I get depressed......I have been through therapy but even my therapist had to finally agree that an intelligent person is bound to become depressed occasionally at the thoughts of death, age and illness.
I am not religious in the least, so I do not believe in an "after life", though the idea sounds great...it just isn't plausible to me. The whole religion thing seems to be a way for humanity to comfort itself at the thought of ceasing to exist, in my opinion. I respect other peoples views on this, but for me, religion seems like an escape.
Sometimes, I wake in the middle of the night and feel an overwhelming sense of pointlessness.
I am an artist and when I keep busy with my work, I "forget" about looming thoughts of death and age, but when I stop my work, they often return.
I am terrified of death...of not existing....even though in not existing, I will be unaware....a little Woody Allenesque of me, really.
I seem to get a little worse as I get older. I am thirty eight now and the work, work, work attitude in this country does not help me at all.....as then I feel that that is all that life is about. My fiancee just returned to school to get a law degree and I feel that, after these three years of intensive studying, he will get a job and be killing himself with work and then time will whizz by as it does and we will be old.....
I know that I am in a bit of a depression about all of this, but really want to know how to cope.
I have no children and no biological clock that I have ever felt.....though my fiancee would maybe like a child one day. This depresses me too as I am not getting any younger and don't particularly want a child anyhow, as they seem to take over your life and kill romance.
My relationship is very important to me and I sometimes feel that when you see couples with children, they don't like each other very much anymore. I am sure that this is not always true, but it is common that couples tend to eventually take each other for granted. Again, I don't wish to offend, but perhaps children are not for me. I have two dogs which I adore like babies...they make me happy a lot of the time.
I am sorry about the rambling....but I would like any help with coping with these feelings of hopelessness, which are very real to me. We ARE going to get old. We are probably all going to suffer illness at some point and death is inevitable. Do I just not think about it all? This is what my sister suggests. Do I avoid the subject? I really want to be a happy person. What can I do to put meaning into my life?