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[Slothman400]

Recently I've been thinking about how emotionally distant I really am from everyone I know, and about how the planet is dying. I've been thinking about how cruel and pointless everything is and its really starting to bother me. I've been having some worrying thoughts, but I don't have anyone I can really tell. My family would want me to see a headshrinker, and my friends wouldn't take me seriously. I just can't get over this cynical feeling.

Any advice?

[LordBucket]

Any advice?

Talk to strangers on the internet about it? Since you don't know them personally it will be easier to tell them how you really feel without worrying so much about the social consequences. Plus, if emotional distance from the people you know is part of the problem, talking to those very same people might be problematic. Telling people who don't "get you" that it bothers you that they don't get you is rarely productive. Because they don't get it, and demonstrating that fact just rubs in the feeling of them not getting you.

So, strangers on the internet is my advice.

[uber pye]

*snip* about how the planet is dying. I've been thinking about how cruel and pointless everything is and its really starting to bother me. *snip*

planet's not dieing bro, just things on it. That's just how things are, and will continue to be till the sun grows and swallows the earth. and it will continue until the heat-death of the universe.

everything will die.

you are a little itty-bitty self aware speck on a slightly larger speck floating in an endless void until the void itself ends (however you, little speck, will cease to be aware long before that).

So what other option is there but to be mopey and moany or angry and full of hate till entropy takes you?

well you can be nice, heroic, caring, loving or compassionate.

there are no good reasons not to be an asshole.

to me, that is the very reason to not to be an asshole.

Spoiler: TL;DR: LIFE SUCKS. GET USE TO IT. MAKE IT BETTER. (click to show/hide)

"People are illogical, unreasonable, and self-centered. Love them anyway.
If you do good, people will accuse you of selfish ulterior motives. Do good anyway.
If you are successful, you will win false friends and true enemies. Succeed anyway.
The good you do today will be forgotten tomorrow. Do good anyway.
Honesty and frankness make you vulnerable. Be honest and frank anyway.
The biggest men and women with the biggest ideas can be shot down by the smallest men and women with the smallest minds. Think big anyway.
People favor underdogs but follow only top dogs. Fight for a few underdogs anyway.
What you spend years building may be destroyed overnight. Build anyway.
People really need help but may attack you if you do help them. Help people anyway.
Give the world the best you have and you'll get kicked in the teeth. Give the world the best you have anyway."

    —The Paradoxical Commandments, words for the Knight in Sour Armor to live by

[Naryar]

Life has no inherent meaning, other than the biological imperative to survive and have kids.

But it is good that it has no inherent meaning because we can put one on it.

Planet is not dying... the climatic cycles are just getting more Fun due to climate change and humanity pumping lots of CO2 and a bit less methane into the atmosphere.

Of course, it will mean conflict and wars being fought over on resources or climate wars, but nothing new really. The only thing that bothers me is that some idiot (the word is weak) may decide to use nuclear bombs and if it escalates, THEN we will be truly and royally fucked. But I hope that does not happen.

The world is not cruel... well yes part of it is, but is is natural and normal that it is. Else people will not grow due to no conflict. Besides, the feeling of the world being unfair makes people react.

Do you think a rabbit is gonna stop getting out of it's lair because there are foxes out there who will chase him, shatter his spine and eat him ? No. It just continues to eat and breed.

The world is pointless, yes. By that I mean, it doesn't have any final goal or has been created for any reason. So what ? It's not a big deal. Accept that and pass to more pressing questions.

"People are illogical, unreasonable, and self-centered. Love them anyway.
If you do good, people will accuse you of selfish ulterior motives. Do good anyway.
If you are successful, you will win false friends and true enemies. Succeed anyway.
The good you do today will be forgotten tomorrow. Do good anyway.
Honesty and frankness make you vulnerable. Be honest and frank anyway.
The biggest men and women with the biggest ideas can be shot down by the smallest men and women with the smallest minds. Think big anyway.
People favor underdogs but follow only top dogs. Fight for a few underdogs anyway.
What you spend years building may be destroyed overnight. Build anyway.
People really need help but may attack you if you do help them. Help people anyway.
Give the world the best you have and you'll get kicked in the teeth. Give the world the best you have anyway."

I find that far too depressing and illogical for a number of reasons...

"People are illogical, unreasonable, and self-centered. Love them anyway.

Hey, I TRY to be logical and reasonable.

Also why would you love a self-centered being ? He will never give you back what you want.

If you do good, people will accuse you of selfish ulterior motives.

The judgement of your detractors is only good to use it against them or learn something valuable about you. Absolutely nothing else.

If you are successful, you will win false friends and true enemies. Succeed anyway.

Enemies mean you have stood for something in your life. Enemies are good !

The good you do today will be forgotten tomorrow. Do good anyway.

How about no ? Some historical figures are revered to this day for the good they did to humanity.

Honesty and frankness make you vulnerable. Be honest and frank anyway.anyway."

They also make communication more simple and more clear and avoid some conflicts due to bad communication. That's their whole point, really.

The biggest men and women with the biggest ideas can be shot down by the smallest men and women with the smallest minds. Think big anyway.

You just need to be Han Solo.

People really need help but may attack you if you do help them. Help people anyway.

That is merely an issue of poor communication, and it can be solved.

Give the world the best you have and you'll get kicked in the teeth. Give the world the best you have anyway."

I don't know, history has again seen some people give the world the best they did and they are remembered as heroes.

_____

That being said, OP, remember that that what you feel are just feelings. Not universal truths. You simply have to change your world view. And then act to change the world around you if you are still unhappy.

If you are emotionally distant, either choose to be so or choose to be emotionally closer if you want to. Do what you will.

[duleshna]

If you are emotionally distant, either choose to be so or choose to be emotionally closer if you want to. Do what you will.

I'm gonna say +1 to this. I'm personally somewhat of a hermit and tend to have similar cynical thoughts about things. It's just the way I am. I can deal with people just fine, I just don't really feel that attached to them. However, if there is any guidelines I wish to give, to anyone really, is to always be polite to other people. There is NEVER a reason to be rude. At least that way you may find some confort in your actions. It has worked for me at least. I'm not saying it will work for everyone.

[HeroPizza42]

I agree with what everyone has said and ad that reading through these things cheers me up maby reading about people who are haveing a worser time then you may help you to apprsiate what you have at least thats the case for me i strive to help others.

[QuakeIV]

I always find it productive to ask why I care about such questions.

For instance, I was spazzing out for the longest time over the idea that everything seems to be predetermined.  Then it occurred to me that thats kindof obvious.  Its just me doing things.  Whatever it is in the future that I did was a decision made by me.  To say that knowing the future is to be trapped by it is utter bullshit because it has no power over me.  Its literally just the product of whatever it is I decided to do under my own power (or had done to me outside of my own power, but I mean whatever its the same deal).  What seemed to be scaring me was that I was going to be railroaded into some bullshit decision that I didn't want, except that isn't actually an issue as far as I can figure.

So I mean yeah, why do you care about there being a point to everything?  Is there a point?  There might be, it looks like we were designed creatures.  Maybe there isn't, could have just been bored/insane/whatever aliens that made us and then left us here without any particular intent in mind.  Why does that matter in and of itself though?  Do you want instructions on what to do with yourself perhaps?

[Orange Wizard]

"People are illogical, unreasonable, and self-centered. Love them anyway.
If you do good, people will accuse you of selfish ulterior motives. Do good anyway.
If you are successful, you will win false friends and true enemies. Succeed anyway.
The good you do today will be forgotten tomorrow. Do good anyway.
Honesty and frankness make you vulnerable. Be honest and frank anyway.
The biggest men and women with the biggest ideas can be shot down by the smallest men and women with the smallest minds. Think big anyway.
People favor underdogs but follow only top dogs. Fight for a few underdogs anyway.
What you spend years building may be destroyed overnight. Build anyway.
People really need help but may attack you if you do help them. Help people anyway.
Give the world the best you have and you'll get kicked in the teeth. Give the world the best you have anyway."

I find that far too depressing and illogical for a number of reasons...

That, IIRC, is because the original quote was from Mother Teresa, and she actually gave a reason for it - because what you do isn't about those people, it's between you and God.

Of course, if you're not religious, that point is moot.

[i2amroy]

Also why would you love a self-centered being ? He will never give you back what you want.

I'd say that there isn't really any person on the world that is totally self-centered. It's easy to see things in terms of black and white, but when you look at the real world there isn't really anything that absolute in terms of people.

The way that I see it is that the cost of being polite, etc. is basically insignificant in most cases. Is you getting to where you are going three seconds earlier because you cut that guy off in traffic actually going to make any sort of real difference? In almost any case the answer is going to be no. On the other hand the benefits that can be gained are oftentimes common enough to no longer be insignificant. They aren't usually huge benefits, but I've had several times where people have gone out of their way to save me a lot of trouble because I was nice to them previously. If you look at a cost/reward chart, the majority of time doing the "little kindnesses" are going to be paying out more in the long run than they cost you.

[sackhead]

from my personal experience counseling can help a lot. If you are honest and insistent your friends will believe you and take you seriously I'm not sure of the particulars of your situation so i cant give to much advice on particulars. With my personal issues I ended up talking to a friend and telling her almost by accident and it turned out she was the perfect person to talk to about it. you should be able to find the right person to talk to.       

[Urist McScoopbeard]

Also why would you love a self-centered being ? He will never give you back what you want.

I'd say that there isn't really any person on the world that is totally self-centered. It's easy to see things in terms of black and white, but when you look at the real world there isn't really anything that absolute in terms of people.

Hey, what about life? There's not really 'half alive', there's alive and dead. Everything in between is us not understanding it properly (such as when a person is frozen solid)

between biological life and death maybe, but there is a very large grey area in how ALIVE you are.

[Orange Wizard]

Lots of different shades of white.

[i2amroy]

Even biological death has a very fuzzy boundary these days, and it's only getting fuzzier. Used to be the moment your heart stopped beating you were dead; then we could bring people back from that, so we updated our definition of "death". We've continually been pushing the point where you cross from one to the other back further and further into the "dead" side as we get better and better at bringing people back. Death might be black and life might be white, but there's a rather large grey region between the two that gets bigger every year.

(Of course that has absolutely nothing to do with my original statement, which was using it as a metaphor for the motivations and psychology of people instead of their actual physical states. )

[Ghills]

Recently I've been thinking about how emotionally distant I really am from everyone I know, and about how the planet is dying. I've been thinking about how cruel and pointless everything is and its really starting to bother me. I've been having some worrying thoughts, but I don't have anyone I can really tell. My family would want me to see a headshrinker, and my friends wouldn't take me seriously. I just can't get over this cynical feeling.

Any advice?

First and most important: You can get through this. It does not have to be forever.

Go volunteer at a charity. Tutor kids after school.   Make a difference in someone else's life.  Put rules in place to keep yourself from harming yourself or others, stop worrying so much about how much you're worrying, and do something that puts your focus on other people. 

Counseling can be helpful, but it's not a cureall.  Cognitive behavioral therapy is more practical than straight counseling, and since the OP focuses on really dark thoughts and not emotional trauma I think CBT might be a good fit.

[SnowDorf]

For most people, life comes and goes in waves. Busy, stressful, chaotic, social times, and quiet, introspective, lonely times. The magnitude varies greatly as do the positive and negative aspects. For me, I try to balance it out by seeking social interaction when things get too quiet and withdrawing when my social calendar gets too crammed. Sometimes my social obligations pull at me constantly while I'm trying to focus on myself, and other times it can get so quiet that I'm practically begging for social interaction.

But everyone's different. Your Mileage May Vary. But that's my two cents. I'm not a psychologist or a philosopher.

Also, regarding the planet dying. It's not really dying. It's just changing. Life marches on. If you can look at a negative aspect neutrally and a neutral aspect positively, your outlook will greatly improve.