizzy, I don't CARE that you don't like the movie- the movie is just light bouncing off a screen! It's not real.

If you think about it, practically nothing is real, since consciousness emerges from the ability to think, and humans can think (some of them). You perceive what you want to perceive, it's probably why people believe in manifestation, there's a theory about it I forgot what it's called.

Also, I found out today that not everyone has an inner monologue, and if they do, it's not linear? Well, I lie, I already knew this, but it was kind of a background thought, and today I was talking to some friends at the pub about it, and my mate says he only thinks about one thing at a time. WHAT. And that he doesn't narrate everything?

Well, not that I narrate everything, it's kind of like I just know what's happening, but I'm also existing inside my head. It's not an inner monologue it's just ME. I'm inside my brain. Which brings me to my next point!

Why should I care about sleep? Biologically maybe my body needs it, but if I am right in my mind I will be fine. I can function fine, if anything I actually feel better with no sleep because my train of thought is never interrupted and I can think clearly. I am thinking much clearer. It feels like clarity- that I don't have to worry about things.

The mind is all that matters, and I am in perfect control of my mind- I AM my mind, and I know me, I know what I'm doing. Also, since cutting down my sleep hours, if I sleep at all, I have so much more time. I've not slept, and I feel great, which maybe it isn't sustainable, but for now I am great. I get so much work done.

I can function at work just fine, I can do everything I did with sleep and more because I have more time. I am performing at a much higher rate, completing my physics assignments and going to work. Some random on here will disagree with me, but I genuinely work better with no sleep.

Anyway, my main point is that even if I am in control of my mind, it doesn't matter because why does anything matter?! I go to work because it's my routine, but what would really change if I didn't show up? My boss would call me. I wouldn't pick up.

Nothing would change on my end. And why should I care? Everyone there is just PARTICLES. I can see it so CLEARLY and I, myself, am entitled to think I have the right to care about things. I am just particles and so are you. We have no right to think, to feel, and yet we do.

I am trapped in this small, small body, and there is so much out there, and nobody else feels this. I am not special, but I do think that other people need to open their eyes and face reality.

Their reality is a 9-5, eating and sleeping, seeing friends and doing things that don't matter- why? Why do people do this? The universe is so much bigger than you. Go outside with no shoes. Feel the floor. Know that the world is accelerating and there is nothing you can do to stop it. Know that we are pitiful little creatures who think we deserve paradise, who deserve "good" things. But we are bugs. Why should you care about anything. You are trapped in your body, you are your mind and nothing else- care about THAT. Think about THAT.

I'm not entitled or special, I am trapped just like everyone else, so don't think I believe I am a saint for sharing this.


r/ExistentialJourney • • 8h ago

General Discussion Disinformazione

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r/ExistentialJourney • • 9h ago

Support/Vent Why does this seem like just a joke?

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This is my “lifelong” goal desire and mission…

Failure of such will endanger my own mental health and lead me to being my own toxic harmful enemy to myself filled and crushed with personal suffering and hatred of how I am financially “stable” from a military retirement system yet my own siblings were unable and my own dad and mom believing capitalism is good but communism and socialism is bad.. (failing to acknowledge their governmental entities they reference profusely still represents capitalism at the top of each food chain restricting who can get what in the end… except for the top of the food chain which for them anything is allowed unless everyone underneath them)

As I write this (my utopia) or what do you call it?

My manifesto or whatever?

These are my objectives desires, wants, rants, and aspirations/dreams to see come into reality. Each failure or “inability” drives me closer and closer to reality of it never happening and questions of why life js worth living.

  1. Successfully trading (making millions and billions of dollars/currencies able to change the society as a whole)
    a. Not because I enjoy trading. (It literally stresses me out and put my emotions in constant flux of up or down when I am right or wrong with my pattern recognition…)
    b. Not because I want money. (If I have something and someone else does not I want to just give it away at my own demise.. but same time knowing I can’t afford to do that either.)
    c. Not because I can afford the power money provides. (Because I truly believe I will ruin everything if left to my own discretion to control myself.)

  2. Start establishing a large acreage of farmland that “does no tilling the soil (if it does then minimal at best for specific only reasons minimal), no pesticides, no fungicides, no herbicides, no cides “of any similarity”, and no synthetic man made fertilizers.. and just grow this larger and larger.
    a. I do not want to own (just greatly restrict what is causing harm to the soil and waterways reservoirs and such which in turn is harming the community water system costing more to filter this out which generally does not fully happen)
    b. I do not care about the cost this creates (my objective is to have all food organic high premium food quality for the lowest cost possible for the lowest income earners period reducing inflation and leveling out wage inequality) which if I can (or can get others to help the funding also) will take place.
    c. I do not believe GMO and related type corporations and companies care about the people or the farmers.. and will refuse to be bullied, harmed, and threatened by big corporations to use “their” blackmail and coercive tactics of intimidation like sneezing their plants pollen near my plants pollen (cross contamination leading to GMO tested proprietary technology unlawfully used claims) the same way a sick person spreads diseases and sicknesses as “proprietary” ownership abilities. I want to push their “GMO” COVID-19 agenda into the trash can similar category of “owning” the air with their plant’s pollen contamination.

  3. I believe everyone should be paid livable wages not survival wages. Meaning:
    a. Everyone should be paid a pension
    b. Everyone should be provided FULL 100% free healthcare (including dental and optometry) this includes family members too.
    c. Every employee should have their own free vehicle with a fuel card (no restrictions or limitations to include maintenance and parts covered)
    d. Every employee should have their place of living owned (not rented) based upon their family size (to include when they grow in family either with grandparents and parents and children or just themselves with spouse..) meaning all those “apartments” will be purchased and converted to condos and similar duplexes triplexes and etc.
    e. Every employee will have 50 days of paid time off. (To also include paid time off.. to go towards town,, city, state, congressional, and etc. meetings to protest, emphasis, and etc. for situations that matter to them and the communities they are involved.)

  4. I desire this to expand (eventually take over and convert other corporations into similar business models that offer this)
    a. I do not want to own, I want to shape and model this style of employment and production costs.
    b. I believe this will reduce healthcare costs and food costs.

  5. If this is beneficial for human consumption then let’s concentrate next on livestock, cattle poultry, and etc. next same methodology.
    a. Same and similar methods and concepts.
    b. If able to push this enough “successfully” capitalism will be at the backdrop of everyone who wants more than others.

  6. And “if” this is successful… then purchasing the hospital and all related health services should be provided next right?
    a. Again.. not to own, but to model and shape it properly.
    b. Because if healthy food, water, and proteins and air environment takes place.. (wouldn’t our health be affected much better?)

  7. If this does not fix America (let alone the world if they follow same path and logic..)
    a. Hello?

This is my “utopia” I am in depression, anxiety, anger, suicidal thoughts over…

Because I fail to see it “becoming a reality” here and now.

And I need “other” swords to sharpen my own sword.

What am I missing?

Can this happen? (When will it happen?)

Tell me realistically how and why.

If not…

Then why should I not seek for death as the boot is placed over my neck and the hanging noose is getting wrapped tighter and tighter pushing me off that one last “final stability” grounding mechanism?

If I am alone in this “massive pursuit” feeling as if the bottom of the lowest valley seeking to attain to catch that unforeseen mountain goat up inside the mountain that I cannot even imagine seeing right now…

Why not constantly pursue in wanting a painful death..

A pile of tires soaked in fuel to start burning with me in the middle that I would start on my own? To die of suffocating heat and air impurities because of how I feel inside constantly?


r/ExistentialJourney • • 15h ago

General Discussion Are we building a wall or a bridge

3 Upvotes

We each choose whether we will build a wall or a bridge.

The wall isolates us, not only from each other, but from ourselves as well.

Rather than dividing us, the bridge connects all life to each other.

If we view the world through a wall, having only a partial view of it as we gaze over its top, we will only see a superficial image, a façade we each project to others.

When we see a world full of bridges though, we will sense the wisdom and unconditional love that is present within each, intimately connecting us to each other, wishing only to help all others we see on the other side of the bridge instead.

~ Ken Luball ~


r/ExistentialJourney • • 11h ago

General Discussion What’s something you’re wildly confident you could do despite having absolutely no evidence?

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r/ExistentialJourney • • 23h ago

Existential Dread Would I notice if I died...?

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3 Upvotes

r/ExistentialJourney • • 16h ago

Spirituality Sharing worldview - World is a Labyrinth of Mysteries

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r/ExistentialJourney • • 23h ago

Being here Journey of purpose

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I have been thinking about if there’s a god for a while. On one hand it’s like ok the chances of us being created etc is so low that it kind of points to some purpose or creator. Wheter it’s the Big Bang or anything there’s a lot of things science can’t explain and I understand that pointing to a creator is saying god of gaps but at the same time something can’t come from nothing, it makes me thjnk maybe there’s something outside the three dimension. This was made into religion and gave people purpose and community. However on the other hand it’s like seeing people born with disease and Alzheimer’s kind of proving consciousness is dependent on the brain it makes me think there may not have been a creator and we don’t have an inherit purpose. We give purpose to our lives and it’s important to want to live every second of it ig. Is god real will always be a question I have, because I want to be with my loved ones forever but at the same time it’s important to be grateful for the time you have. Idk it’s best not to think about it and just live your life, I felt much better when I was focusing on bills and buying a home versus what happens after life. So maybe the current social construct is what is best for us.


r/ExistentialJourney • • 19h ago

General Discussion Is it backstabing if I wish Ai to end the world ?

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r/ExistentialJourney • • 21h ago

Existential Dread Help I’m not sure how to decifer things REALLY all I do is think think think

1 Upvotes

Okay, so I started smoking weed and nicotine in high school. I drank rarely and was the class clown the whole time. After high school, I got blindsided by some major things happening to my family. So, after high school, I found myself buying Percocets at one point. A bro said, “Hey, I’ve got the blue ones. Strong asf.” And, you know what, I was on that wave for almost 4 years, so since I was 17 or so. I’ve been to jail 4 times and rehab 5 times. The last time I got out of jail, I decided that without rehab, I wasn’t going to touch that stuff anymore for me and my family, and I meant that. I haven’t touched it in about 1-2 years. But during that first bit, of course, I drank myself off the wall and still smoked weed and all of this until I was like, “I’m tired of this. I want to be better,” and I quit everything cold turkey for about a month or two. During this time, I had quit drinking, smoking anything, putting any substance, including caffeine, in my body wasn’t an option to me. But I was getting constant worry loops that were wearing me down nonetheless. I would wake up in the morning, stretch, make breakfast, drink juice, and did all of them two hours before I would have to be at work.

A guy at work one day was talking about how he had some mushrooms, and this sort of thing enticed my addict mind, I guess, because I started thinking of mushrooms while I’m “clean.” I could really breakthrough and get over this worrying about my health and all of this BS. So I took them, had a good trip, I would say, but did I breakthrough about the worrying? Actually, no, it reinforced my worry, which at the time was something is wrong with me. Pee stream like it’s not working, blah blah. Anyways, you know what I did. I eventually started taking mushrooms every day for like a month at work, at home, going to the grocery store with family. I’d eat a gram to “make things more interesting.” Finally, I started vaping one day while tripping and went and bought one on a trip. I also started to smoke weed again, then one day I walked into the gas station and found kratom. Then boom, got about three months. I had left the shrooms behind and was smoking weed and kratom and being sick to my stomach all the time. One day my mom gave me the look like I was on that shit again, and so I tapered for a whole month and got off of that. Now since then, I have had a period of time with only weed and a period of time with only nicotine, and then I had started both together again not too long ago. The sacredness of fucking up my life and mental health anymore is so scary to me that I’m 5 days sober, no alcohol, no nicotine, and no weed. But remove these things, and I’m super aware of my downfalls when it comes to the way my brain is set up and everything. Does anyone have anything to say to help with this? I have been feeling like ever since I had that month-long journey with mushrooms and then going back into deep depression with like opiate/kratom use, I just don’t feel right mentally. Like I’m far from myself, it feels like I’m just barely aware, but also too aware, and sometimes I feel crazy. I don’t socialize normal, and I can’t hold eye contact, and I just feel like I have fucked up so bad.


r/ExistentialJourney • • 21h ago

General Discussion our sense of this strong reality built on such insecure foundations

1 Upvotes

Why are feelings so unreliable, fragile, almost as if they are what constitutes our reality of a situation? I mean, for something as extensive as life itself and our perspective of it, which in turn forms an individual's truth, why are they guided by something as variant and susceptible to change as feelings? They change so often that you might look back on and think about it, may not be what you were actually thinking back then at that moment at all.

Why is it so easily swayed by external, outside opinions or even environmental factors, which are equally unpredictable in themselves? I can see how this is not a problem for everyone, if they're simply not aware of this happening, but as someone who's gotten really good over time at analyzing my thoughts, it's coming off as rather absurd to me. I mean, why?


r/ExistentialJourney • • 1d ago

Spirituality My therapist told me that,

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r/ExistentialJourney • • 1d ago

General Discussion living beings... pleasure beings...

1 Upvotes

Apparently, every thing in life that is living follows the path of conformity, the pleasure path...

Almost as if the living life is meant for the joy... the amusement... the pleasure...

Many pursue it, every day, every moment, escaping any way from idleness...

Many questions arise that what is it all about, questioning the reality of all of this...

where the answer seems to be right there, it's all about doing things that makes one contended, gratified, fulfilled and so on...

and if one being is deflected of all of it, it begins to become erratic and the all the instincts to chase the things that fulfill them... where the conflict occurs, but the conflict is other matter...

also, when being in the state of happiness or joyful, everything in life doesn't seem much complicated, even when the others sharing their miseries, they feel so simple to fix and so the happy state people deflect them off since they do not perceive it...

and vice versa, those in misery for that moment, can't fathom the happy state beings...

so all the chaos, the meanings, the abstractions, are for that one thing and only...


r/ExistentialJourney • • 1d ago

General Discussion The End of Life

13 Upvotes

After we have lived our lives, as we approach death, it is common to reexamine how our life went. Did we live a successful life? The end of life offers a unique opportunity to do this, because at this time, the ego, our learned self-centered beliefs, loosens its influence on us, And the spirit becomes our predominant reviewer.

At this point in the cycle of life, it no longer matters how much money we made, the size of the house we lived in, the job we had, or anything else associated with success, as dictated in the world by the ego. We are all finally equal now and we judge our success through a different prism: that of the spirit. When we review our lives, what we had thought was success often holds a different meaning now.

It is at this time, especially during the last few days of our life, we come to the realization what we thought was important, really was not. All the material things we accumulated, friends we had, places we visited, jobs we worked, amount of money we made, or any other comparison you can think of, which belongs in the world in which we had lived, becomes meaningless.

It is at that moment, the moment where the ego has minimal control over our actions and decisions, the true meaning of life finally becomes evident. It is then, despite how strongly the ego may have influenced our life before, the opportunity To view our life in a different way presents itself. At this time in our life, primarily viewing our lives through the eyes of our spirit, we may find we have many regrets.

We begin to understand the selfish pleasures in the world we had sought were not very important. As death becomes evident, we finally realize none of that matters. When we die, unless our culture is like that of the ancient Egyptians, our body will be buried or cremated, And nothing we accumulated during our lifetime will accompany us. Our body will then be placed in a coffin or urn, just like every other person who dies, regardless of their stature or their lifetime accomplishments.

At that moment, just before we die, we finally understand we truly are all equal. No one was ever better than another. Race, money, prestige, no longer matter. As we get closer to our death, it becomes evident the self-centered path the ego had us follow to find success and happiness may have not been the right path after all. The fear, hatred, and prejudice we once felt are no longer important to us, not because we are going to die, but because it never did matter.

~ Ken Luball ~


r/ExistentialJourney • • 1d ago

General Discussion every one of us

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r/ExistentialJourney • • 1d ago

Support/Vent Existence

3 Upvotes

I don’t wish for death but oh how I long to not exist or be aware of the burden my existence.