Ask HN: How did you find joy in life?

[jamilaghasiyev]

I can't find joy in life. Nothing interesting. When I think rationally I am excepting myself as whom I'm. Yes, for example, friends talk to me passionately about something (music, events, chess, etc..). I'm just like, "yeah, interesting". I never feel excited about anything deeply. I admire people like Feynman who are passionate and curious about science, life, to learn. I want to feel like them but nothing triggers that type of feeling. In the end, I'm just passing my days. Naval says in his book something like " we will be forgotten 100000 years from now. There is no meaning". this is not the case for me. I don't want to be remembered or make something useful for people, for the world. I just want to be curious, and passionate like Zorba (Zorba the Greek by Nikos Kazantzakis), like Feynman. Without curiosity, man is nothing. If you had experienced this type of thing, how did you handle it?

[comfypotato]

In my very non-professional opinion, that sounds like depression. I'm pulling on personal experience here. I've felt very similarly. I take medication and see a therapist now. I also don't experience these feelings any more. I don't know if I solved a problem or grew out of a phase.

To answer your question, though: I found a friendly community of people that held a similar worldview to me.

[D13Fd]

Exactly my first thought.

“The core symptom of depression is said to be anhedonia, which refers to loss of interest or a loss of feeling of pleasure in certain activities that usually bring joy to people.”

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Depression_(mood)

[badpun]

I don't think looking up to Feynman as a role model is a good idea. The stories Feynman told about himself and the way he portrayed himself were not necessarily true. I've read an account of someone who was his neighbor and knew him well (was a physicist, too), and it wasn't very flattering. It sounded like Feynman was pretty insecure and cared a great deal what people think about him and that they consider him a genius and a very interesting man.

Zorba the Greek is a fictional character. Not a great role model at all, since he's purely a made up construct.

[coldtea]

>It sounded like Feynman was pretty insecure and cared a great deal what people think about him and that they consider him a genius and a very interesting man.

So, just like almost everybody else - but in his case he was indeed a genius and very interesting...

>Zorba the Greek is a fictional character. Not a great role model at all, since he's purely a made up construct.

Missing the point...

[T-zex]

By exercising every day and playing a music instrument. If you can't exercise, just do a ~2 hour walk (in any weather). Go out and walk. Same with music, if you don't know how to play, just make sounds with it. Any sounds, the way you can. I use my bass guitar as a stress ball. I can't play it in a conventional sense, but I can make sounds I like and it helps me.

[tobbob]

I'm similar, I remember when I was a teen the way I'd obsess over things, now I just don't care about anything. I can't get excited. I think part of it is ageing, part of it could just be loneliness or depression, but I also think the way we can always distract ourselves with random crap on the internet is really bad for us.

Over November I'll be going on a hiatus of anything that I do just to fill time and distract myself to prevent boredom.

[smokel]

Have you tried talking to a therapist about this?

It is very hard to give advice for an individual based on so little information. A good therapist will try to track down a possible source of the problems, or give tools to handle the situation.

Perhaps one source of frustration might be an overly rational approach to joy? Have you considered alternatives, such as religion, or certain strands of philosophy? In the grand scheme of things, it's not so clear cut that rationalism is the best approach to finding meaning in life.

Another option might be that you value something (curiosity) highly, but don't act towards developing it? Perhaps if you invest some time in a random subject (e.g. one of music, events, chess) you will learn new things and get rewarded for that, either internally or socially. That might spark some joy!

Good luck, you're not the only one who's had to struggle with this.

[Daunk]

I've felt the same way for over 15 years, no solution in sight. I've tried the meds for many years, I've tried therapy, cognitive behavioural therapy and many other things and nothing has worked. I've also started to feel less interested in things I thought I was interested in.

The only thing really keeping me alive and fighting is my girlfriend and my family, which I have pretty poor contact with if I'm honest, but I still don't want to upset them.

[wruza]

I thought about exactly this today. If my family or a gf need something, I just do it. Call it, buy it, work it, solve it. No procrastination, no psychological problems. But when I’m finally alone, nothing drives me at all. It’s sad to think that I must go and find/make someone to live for, just to able to live.

Makes me think that people who talk about kids are just those whom it hit much earlier.

[toomuchtodo]

Cultivate your curiosity and find ways to help decent people in need. If you must have a benchmark, growing the quantity of those who will miss you when you’re gone seems like a reasonable default.

YMMV. Worked for me.

[solardev]

Are you getting enough exercise, eating well, and maintaining good relationships? You sound depressed or maybe dysthmic. A lot of how you feel is due to simple biology and not finding the right thought. Your gut flora probably has more to do with it than what book you may or may not be reading.

Who you are isn't set in stone. You can be an unhappy intellectual as long as you want. You can also introduce factors that shake up your personality and interests and emotions, experiment with them, and see which version of yourself you like better.

Think of yourself as a repo that you just have to keep refactoring and forking and rebuilding until you make it work the way you like...

[DamonHD]

Just possibly, your low engagement and low interest are symptoms of depression or similar.

[MuffinFlavored]

What cures are there for depression other than

1. anti-depressants

2. therapy / exercise / diet changes

3. a perspective change

4. ignoring it

[chasd00]

My boys (ages 10 and 12) bring me more joy than anything else in my life ever has. At least so far anyway.

[daralthus]

Read Impro by Keith Johnstone. Had a lot of practical games I could try to enhance my playfulness, imagination, social abilities, etc. He also started with the exact same problem you mention.

[waprin]

This is an area I'm pretty passionate about.

So first of all, it's pretty clear that you _do_ have some interests. You mention Feynman and Kazantzakis. That sounds like you're interested in the history of science and literature. That sounds pretty cool.

Many people will recommend going to a professional which I won't try to dissuade you from but that's not mutually exclusive with examining your lifestyle.

I'm obsessed with this podcast by Andrew Huberman (Stanford Neuroscientist) because he's talking about a scientific basis for stuff that has "felt" true to me for a while. Your food diet affects how you feel but your information diet does massively as well. There is a neurochemical basis for this with your baseline dopamine levels, that sets your motivation.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QmOF0crdyRU&t=779s

I also recommend reading the book Dopamine Nation.

Too much social media will fry your brain. If you're checking Hacker News more than a handful times of day, work on doing less of that. If you're addicted to Reddit, Twitter, or pornography, work on doing less of that. Exercise. Spend time in the outdoors. Focus hard on sleep hygiene. Eat less sugar and processed foods.

You can not change all this stuff overnight but if you can take baby steps it will help massively. You will not feel better tomorrow or next week but if you take tiny steps you will feel a tiny bit better in a few months.

I would also highly recommend learning about mindfulness, meditation, and yoga. A lot of dissatisfaction is aversion to a feeling of emptiness that we have to learn to accept.

Again, I'm not trying to dissuade you from getting any sort of help, especially if you're socially isolated (though you mention having friends). I just don't want you to underestimate how much you can help yourself.

Lastly but not least, if you're eating great, exercising, getting natural sunlight, spending meaningful time with good social relationships, sleeping consistently, and moderating your internet usage, and you still feel no energy or interest in anything, you can just calmly accept it. Life "passes" us all by whether we're joyful or interested or not. Sometimes people with passionate interests actually get more problems from those interests than someone who can just calmly accept the moment for what it is. Ask yourself if the interests would make you happier, or if the actual problem is that you are making an imaginary problem out of not being interested in things. Just food for thought!

[MilnerRoute]

Sometimes I wonder if there's a "neurodiversity" thing that makes some people more enthusiastic than others. (And of course it's the time of year when people start reporting seasonal affective disorder.)

Once I wondered if my interest levels are affected by how well I'm sleeping. That got me interested in the physical things that affect your mood -- and how serious exercise could flood your brain with generally-uplifting biochemicals. (Though it can also bring you down if you don't also eat enough protein and carbohydrates to fully rejuvenate.)

The last piece of the puzzle is mental -- some people try meditation, but even listening to extremely calming music can have an impact. People have tried "gratefulness" lists or a conscientious positivity practice. Someone once advised me to just do something nice for someone else, and then savor that feeling of having been helpful. (More or less that feeling you get when you see a tiny kitten or a cute animal in the zoo -- and you spontaneously start wishing them well.)

The other thing that causes low-curiosity is burnout. (Just getting out of the house, taking a trip, seeing some people can sometimes help.) Working less, changing fields to a different challenge. Changing cities, changing countries....

[rg111]

I had a clear realization early in life: life has no meaning at all. Nothing really has any meaning. We are just neurons firing, chemical reactions constrained by physical laws.

Later, when I read Buddhism, it says similar things.

So, should we just prepare ourselves for death like the ancient Jains who starved themselves to death because nothing had any meaning?

That would be pretty worthless, innit?

I have discovered a simple, yet, profound truth: "Meaning is what you assign to stuff with stern agency. Nothing else."

You are the sole assigner of meaning, and you do the assigning, and it's your life's mission to stick to it.

I have found meaning in health, self-preservation through earning money, love- romantic and other kinds, parents, dog, learning new things, music, enjoying small things in life, helping others selflessly, and making it a mission to contribute to society as much as possible so maximum number of people can realize such intricacies of the nature of reality.

Yes, I was in your situation before. And I did bounce back. All it took me was being in ICU for 15 days when I was 21, fully conscious but fully paralized and ventilated. And meditations. A lot of it.

(I fully recovered within two months, and currently live a fully healthy life with no medications.)

[rmac3]

I’ve found the solution to this problem to be to attack the underlying physiology that is responsible producing these emotions (or lack thereof) without using any form of medication, ESPECIALLY anti-depressants.

Like many of life’s problems, my solution is simple but not easy. I drastically changed my nutrition (strict keto diet), exercise routine (1.5 hours of exercise a day, half of that high-intensity aerobic), disciplined sunlight exposure, and sleep optimization (no screens for 2 hours before bed, earplugs and sleep mask, no alcohol/drugs, 8 hrs minimum, usually get 9)

It sounds like a lot all at once but I found that incrementally adding things worked for me.

I used to contemplate suicide daily for a span of about 2 years and then eventually my feelings subsided naturally. Now I’m the happiest I’ve ever been and a lot of the external forms of gratification are coming along with it.

[tanvach]

First, like some commenters, I believe you may be depressed. If you have resources to help you, please seek it out to verify. The more personalized (counseling) the better.

Second, any chance you are passing time by watching tv and surfing the internet?

There’s a period of my life I used to watch a lot of tv series and doom scrolling. Looking back, I was depressed with my studies. These mindless activities helped to numb my soul, making life less painful.

Slowly though, I realized the cognitively cheap entertainment was a form of addiction, and that it was robbing me of my creativity and energy.

Third, regarding exercise and diet. Super critical. But! You need to find the right kind that suits you. I highly recommend bouldering. You can do it alone, any time, and there’s a clear and constant progression you can see. Also, people are generally nice and social.

[aristofun]

If you don’t care about anything why do you care to be curious?

You see? Ive just found one thing that interests you. It means you’re lying to yourself. You’re telling yourself stories that are simply not true.

So either take your head out of your butt and start deep honest conversation with yourself (and not with ideas from other peoples books, whoever they are).

Or just invest some time in finding a good therapist to work this out.

Or if this doesn’t interest you - find a random one, who would just drug you.

Or it may be a combination of these.

In either case - you should stop looking for a feeling that magically comes to you (this is what drug addicts do), and start looking for a meaning that you define or create for yourself.

[uptownfunk]

I have the opposite problem. Way too much curiosity, someone help me with that.

I think if you have no curiosity, that is ok, but maybe you have something else (love, ambition, power) that you aspire for which requires curiosity to accomplish?

[Nomentatus]

I've answered here (a similar sort of question also posted today): https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33396442

[stkai]

For me, service to others keeps me fulfilled: Volunteering, mentoring, and teaching. Doing those things also means I interact with people, and meet new people with interesting viewpoints.