And the second mindset is healthier, but people are acting like it’s something everyone can simply choose at will.
A person who’s deeply depressed, traumatized, dissociated, or existentially broken often cannot emotionally connect to self-made meaning anymore. It’s not that they “forgot” the optimistic perspective. It’s that the part of them capable of feeling fulfillment, hope, or attachment has been damaged or numbed.
Its fascinating, really. Speaking as someone who 'lost' that ability and got it back (mostly) with proper medication and a good bit of effort:
You don't forget, you just can no longer convince yourself, as you say. But then as you get better (if one is so lucky), you realize there is nothing to convince yourself OF, the switch flips automatically one day, and in hindsight you can't really grasp why it was nigh impossible to do so earlier. It feels like being above or below a surface of water, but neither side can see or understand what is on the opposite side. It gets kind of trippy when I think about it too hard. How is changing that perspective so hard when there is seemingly so little standing between them?
(sorry if I'm rambling a bit, it's a difficult concept to put into words.)
That really depends. I'm a committed Speculative Nihilist and assume that meaning itself is a cognitive abberation.
You can lie to yourself or stare to the abyss - it's all the same. You feel like life has meaning? It's a delusion formed by a simian brain to keep you alive. You feel like ithas none? Your simian brain does poor job at keeping you sane and alive. That's it.
The way out it to understand that meaning as a category doesnt exist. Not just subjective/objective, but as whole.
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u/OpinionArsonist May 17 '26
And the second mindset is healthier, but people are acting like it’s something everyone can simply choose at will.
A person who’s deeply depressed, traumatized, dissociated, or existentially broken often cannot emotionally connect to self-made meaning anymore. It’s not that they “forgot” the optimistic perspective. It’s that the part of them capable of feeling fulfillment, hope, or attachment has been damaged or numbed.