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The title of this article might not be what you expected. Why would you congratulate someone in the depth of an existential depression?
What could possibly be good about a crisis characterized by futility and meaninglessness?
Well, it might feel uncomfortable but what is happening here is that you’re getting in touch with the truth.
What is an Existential Depression?
“The meaning of life is just to be alive. It is so plain and so obvious and so simple. And yet, everybody rushes around in great panic as if it were necessary to achieve something beyond themselves. – Alan Watts
An existential depression is characterized by the impression that life lacks meaning, which often includes confusion about personal identity. This can be accompanied by anxiety and stress and a lack of willingness to do things, which can disturb your functioning in daily life.
Other feelings that can arise are, for instance, loneliness, insignificance, helplessness, despair, alienation, and a sense of being in a vacuum.
Outwardly, existential depression can manifest in the form of addictions, anti-social behavior, and compulsive behavior.
An existential depression can also be called a spiritual emergency.
But before you tell yourself that you’re having an existential depression only because you experience some of the symptoms, keep the following in mind:
Beyond the mind, emotions, experiences, and sensations mean nothing except that they are present. Suffering arises when we think there is a hidden agenda behind emotions, experiences, and sensations.
Humans are meaning-making machines, or at least the mind is, so naturally, we assume everything has a meaning and a purpose. The idea of meaning and purpose comforts us because it provides a context for our life experiences.
This is a great self-deception.
Meaning exists only in the mind, not in reality.
Getting a glimpse of this and feeling like you’re losing footing, that’s what’s called an existential depression.
Because discomfort is involved, the normal reaction is to assume something is wrong with us. But this is like saying a caterpillar dying to become a butterfly is wrong.
Why Do You Experience an Existential Depression?
“Life is meaningless, but worth living, provided you recognize it’s meaningless.” – Albert Camus
Any experience can trigger an existential depression. What the experience needs to do is make you take an honest look at yourself and your life. For me, such an experience was reading the book Spiritual Enlightenment: The Damndest Thing by Jed McKenna.
I felt like my whole life was a lie. I realized that almost everything I did, I did for the wrong reasons. But what hurt even more was realizing that I had no idea what the right reason might be.
Now I see this as a wonderful, necessary turning point in my life. It was a catalyst for what is often called spiritual awakening.
Of course at that point it felt anything but wonderful. It felt like my intestines were being churned through a meat grinder. Yeah, good times.
Here is what I wish someone would have told me at that time:
There is nothing wrong with you. If anything, things are getting increasingly right with you.
We assume life shouldn’t feel meaningless.
Yet life has no hidden meaning and even if there is any meaning it has to be beyond the mind. The mind can never perceive the totality of reality so it breaks reality up into parts and then assigns meaning to those parts.
Imagine reality as an ocean.
The mind can look at the ocean, observe it, investigate it, and come to conclusions about it. So you might say the meaning of the ocean is to act as an incubator for sentient life, or to be home to a variety of plants and animals, or to enable humans to surf on its waves.
These are all well and good, but does that accurately describe the meaning of the ocean?
Experiencing an existential depression is recognizing that the meaning you have been assigning to the ocean is not holding up to the raw reality of the ocean.
Sooner or later everyone will go through an existential depression because not going through one requires constant sleepwalking through life. We have to deceive ourselves in Orwellian doublethink style.
Futility and meaninglessness is the dark cloud hovering above us all the time but most of us avoid this cloud by looking to the ground.
All you need is an honest look into the sky and you will see it. And when you see it, you will know that it has been there all along but you have been tricking yourself through avoidance and distraction.
So the reason for your existential crisis is simply that you stopped deceiving yourself and took an honest look. And one honest look is all it takes because what is seen cannot be unseen.
Meaninglessness can be the most horrible thing if you think that that’s not how things should be. On the other hand, meaninglessness can be the most beautiful thing if you see it for what it is – life expressing itself without reason, purpose, or a goal.
Life is like dancing.
You don’t dance to get from one side of the room to the other. The dancing itself is the reason for dancing.
Don’t fret only because you have seen that the reason for dancing is not to get from the bar to the DJ desk.
How to Deal With an Existential Depression
“If somebody thinks they’re a hedgehog, presumably you just give them a mirror and a few pictures of hedgehogs and tell them to sort it out for themselves.” – Douglas Adams
Now, the way you deal with an existential depression is not by trying to get rid of it but by relaxing into it.
Don’t try to doublethink your way back into the illusion of meaning. Instead, you relax and by doing so start seeing the perfection of life without the added baggage of meaning.
What helps is reducing your daily responsibilities to a minimum and allowing yourself to be with what is unfolding.
Anyone who tries to steer you away from this process is like a well-meaning puppet of the Goddess of illusion called Maya.
You’re starting to see the flimsy dream material from which the world is woven. So, naturally, anyone who sees the dream as a factual truth thinks there must be something wrong with you.
This is not to say that you shouldn’t seek out help if you need it but to know that rebirth always includes the death of something old.
And this something old is beliefs that have gotten dusty.
But because we are so identified with our beliefs and views of the world, their dying makes us believe it’s us dying.
Well, seems like it’s time to pull the “there is no you that can die” card. All we know about ourselves is an idea about who we are, which is never the actual thing.
Similarly, there is no “your life.” There is just life. Life is living itself, it doesn’t need you to live it.
Become aware of the story about “you” and “your life” running in your mind. Ownership happens when we believe the story. Then a thought swoops in and says, “That’s me!”
Stop claiming ownership of “your” life and relax into the experience of life. Release the illusion of control and see how your existential depression turns into awe and wonder in the face of life.
This can be scary, I know.
Stay with the fear, invite it closer. What is it trying to protect?
An illusion.
See that fear is not you. Nothing you experience is you. In fact, what you consider to be you, doesn’t exist at all.
This is not to say that ‘I’ don’t exist, rather ‘I’ doesn’t exist. There’s a fine difference.
Something is existing but it’s not what we think it is. What we believe to be ‘I’ is only a thought seemingly claiming ownership of other thoughts.
There is no separate self. The real Self is no self, which is often called pure awareness/consciousness.
Ultimately, an existential depression is an invitation to look closer. It’s beckoning you to open your eyes and unsee what is not to see what is.
That’s why I say congratulations. You have opened your eyes and started to see.
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“You are not a drop in the ocean. You are the entire ocean in a drop.” – Rumi
Luka
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