1y ago

Is it normal for a person to "feel" less as they get older?

I remember experiencing the world much more vividly when I was a little boy.

I would step outside on an autumn evening and feel joy as the cool breeze rustled the leaves and caressed my skin. In the summers, I would listen to the orchestra of insects buzzing around me. I would waddle out of the cold swimming pool and the most wonderful shiver would cascade out of me as I peed in the bathroom. In the winters, I would get mesmerized by the simple sound of my boots crunching the snow under me.

These were not experiences that I actively sought out. They just happened. I did not need to stop to smell the figurative roses, the roses themselves would stop me in my tracks.

As I got older, I started feeling less and less and thinking more and more.

I've tried meditation, recreation, vacation, resignation, and medication. Some of these things have helped but I am still left wondering... is this a side effect of getting older? Or is there something wrong with me?

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131 comments

When your older, you understand how shitty the world really is, and shatters any hope you ever had.
I thought the world was so awesome, space is so vast, the world so interconnected, technology, communication across the whole world, we have flying machines, we (as in humanity) went to the moon, we have machines on mars, we might reverse aging...
Then, the realization that we are alone in space, the universe doesn't care about us, technology is being used for mass surveillance, censorship and propaganda, false information, carbon emissions, recession to authoritarianism, discrimination, etc......
I wish I could be naive and happy as I used to be, but once you grow up, you understand how fucked up thw world is. Its hard to have hope again.
I'm diagnosed with depression, but maybe depression is just the realization of the horrible truth of the world.
- I think being depressed is perfectly natural when being on this planet. But since it makes your life worse, it's important to know how to think about something else so you don't feel sad all the time (which is natural considering how shitty it all is). Human leaders are at a very primitive stage of mental evolution and we all suffer because of that.
  I get excited about computers and tech so I focus a lot on that in my life. You need to find something that feels fun and exciting despite the world being shit. Also I stopped watching news like 15 years ago and I'm ignorant now of all the things that happen every day. Feels better.
  
  I used to think it was foolish to be disconnected from the news and current events, but now I think the opposite is true.
  
  It's much better for mental health at least. You won't know about all the stuff that happens every day, but I feel like it's all useless knowledge anyway.
  You will start to feel disgusted by those people on the TV. News anchors, presidents, celebrities, fed chairman's or whatever it is. They are all inside the matrix 100%.
- I think there's definitely something healthy behind the idea that depression is actually a fairly natural or reasonable state, however hard and painful it can be. Especially for anyone that wants to be mindful of the danger of psychopaths or sociopaths who are probably the types of people that seem oddly immune or unable to understand or empathise with depression.
  Otherwise, I'll just say that a "second childhood" can be a thing (as far as I can tell), where all of the concerns of middle age fade away and we're forced to wrestle, naively perhaps, with the sheer reality of existing.
  
  My therapist said to me the other day that anxiety is the brain's survival mechanism and depression is "Safe mode." It's so hard in the modern world for most people to find the in between because there is so much to give us anxiety and make us feel like we are in danger and so of course since the body always seeks homeostasis, depression is sure to follow. It's like an up and down Rollercoaster with no end.

131 comments