
Ask HN: What is existential crisis and how do you know if you are having one? - itchyjunk
Hi!
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dbasedweeb
I remember when I was young, it suddenly really hit me: I’m going to die. That
means that for an eternity I’ll not exist in the same way I didn’t exist
before I was born. How could that be?! I was terrified of non-existence, of
the sheer length and breadth of it, and what it really meant. I can’t say that
I’ve ever really gotten over it, but I live with it. At the time I could
hardly sleep, I became anxious and depressed.

To me, that’s the ultimate face of an existential crisis; confronting the
reality of what our existence is. We’re almost unbelievably brief sparks in an
endless darkness that didn’t notice our arrival and won’t notice our
departure. What does it mean? Nothing really.

For some I guess the solution is believing that they’ll live forever in one
way or another. For me it meant not thinking about a grim reality that saps
joy from life, and just focusing on the people I love, the time we have
together. It might not be ideal, but it’s what we have. What is an existential
crisis? IMO it’s what hits when you when reality starts to seep into you in
some small way. Maybe it’s mortality, or the absurdity and arbitrary nature of
human endeavors, or something else.

~~~
itchyjunk
Edge of where our brain can function maybe.. not really equipped to figure it
out yet.

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tombh
It would seem there's a spectrum of them. In a sense all anxiety could be
existential in the way it presses on the nerve of one's own particular
instance of existence. Though I think we'd all describe Neo's awakening in The
Matrix as something somewhat more than anxiety.

Of course "existential" is a philosophical term. Heidegger, one of the great
existential philosophers, famously used the day to day experience of humans in
order to access the very nature of being - of existence - because humans are
unique in that existence is a fundamental concern for them. Like when Satre
writes in detail about the strangeness of door handles, they're something that
we use countless times in our day to day lives, we just never notice them
until they become a concern for us, like when they break.

So an existential crisis is just that feeling of unearthing something
fundamental that's always been there, but now has come to the forefront for
whatever reason.

Personally I believe there is only ever one existential crisis that we go
through and whether we face it head on or just the satellites around it, its
centre of mass is always that audacious fact that something exists rather than
nothing.

BTW one doesn't simply answer this question. The resolution of an existential
crisis is a new way of life, not merely understanding some standalone
empirical fact about psychology or physics.

~~~
itchyjunk
yes, why does anything exist at all? maybe it's something like a 0
mathematically? you can multiply it with any possibility and you still have
nothing?

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ordu
If you have been working hard for 20 years to achieve some goals (like
proficiency level, career, wealth, or something like that), and now being
mostly content with your current achievements you are questioning goals
themselves, then you a here. Probably.

If the cause of questions is a lack of achievements, than it may be not the
existential crisis, but something else.

Existential crisis is the good one, it means that you grown above your goals
and now you can find new ones. But it feels bad, like any other crisis.

~~~
itchyjunk
Could you elaborate on the "but something else" for lack of achievements? what
are those and why are their lack a bad thing?

~~~
ordu
I meant that psychologists distinguish one more crisis, which caused by a
dissonance between great plans for a life of ~20 years old person and his/her
real results at ~30. At this crisis people tends to make radical changes in
their life and this crisis may look like existential, but it isn't. It has its
own name, but I can't find it (I can literally translate from Russian and get
"achievement crisis", but I cannot find it in Wikipedia, and too lazy to
search other sources).

So achievements are any objectives, which are significant for the person.

The problem with this crisis is a relativity of the "lack of achievements".
Life can be pretty good, but nevertheless worse than expected ten years ago.
To be successful in my own eyes I need to accept my real performance in the
real world, to rewrite my plans accordingly, and it can be a painful
experience.

------
blacksqr
An existential crisis is one that you can't resolve until you've figured out
the meaning of life.

If you're not contemplating radical changes, you're probably not having an
existential crisis.

~~~
itchyjunk
Is that always true? Resolution of existential crisis always involve radical
changes?

~~~
blacksqr
If I thought it was always true, I would have said "definitely" instead of
"probably".

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sbinthree
I found this very useful when going through my own existential crisis.

[1]: [http://www.davidsongifted.org/Search-
Database/entry/A10554](http://www.davidsongifted.org/Search-
Database/entry/A10554)

------
pasbesoin
Things were bad, but I had some hope for the future. Then physical changes
(health) took away that hope.

I went from stress and anxiety to existential crisis.

Maybe this is too simple.

Maybe it's precisely this simple.

