sometimes?

12 Nov, 2026

i met with E today and and i asked him what ive been itching to ask him every time we spoke. i skirted around it, but i asked him what i can do with my life if im not exceptional at anything. i asked him what i could do that is not evil. i told him that i thought about pursuing a phd in philosophy. he told me what his experience had been, and it told me i did not want to do it. it felt relieving to actually ask someone what i have wanted to ask so many older people. he did not say anything i did not already expect, but i realize now how much this has been begging to be let out of my mind. i am so horribly confused about my life and my purpose. how come some people know and some dont? why am i in the latter group? how do i know? he told me to try to do what i can do better than worse. i think that is good advice. i dont have a lot to work with. what can i do better than worse? i dont know. i wanted him to tell me how to know if i want something. i wanted him to let me know whether there was anything i could do that did not contribute to the evil in this world. he couldnt tell me that if i asked, but i tried to coax it out somehow. i feel immense responsibility for myself, all of a sudden. i am responsible for what happens in my life. i am not good at anything, and i do not want to do anything. what have i been doing my whole life? i love people and love being around people, getting to know people. i love being with my friends, i love being with my boyfriend, i love watching movies, i love to eat food and i love dressing up, but what can i do well? are there people on this earth who cannot do anything well? maybe i need to do something that doesnt require exceptional people. exceptionality, i think, is a fixation passed down to me from my parents. they tell me to do better than them, but i dont know if i want to! i think they live better than most people. i want to have love in my life and be surrounded by people that i can love and care for. i want to be curious and to think and to write, i want to try to make the world a better place, but there is no job that does that, not in the way that i imagine. i can only do what i can in the limited time that i have. so what do i do? is my time and energy valuable? it must be right? should i be careful? should i just float? should i just land where i land and try to make the world a better place from around me, where i stand? what does it mean to make the world a better place? how can i not feel so small, and not be seduced by money and comfort? that is my biggest fear. i think if i were to get a jd somehow id struggle to stay principled. sometimes i think myself a victim of comfort and luxury, and i hate myself. i am possibly the most pampered and treasured person alive. i have never struggled, i have been loved at every moment of my life, and i have been taken care of materially. i have never done without anything, nothing at all. my mom tells me i couldnt be poor, as in, i could not handle it. i dont want to believe her but i think she is right. i think that what is important to me is to live as good as i can. i want to live as happily and comfortably as i can, but i dont want to do so at the expense of other people. if i am motivated by anything, i am motivated by the desire to have other people also be able to live comfortably and happily. maybe that is it. i have had an amazing life so far through the support of my parents both emotionally and financially. i have learned to love and care and enjoy being alive through them. i want everyone else to be able to do the same. but where do i start? how much can i do to make sure everyone lives well? i want to do good, and by good i mean i want to do something that allows other people to live as well as i have. i want everyone else to be able to have the relationship with their parents that i have. i want everyone else to be comfortable. where do i start?

i am finding it hard to grow up. i have, until this point, lived with nothing expected of me but the bare minimum. rather, my parents only ever expected me to be happy and set myself up to pursue whatever made me happy. i have so far been allowed to exist in such an illusionary world. i have not realized yet what people face when they realize they have spontaneously come into being and have to continue their existence. what is the matter with this? why have i come into being, and why do i need to figure out how to continue my existence? why is suicide such a dark thing? i did not choose to be alive, and there are so many things to do to keep existing. when i was suicidal, i did not enjoy anything. i enjoy so many things now, and i love being alive. maybe that is it. i need to find something to do that allows me to keep doing what makes me love being alive. at the same time i do not wish to become an unaware person. i want to be aware all the time, more aware than i am now, never less than i am now. i want to enjoy my life but also care about the world. i think maybe this is it, and this is where i get confused. i struggle to balance these two things. im just going to write some things down.

1. i am responsible for my own relatively short existence on this earth
2. my reason to be alive is that i enjoy living
3. reading, thinking, and talking about philosophy makes me enjoy my life more
4. my friends, my parents, my boyfriend, my sister, are people that make me enjoy my life
5. going out, seeing movies, watching tv, writing, reading, are things that make me enjoy my life more
6. i think it is important to care for other people outside of those listed in 4
7. i think that the world is unfair and exploitative
8. i am exceptionally comfortable and happy, because i was lucky, i did not deserve to be happy and comfortable more than anyone else
9. i care that other people are not as happy and comfortable as i am, and i would like to do something to make sure everyone else gets the chance to be happy and comfortable
10. i have to do something, anything i can do, to make other peoples lives better, and enjoy my life too.

where do i start?

and i now realize that what made me so nervous about E was that i realized how much there was i needed to know from him. i realized that he was someone that would be willing to talk to me and tell me, and i did not want to mess up my chance to extract this extremely valuable information from him. extremely valuable information being his lived experience. i somehow did sense that he would tell me, and would understand what i said and asked. there are not many people who have had the experience you are terrified of having and will be honest with you.