Extreme Nihlism because of no free will. PLEASE HELP.

[UpperMaster]

I'm posting this find out ways to deal with cognitive dissonance and confusion, which has negativity effected my life.

Problem: I am unmotivated, always scared, feel very nihilistic, experience extreme cognitive dissonance, and don't seem the value of responsibility any more.

Context: Few months ago, I've found the "problem of free will". I initially wanted to defend free will, because free will gave me a sense of control in my life. However, Through the lens of materialism, there seems to be none whatsoever. I posted a question about free will on this forum, and the responses I received were incredibly conflicting. Some people realized free will, some realized determinism and fate, some realized both (through their awakenings). I struggle to understand how people who believe in no free will can accept it gracefully.

I can't look from the lens of spirituality because I've never experienced any awakenings before, and therefore resort to materialism. I can't just "believe" in free will because in my mind I know that the reason I want to believe in free will is to avoid truth, which goes against my conscience. Its really hard to forget about the free will problem because I experience free will all the time. 

I've tried accepting no free will, but this has had taken a huge psychological tole on me because I experience it all the time. All coping mechanisms for free will seem to rely on believing at least some part of the illusion eg. " try to understand your role", "remain curious", "decide to be more about which information you seek out".

I don't know what to do. I feel like fuckin bursting. I don't know if we have free will or not, but damn it's hard to deal with confusion and cognitive dissonance.

Please help if you can, I really need it, its hard to live my life properly, my visions for the future seems futile because my future seems determined.  

 

 

 

 

 

[How to be wise]

@UpperMaster The best way to find freedom is to change the way you behave with others. You need to use relationships as a vehicle for escaping emotional suffering. Do you have any problems with people around you?

[Devin]

Yeah, chasing answers comes to no end.

To me your first step is calming down; I would do this by focussing on your breath, then maybe sleeping and or eating well. Temporarily forget your goals and aspirations you will not attain them in this state.

Then feel your emotions, use the emotional guidance scale

Then soak up the joy of the simple things, the sky, breathing, drinking water,...

Then when you are well rested you will find yourself ready to have fun with the world, I.e.; attempt things

Forget ignorant concepts like free will and nihilism, just go live

[ZzzleepingBear]

On 2022-09-12 at 1:55 PM, UpperMaster said:

I struggle to understand how people who believe in no free will can accept it gracefully.

You don't have to believe in free will or no free will for that matter.

It's a question of duality. And a silly question to begin with, since you will act accordingly to one side of the imaginary coin no matter what side you curently belive in.

The crux of "free will", is that it is only free once you pay for it. If you decide to eat junkfood everyday, you either come to the conclution that you made that choice, or that you was forced to do it from lack of free will. No matter what you think it was, you now have to realize that you gained some weight from doing so, and that's part of the cost so to speak. Free will is merely a ghost from the past. And your choice in any matter is done in the present. So there is no point in getting overly invested in what that past decision is labled as. The real freedom is the choice you are aware of right now.

 

[UpperMaster]

@How to be wise Actually no, my social life is alright. But yea when I am around other people, my worries seem to fade away. However when I'm alone, or trying to motivate myself or making any sort of decision, I get instantly reminded of my new found nihilism.

[UpperMaster]

22 hours ago, Devin said:

Then feel your emotions, use the emotional guidance scale

I do think that I might need to take a break from metaphysics. Just to calm myself down. But again yea its hard because of the cognitive dissonance I have on the issue (although I suspect if I forced myself to forget about it, it would work). What do you mean by "use the emotional guidance scale"?

[UpperMaster]

@ZzzleepingBear I don't understand what you mean by free will being a "ghost from the past".

I can only understand non-duality in an intellectual level, I can't imagine how it would really feel like because I haven't felt it.

[Devin]

15 minutes ago, UpperMaster said:

I do think that I might need to take a break from metaphysics. Just to calm myself down. But again yea its hard because of the cognitive dissonance I have on the issue (although I suspect if I forced myself to forget about it, it would work). What do you mean by "use the emotional guidance scale"?

Abraham hicks emotional guidance scale, be honest with yourself and acknowledge the emotions you feel, observe them and move up the scale

Try not to judge yourself, just observe the emotions, feel them

Edited September 14, 2022 by Devin

[ZzzleepingBear]

50 minutes ago, UpperMaster said:

@ZzzleepingBear I don't understand what you mean by free will being a "ghost from the past".

I can only understand non-duality in an intellectual level, I can't imagine how it would really feel like because I haven't felt it.

With free will being a "ghost from the past" I mean that you have to look back on choices you made in the past. Inorder to begin to speculate about free will in the firstplace.

If you make what appears to you to be a right choice, you don't see any problem with it. But once you discover that you may or may not be making right choices all the time, you might start to speculate wheter you are the one to take the full blame for any and every choices you do. And this speculation becomes a hunt for the ultimate conclution wheter it is out of free will, or pre-determined choices that you choose from.

Non-duality is basically the acknowledgement of the grayscale between what you once thought was a matter of black and white. So instead of thinking in a binary way, there is a relative spectrum to any binary conclution that always unite two apparent opposites into one, despite the apparent division.

[Ulax]

 

Firstly, I'd recommend the above video.

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I'd also consider looking into some of the following:

- Depth psychotherapy

- Working towards mastering something you find somewhat meaningful

- Life fundamentals, i.e. sleep, diet, exercise

- Meditation

To my mind, nihilism way well be accurate. However, it only is something you focus profoundly on and in a negative way because of the way your psyche has adapted to existence, imo. For example, it may be that you are unconsciously fearful of having certain expectations of yours not come to fruition, so a part of your psyche depresses you through regularly focusing on nihilism. By depressing you constantly it means you are apatethic towards whether certain things happen in your life. The intention of that depressing part being to prevent you from the pain of loss of hope. 

^ That's just an example. But my point is that I think its important to establish the root cause of your current state of being.

None of this is your fault btw, imo. However, to my mind, it is your responsibility to take steps to overcome your current predicament. 

I think posting in this forum, as you have done, is a really great step. I respect it a lot actually.

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Finally, I've always liked this video, on these matters:

I think the vid could be of value to you.

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Anyhow, I hope my perspective is useful to you. I wish you well :).

[Leo Gura]

See my video: Does Free Will Exist?

Your ideas of no free will are wrong.

[LSD-Rumi]

@UpperMaster Why are you making such a big deal out of it? If there is a free will it is okey, if there is no free will, it is okey too. You see, when you do philosophy, you must be calm and peaceful. No good philosophies come out of fear and anxiety. Good philosophers keep their shit togther 

Edited September 16, 2022 by LSD-Rumi

[Vajra]

@UpperMaster hi! Quite a thing you trapped yourself in. The thing is, you actually didn't trap yourself. It's a riddle you're playing on yourself. + You made it an impossible riddle, so you are going in circles. The 'escape' Key is to start Enjoying it.

Enjoy the confusion. It's the only Sane way to live. And I can tell you - once, instead of hating on it and trying to get rid of it, you Enjoyed it to its Fullest... it's gone.

Enjoy ☺️

V

[Visionary]

Not doing anything is a choice too.

The thing is we sometimes are forced to go into these dark places to realize that they are not the refuge we seek from life. True fear of death is the fear of life. This discussion of free will might look like a conscious act of wanting to live according to Truth. But in the longer game these discussions resurface the hidden subconscious intention of avoiding life from the heart and from vulnerability. That is how Truth is really making itself your teacher. Indirectly, subconsciously, over a longer period of time and in a very hard manner. Unless you can already grasp it in a sense. The unconscious is a far far greater teacher of Truth than the ego might think it can be through grasping things and insights and what not. 

The hunger for life is something that needs to be cultivated. A little day by day. 

[Epikur]

On 12.9.2022 at 2:55 PM, UpperMaster said:

I'm posting this find out ways to deal with cognitive dissonance and confusion, which has negativity effected my life.

Problem: I am unmotivated, always scared, feel very nihilistic, experience extreme cognitive dissonance, and don't seem the value of responsibility any more.

Context: Few months ago, I've found the "problem of free will". I initially wanted to defend free will, because free will gave me a sense of control in my life. However, Through the lens of materialism, there seems to be none whatsoever. I posted a question about free will on this forum, and the responses I received were incredibly conflicting. Some people realized free will, some realized determinism and fate, some realized both (through their awakenings). I struggle to understand how people who believe in no free will can accept it gracefully.

I can't look from the lens of spirituality because I've never experienced any awakenings before, and therefore resort to materialism. I can't just "believe" in free will because in my mind I know that the reason I want to believe in free will is to avoid truth, which goes against my conscience. Its really hard to forget about the free will problem because I experience free will all the time. 

I've tried accepting no free will, but this has had taken a huge psychological tole on me because I experience it all the time. All coping mechanisms for free will seem to rely on believing at least some part of the illusion eg. " try to understand your role", "remain curious", "decide to be more about which information you seek out".

I don't know what to do. I feel like fuckin bursting. I don't know if we have free will or not, but damn it's hard to deal with confusion and cognitive dissonance.

Please help if you can, I really need it, its hard to live my life properly, my visions for the future seems futile because my future seems determined.  

 

 

 

 

 

Seen through the material lense your body is what matters. Your mind's job is to help him to survive. Even if the free will question bothers your mind it does not bother your body. You have to help your body to get what it needs and stop doing stuff that hurts it. So try things that stimulate your senses. You figured out that being social stops the questioning. Your body wants to tell you that you should concentrate on survival not in theories. You have to take care of your friend that is your body first of all. Stimulating your senses makes sense.


 

Edited September 18, 2022 by Epikur

[UpperMaster]

On 16/09/2022 at 10:23 AM, Leo Gura said:

See my video: Does Free Will Exist?

Your ideas of no free will are wrong.

I have seen your video of free will. I've revisited it again after this comment. What your saying is extremely radical. I somewhat hope your right about how the puppet-master and the puppet is really just one being and not some metaphysical mumbo jumbo. I'll probably watch the video a couple more times so that I can really process this possibility. Ultimately I need to confirm this on my own. Thank you.

 

 

 

Edited September 19, 2022 by UpperMaster

[UpperMaster]

On 14/09/2022 at 11:16 PM, Ulax said:

 

Firstly, I'd recommend the above video.

@Ulax Hey man thanks for your reply. I watched this video and honestly it did help a lot. Especially made me realize that what I am going through right now is something that many people will go through. I honestly owe it to this video man for real, it has made it a bit easier.

[Ulax]

@UpperMaster I feel glad dude

[UpperMaster]

@LSD-Rumi It took me a while to process what you said here but your right. I am in a slightly better position now.This problem is quite high level, and I personally realized that I am approaching it from fear as you described, thus I don't think I will tackle it right now.

[Leo Gura]

On 9/19/2022 at 5:00 AM, UpperMaster said:

I somewhat hope your right about how the puppet-master and the puppet is really just one being

Where would the puppet end and the master begin?

Literally take your finger and try to point to the puppet and then the puppet-master. Notice what happens.

Edited September 23, 2022 by Leo Gura