Defining Contenment

I understand the ways people go about trying to reach their only personal state of mental equilibrium. I meditate frequently. I come up with ideas and I work and I make art. Yet everything is, and always has been, a bit of distraction to help me cope until things eventually came to some sort of calm.

I feel like I was dropped on this planet at birth. I don’t feel I fit into this world. I’ve heard the “hold on” mantra for virtually my entire life, yet I don’t know where I’m trying to get to. I don’t feel as though I relate to people as well as I would like to. I have an amazing capacity for empathy, I have a great sense of humor and being a good friend is something I pride myself on. But no matter what I still feel an unsettling void that I have felt since I was a toddler. Relationships are very difficult. All communication is. My brain works very fast. I see things differently and I process ideas very fast. It’s hard to relate, and I find that in all relationships I end up not really “getting” support, despite fully enjoying giving it. It’s not a matter of codependency, it’s that I don’t know what I really need/what could possibly be provided. Affection is great, but for the most part it’s just a detail. I feel like a lot of my continuing to push on has been for the benefit/at the request of others.

I have an amazing capacity to create and explore, my IQ tests in the genius range and I can talk to anyone about anything. Yet it’s pointless and often painful, most of all alienating. I don’t see worth in applying much of what I can do. Like what’s the point even? I don’t value much of what others do, and my perception is very different. I am not impressed with the mundane, and my baseline involves sensory overload. I have explored mindfulness and I understand myself very well, I just don’t understand where it’s possible to find contentment, and what point I have in fighting. I’m just leaping from one base to the next. I consider it to be an ok strategy while managing a crisis period, but after a couple of decades it is completely unproductive. I realize how generic this must sound, but I am truly at a loss. There are things I enjoy for sure, I just don’t see how that builds a life, or at what point I am supposed to see a true point in what I am doing. I think at this point I need like-minds but I’ve always come up empty when searching.

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I feel the same way in many cases.

I feel very content in this world… nature… I just don’t get people.

I can be supportive… but it does feel like no one understands me. Even when I talk… It always seems like people never quite get what I’m trying to say. I do have joy and contentment… but it’s exhausting trying to connect to others… I like people… I like the brief interactions I have. But it’s still a lot of hard work.

It sounds like your doing well and trying to find that balance… I’d say… make your world the way you like it…

I find… I don’t pay attention to stuff I don’t like. Maybe I’m not connecting well enough… but my mind drifts and I end up going back into my own comfort zone. I listen… nod… and then excuse myself and leave for some peace and quiet.

Good luck and enjoy… :v:

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Well you’re not alone in all that man. I can relate to a lot of the issues you’ve described. I feel that same dissatisfaction with social encounters. Recently I’ve given up on trying to seek out real life people. The last few attempts at making friends never really amounted to anything.

Honestly you can only find contentment if you give up. Accept the life experience for what it is and quit trying to force the world to meet your expectations. You can always decide to change your mind on this approach, but you can make it your default to be content with a simple life and or relative isolation.

They say most intelligent people suffer from intellectual isolation any ways.

So contentment for me is. Well, just eliminating the desire of everything I don’t really need and adjusting to that life, instead of setting myself to be unsatisfied. I think that is what you’re really after. Contentment… boring and simple, monotonous… but it’s a good baseline and can do a lot to make you psychologically stronger.

Frankly I don’t do anything but maintain my apartment, car, and cat, and self, post on here, text with a few friends(the ones who actually care), listen to music. I smoke pipe tobacco, and I drink sometimes. That’s my life for now, while I continue to try and unravel this illness and find new frames of mind.

But yeah man, smart people are rare as ■■■■. If your in the genius range that’s less than 2% of the population. If every stranger was a dice roll they wouldn’t be in that range very often. If your lucky the stats play out and there really are 2 geniuses in every random group of 100 people. Realistically though that doesn’t happen.

It sucks man, I’m disappointed in the world, but I’m learning to not let it bother me so much. It just is what it is. If you ever want someone to chat with though, shoot me a PM.

At first I strove for the blank sate, a mind without words, once I did that for long enough I got passed a lot of psychological ■■■■■■■■ and have a good platform and perspective for better more fulfilling thoughts. As a loner, that is imperative.

Real life friends who like to deeply speculate on the nature of society and the human being and the mind would be really great, but no one cares as far as I know to even try to see it all at once like that.

Almost forgot. To simplify. Stop hunting, start fishing, use your character as a lure and wait for the good folk to come along.

contentment is a :coffee: coffee and cake :cake::smiley:
take care :alien:

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I’d call that consumption :sunglasses:

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I don’t understand why you seek contentment. Is happiness inconceivable? Or is pain too unbearable? Maybe people don’t get you and maybe they don’t support you much. But you can’t rely on anyone elses erratic behavior to find meaning or peacefulness. I try to accept the bad feelings and not get hung up searching for the good ones. And I do my best to make life better for myself and others. I am pretty happy that I’m alive even though I find socializing difficult and can’t compete with normal people anymore. I used to be unhappy but now I’m not, just stressed but that’s okay.

Happiness itself is fleeting and a constant game. I do not reject the notion of being happy nor the pursuit of more structural happiness, but at this age I’m going to go ahead and learn to be content. I think it can become a solid baseline for life.

Contentment is when you are in a moment and feel at peace with it and with your life.

(At least that’s how it seems to me! :blush: )

I gotta agree with Darksith - coffee is a great moment of contentment!!! :smile:

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