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r/Pessimism, u/HumanAfterAll777

I think striving for happiness is like chasing the dragon

[…] When I was truly happy was when I was a child. When I was ignorant of the world and what horrors it contained. Something you can never go back to. […]

r/Pessimism, u/GloomInstance

There’s a moment when the intelligent empath, perhaps born with a melancholic bent, realises they are stuck in a kind of mortal reality show of endless suffering.

They look out at the sunset over a peaceful lake, only to see a pelican swoop down and grab up a fish, swallowing the fish whole as it visibly flaps around, trying to resist its awful fate.

Then the thinking empath reflects on how cruel and unfair the natural state of things is, and that they themselves are stuck inside the cruelty fishbowl and will most likely suffer their own grizzly decline.

I remember as a child of eight or nine years old, sitting in the bathtub weeping at how much suffering the world contains, and how little protection against it we have. It must have been when my first grasp on death and the nature of things occurred.

r/Pessimism, u/scorqio

One must know that things also become dull. Stale.

What i think will make me happy today, may not have that same impact next week.