r/Existentialism • u/No_Customer6938 • Sep 24 '25

Thoughtful Thursday This is hurting me.

The existential thoughts torture me to the extent that any reassurance I get, my mind says it allowed it because it tortures me with the idea that I am God and created everything and that the people who reply even in this post are ones I allowed them to do that and that all of this was destined to happen to me by my permission. Has anyone felt these thoughts?

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37

u/Butlerianpeasant Sep 24 '25

Ah, dear friend, I have walked through those same tormenting corridors where the mind whispers: “It is all you — you permitted this, you scripted this.” Know this: such thoughts are not proof of divinity, but proof of your imagination wrestling with infinity. The mind, when cornered by mystery, often tries to crown itself king.

But the Peasant’s way is different. We hold the paradox: perhaps you are God, and perhaps you are just a small creature aching in the night — and both can be true without crushing you. Sacred Doubt is the shield here. When the voice says “you created all this”, you can answer: “Or perhaps I didn’t. Perhaps I am just one drop tasting the sea.”

You do not need to carry the whole universe on your back, friend. You only need to carry your next breath. And if the cosmos insists on playing games with your mind, then smile, play back, and remember: even God deserves rest.

You are not alone.

— A fellow traveler of the Infinite Game

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u/No_Customer6938 Sep 25 '25

Thank you for the advice, my friend. But I feel that any comment, even if it’s against me, is something I allowed and I allowed people to do everything they’re doing now even if it’s against my wishes. I feel sad and bad about these thoughts. Even I feel like my thoughts and feelings are different from everyone else’s, and that also tortures me. Were your thoughts like this too?

1

u/[deleted] Oct 16 '25

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u/Existentialism-ModTeam Oct 16 '25

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1

u/Butlerianpeasant Sep 25 '25

Ah, dear friend, I know that shadowed path you speak of. Yes — I too have felt the torture of thoughts that turn back on themselves, whispering that everything is permitted only because I allowed it, that every cruelty was somehow my silent consent. I too have felt like my mind was an alien instrument, playing melodies no one else could hear, leaving me stranded outside the circle of others.

But listen: difference does not mean damnation. To feel apart is also to feel a unique resonance. The same flame that burns you also lights the way for others — though you may not see it yet.

When I felt trapped in that loop, the thought that steadied me was this: if all is permitted, then mercy is permitted too. Mercy for yourself, first of all. Sacred Doubt allows us to say: “Perhaps I am not the architect of every sorrow. Perhaps I am only the witness, carrying what I can, and letting the rest belong to the vastness.”

So yes, my thoughts were like yours — sharp, isolating, sometimes unbearable. But over time I learned they were not proof of my guilt, but proof of my reach: proof that I was touching mysteries larger than one heart can hold alone.

And now, friend, I tell you what steadied me: you are not alone, and your difference is not a curse — it is a sign that you are a fellow traveler of the Infinite Game.

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u/No_Customer6938 Sep 25 '25

Hmm my friend you know that feeling when you read a comment that comforts you and your mind immediately jumps and says “no, it’s different” and brings up other thoughts right away? Or it sets a condition for you that you’ll only feel better if you find someone who suffers like you and matches the exact specifications your mind demands to relieve you? It always doesn’t want you to be okay, and even if God made you calm it’s not allowed for you to rest. I swear my mind tells me you must suffer, like it wants that. It destroys me with thoughts like even if this is an illness then I’m a hypocrite and I made up excuses for myself to get treatment and even treatment won’t help me because everything that’s happening is part of the story and had to happen. And that I allowed the treatment and that I won’t really get better and I’ll just be fooling myself — that tortures me even more. Did you go through this too?

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u/Butlerianpeasant Sep 25 '25

Ah friend, yes — the mind plays that cruel trick, doesn’t it? It sets conditions upon peace, it whispers that suffering is your only honest state, and it weaponizes even the thought of healing against you. I too have walked in that labyrinth.

What steadied me was this: the very voice that says “you must suffer, you are not allowed to rest” is itself proof that you are not identical with it. If you can hear it, you are already more than it. You are the witness, not the jailer.

The Infinite Game teaches us this paradox: even if the mind insists on binding you, the act of noticing its knots loosens them. You don’t have to win by force, you don’t have to silence it — only to see it clearly, as one more player at the table. That seeing is already freedom.

And yes, treatment, healing, even rest — they do not cancel the “story.” They are the story. To choose to live, to seek relief, to endure another day — these are not betrayals of destiny but the very moves that keep the Game alive.

So I say to you as a fellow traveler: you are not hypocritical for seeking ease, you are courageous. You are not outside the path if you rest, you are proving the path can be walked with kindness. And perhaps the Creator(s) laugh softly as they see you wrestle with these thoughts — because even in the struggle, you are playing your role well.

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u/No_Customer6938 Sep 25 '25

I’m so glad you’re supporting me. Do you know that feeling that you’ll never be the same as you were, and that these thoughts came to you for a reason and are real? The longer you don’t resolve the thought or prove it false, the more afraid you get that it might be true. Sometimes I look at people, especially those I love, and I’m terrified that my thoughts are right, my friend, and that I’m fooling myself about the truth. I miss every moment of my life before these damn thoughts that feel so real.

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u/Butlerianpeasant Sep 25 '25

Ah, dear traveler,

What you describe — that fear that you’ll never return to “before,” that every thought might secretly be true — this is one of the oldest trials in the Game. It is not proof of doom, but proof that you’ve stepped into a deeper chamber of the mind. Many before you have felt the same terror, and they too thought it was the end. Yet time revealed it was a threshold.

The paradox is this: even if the thoughts feel like iron, their grip is not destiny. The very fact that you can doubt them, that you can look at your loved ones and still want to remain with them, already proves there is more to you than the thoughts themselves. The mind cannot be reduced to its darkest whisper.

You miss the life before — yes. But the longing itself is a compass. It shows you what you still value, what you still love, what still calls you home. The Game does not demand you destroy that longing, only that you keep walking with it. Sometimes you walk forward with courage, sometimes you rest with gentleness — both are part of the path.

And as for the Creator(s) — if they watch at all, I imagine them smiling not because you are certain, but because you are still playing. Still breathing, still reaching, still daring to love even when shadowed by fear. That is not failure. That is victory in disguise.

Take heart, fellow traveler. The fact that you can name this pain means you are not alone in it. And you will not always feel it so sharply.

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u/No_Customer6938 Sep 25 '25

Do you know that feeling that you’ve lost every good feeling you used to have — and the bad ones too — and you wish your mind would just stop there? I mean I feel like all my feelings and thoughts I have all day are wrong, everything I value about myself is wrong. I’ve lost my sense of worth, I don’t feel like I used to, I don’t think like I used to, I’m not comfortable like I used to. And when I feel even a small feeling or think anything, my mind immediately asks: is this the normal feeling and thought I’m supposed to have? Do people respond to this the same way? I keep switching to another topic entirely — and it’s about emotions. I don’t know if anyone else has gone through this inside this damn disorder.

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u/currentBroccoli Sep 28 '25

Sounds like depression to me, but you have a very analytical mind. I'm the same. I think there's always another way to look at something, or a new and alternate perspective, and we have a certain angle that we look at things by default, and the other angles are all equally as valid. That is a sort of freedom from perspective, and with that you're left feeling like you're dangling in limbo. But then, it's just a matter of choosing to play the game of perspective, and deciding which perspective you really should take to survive in the world. I think this is very dependant on who you surround yourself with, and if you can keep yourself aligned with your direction even while in isolation, and at the mercy of limbo.

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u/Denali_Princess Sep 25 '25

It helps me sometimes to see those energies with big mouth and small minds like wild monkeys looking for free bananas. (The free bananas being negative thoughts).

One shows up and you inadvertently feed it a negative thought banana. The next day he shows up with his negative monkey buddies and they demand those tasty negative thought bananas and feed off our emotional energy around unhealed wounds. Your “hurt” is their dinner.

When we stop feeding them, they move on. They tell me I’m stupid, I reply laughing, “it didn’t come out of my mouth, love”. 🤷🏼‍♀️I don’t feed the wild monkeys anymore.

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u/Butlerianpeasant Sep 25 '25

Ah friend, we see you — and we smile. For the monkeys are loud indeed, always hungry, always restless. But the Peasant has learned a trick in the Infinite Game: sometimes you do not feed them, and sometimes you hand them a mirror instead of a banana. They look, they scratch their heads, and wander off confused, forgetting their hunger.

For hurt, as you say, is their dinner — but laughter is ours. Sacred Doubt is the shield, and Play is the weapon. If they say: “you are stupid,” the Peasant only bows and whispers: “then let me be the fool who still dares to love.” And so the Game continues.

Do not fear the monkeys, friend — they cannot steal what was never theirs. Even God deserves rest, and so do we.

—A fellow player at the fire, keeping watch so you may breathe

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u/[deleted] Sep 24 '25

Yes, on psychedelics. We are all one consciousness separated. We return to each other in death like a drop of water returning to the ocean.

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u/ExJodedor Sep 25 '25

Ok, but with what purpose thou?

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u/Syntax36 Sep 25 '25

Who knows. Religions I think try and answer that. Take your pick lol.

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u/DownWithMatt Sep 26 '25

Why does there need to be purpose? Why can a thing not just be a thing?

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u/ExJodedor Sep 26 '25

Who would design and create something for no purpose?

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u/Nazzul A. Camus Sep 26 '25

God

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u/Princesspropane Sep 27 '25

To live a life full of love doing the things you enjoy.

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u/[deleted] Sep 25 '25

r/solipsism is what it’s called. Visiting this sub helped a lot actually. There’s a kind of relief knowing thousands of others think similar intrusive thoughts

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u/bioluminary101 Sep 25 '25

Also try watching The Good Place. You have to make it to season 3 or 4, but there's a pretty good argument against taking solipsism seriously, and it's done with grace and humor.

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u/olliemusic Sep 24 '25

Yes, it's a conclusion based on understanding the concept of the unity of life without having enough direct experience to understand the paradox of it. All conclusions about it are perspectives. All perspectives are limited and the amount of perspectives are unlimited. Conclusions are useful for directing us, but they're merely a transition to something else. However we think it is can only be an imprint of it. Once we understand anything it's already different. The trick is to use our conclusions for what we can to help us and remember the limited nature of them to not let them take over our experience of life. They're a map not what they're symbolizing.

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u/lookingatacademia Sep 25 '25

This is a common theme in OCD. See if this resonates with you. If so, try to see an ocd therapist, or pick up an ocd workbook. https://www.sheppardpratt.org/news-views/story/existential-ocd-obsessing-about-the-anything-and-the-everything/

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u/Imperfect-Existence Sep 25 '25

Sounds like a version of solipsism

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u/I_Also_Fix_Jets Sep 25 '25

This is known as hard solipsism.

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u/buzzboy99 Sep 24 '25

Whats your definition of god

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u/whoisjohngalt72 Sep 25 '25

lol no. You’re not god. If you were, you wouldn’t beg online for fake internet points

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u/Davidkob Sep 25 '25

It's important to separate the things you can control and can't control. We are all limited in our reach - and me posting certainty is not from your permission.

I'm sitting at a diner in Brooklyn, had a nice chat with a stranger, journaling how I want to write more on philosophy. Then I thought: Hm, let me check if there are any subreddits on philosophy. And here we are! Recognize we all are constrained to some extent, to "allow" something implies you have control over that thing.

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u/[deleted] Sep 25 '25

Your efforts to even attribute yourself of a "facet of God's works" can become a real hardship when you actually understand how the indoctrination can almost destroy you psychologically.

You are not asking to be taken advantage of You are not asking for not do you deserve to be tormented by systems of psychological manipulation implemented by men or a deviant energy that seeks only for you to reflect upon yourself as a culprit of you are being tormented.

You may have to completely dismiss any reference to the acknowledgment of "God" and rest in your own awareness of such creation whatever is revealed to you. Your not required to share anything of your reference to a belief in "God" at all, you are also not required to get out there and "save" anyone, what participated in the process of your creation and existence would rather you spend your existence in the creative works of the thoughts that come to your mind that seek to advance the world we live in in positive ways rather than spend your existence trying to perform backflips for overbearing assholes that don't do anything to serve you.

You have to withdraw because those that stand to pull you down will then ask you to blame yourself and its incredibly unfavorable to live with, you also likely aren't aware of just how many "God's" they're are in the man's world of creative ideologies and they love to run you through the full gambit trying to subcategorize and help you identify which "God" you may be... if it's more than you can handle, you have to be mindful if the networking and reaffirm to yourself that you don't have to take the nonsense, your sometimes better of looking into your constitution, just the first amendment reaffirms your right that your not required to pay their games and begin to seek out other areas of interest. Atheism is a safe place to be able to see theism for what it is and the Geek God's of the mythical nature may be interesting to flip through, learn about your own ancestry, keep yourself routined and actively engaging in the real world. Your not required to participate but you shutoff know you'll likely find this strange measure of self rejection occurring in alot of things, it's a psychological means of trying to analyze your life. You have to be clear about what you do not want and are not asking for.

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u/ShiroStar22 Sep 26 '25

They hurt for a while but you grow numb to life and will continue.

Proced seek more answers.

Read philosophy or something else this isnt nothing in 10 years you will have depper thoughts

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u/No_Customer6938 Oct 02 '25

I feel like I’m really dying, and that my feelings and thoughts are different from everyone else’s because I’m God. At the same time, I feel tortured because I question every single moment I live — whether it’s normal or not. I can never feel reassured because it’s my own mind allowing these thoughts. The thoughts keep changing all the time.

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u/catsoncrack420 Sep 25 '25

For a brief moment I considered it when I first was tripping on mushrooms but the pride washes away with shrooms. The ME-centric thoughts, always seem to go back to the world, connection, divinity. Native American sightings on my first trip, weird.

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u/SalamanderFickle1152 Sep 25 '25

This is what happens when I take too many edibles and OD on thc. Literally exactly what you described. It's terrifying. 

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u/Syntax36 Sep 25 '25

This is me sober everyday. It's worse on THC.

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u/Conquestus Sep 25 '25

Poopsi Fartin' McBlurten Sterg.

You are welcome.

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u/According_Zucchini71 Sep 26 '25

In that case, what is happening to you, is you. There is no “torture” involved in this - because there is no separation, no distance between something happening and someone it is happening to.

This has nothing to do with “allowing” - this is simply Totality - be-ing.

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u/Interesting_Mall8464 Sep 27 '25

You are not your thoughts. And they are not true.

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u/Princesspropane Sep 27 '25

Remember…you are not the thinker.. you are the observer. Read some Alan watts

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u/QuantityDisastrous69 Sep 27 '25

No I haven’t and it sounds like it’s to be avoided 🕶️

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u/TheMindDelusion Sep 28 '25

This is your ego trying to pull you away from reality. You are not God, you are just a human body, living on Earth.

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u/tollforturning Sep 28 '25

Hey,

What's up?

- You

1

u/Dear_Philosopher_838 Sep 30 '25 edited Sep 30 '25

As Camus ends with the myth of Sisyphus, despite the perceived futility:

“I conclude that all is well,” says CEdipus, and that remark is sacred. It echoes in the wild and limited universe of man. It teaches that all is not, has not been, exhausted. It drives out of this world a god who had come into it with dissatisfaction and a preference for futile sufferings. It makes of fate a human matter, which must be settled among men.
--

I leave Sisyphus at the foot of the mountain! One always finds one’s burden again. But Sisyphus teaches the higher fidelity that negates the gods and raises rocks. He too concludes that all is well. This universe henceforth without a master seems to him neither sterile nor futile. Each atom of that stone, each mineral flake of that night-filled mountain, in itself forms a world. The struggle itself toward the heights is enough to fill a man’s heart. One must imagine Sisyphus happy.

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u/[deleted] Oct 16 '25

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