Fuck lads, how do I deal with people approaching me when they

>>9263573
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>>9263606
What is there to say? There are a handful of people who think that, probably because I've read a few more books than them or am willing to talk to them, think they can ask me why they feel "empty" and why everything is pointless, or, in that one case, proclaim they are "emtpy" and then watch me try to piece something about that feeling together while they react sarcastically to my attempts

They say things like "I feel like everything is pointless and this feeling will never go away"
Or "Nothing I do really fulfills me" and then they expect me to be able to say some deep shit in response that somehow helps

please, have you ever been in a similar situation? do you just say "sorry, I don't think I can help you"?

>>9263620
Frankly, anon, you're getting used to confirm their own sad, low, nihilistic thoughts through unanswerable rhetoric.

How should you deal with it? You should stop trying to gently assuage them. You should drive full blast into the heart of their own nihilism: they ARE inherently nothing, there IS no grand meaning to their lives. Get angry: they are pulling your own self down to their level because you deign to show them the courtesy of conversation. You ultimately can't feed their need for structure because they're at the intellectual stage where one realizes that every structure is founded on nothing. Whatever their line of reasoning, when they tell you,
>I feel like everything is pointless and this feeling will never go away
and they cite the tentative nature of existence, or the inevitability of death, or philosophical materialism, or divine voluntarism, whatever, you slit your malicious little eyes, nod and say something along the lines of,

"Congratulations, you've figured out that there isn't an answer to life. There is no end to suffering, there is no correct path in anything, and morality is very likely a social construct. But not only are you too cowardly to live in spite of these facts, you are too self-absorbed to even accept them. You are constantly searching for an answer to negate them. Well guess what: /you never will/. God isn't going to come down and tell you what to do. Physics and mathematics don't contain a hidden set of rules that we only need to decode. Your life, in the "grand scheme," will never mean anything substantial. But there IS no grand scheme, there IS no framework, and the horror and despair you, in your weakness, wish to rid yourself of, is the only real gift existence will ever give you, because it is freedom, it is freedom to define your own self and life without shackles. You are free to choose whatever path you want, whatever beliefs suit you, but instead you want the comfort of a cage. If you are mourning someone, have the dignity and respect to mourn THEM, and not your own inevitable death or your lack of comfort."

Explain to them that their inability to move past nihilism is one of the most contemptible kinds of weakness, along with exploiting/defacing others because of your own nihilism. Then explain that they're doing both by attempting to force their own burden onto you.

This will either drive them away from you or force them to consider what is good and what is bad in their own lives. Either way, problem solved.

>>9264741
>How should you deal with it? You should stop trying to gently assuage them.

This. My mom pulls the exact same shit whenever she's upset with someone. Don't feed into their self-effacing bullshit they just want you to feed them.

Not literature

>>9264797
Well, >>9264741 did a pretty good job at summarizing the Nihilism>Anti-Nihilism>Ubermensch dialectic, which immediately puts this thread above 90% of the existing catalog.

>>9263573
your garbage bin wojack is an accurate image. someone foisting their existential angst on you is airing their dirty laundry - it isn't your or anyone elses responsibility to sort that out for them. we all negotiate our own relationships with the universe

if you don't feel equipped to answer, give low energy responses - short, noncommittal, indirect answers. they'll get the message eventually, because if they're feeding off of your attention they'll realize that you aren't really paying attention to them whether they like it or not. don't do what this guy is saying >>9264741 "drive full blast" NO. wrong. that involves deepening the level of intimacy and the intensity of your interaction with this person which is clearly already making OP uncomfortable. like anon really, the solution is to give some tyrannical bullshit tirade? fat chance of that being helpful

the solution is to create some space.

>>9264835
Short, non-committal answers don't work as well as just being a direct, honest asshole like >>9264741 telling them their lives are worthless as is and that no person or piece of advice will be able to fix them, so fuck off and find that someplace else.
Besides, two things:
1) OP is implying that he is already involved with people like this. Ignoring them WILL cause them to get weepy and resentful and clingy, as since they can't even accept their loneliness, they certainly won't be able to accept their abandonment. Being direct is the best means of creating space. Speaking from experience.
2) Being passive-aggressive as per your suggestion would not only be detrimental to the person OP clearly feels some pity for, but would be weak and low, ultimately demeaning OP's very own being. This behavior is not conducive to becoming someone with any level of worth as a human being to himself, to others, or to any concept of the world.

So yes, a tirade is the solution. They will either listen and change, or be offended and leave OP to the company of healthier people.

>>9263573
Sucker punch em in the groin

rude OP, not waiting around for an answer

>>9264741
this was almost a good post

>>9266071
Sorry, went to bed, I'm in Europe

>>9264741
I see what you mean, and I think you're correct about most of the things you say, but how could I ever tell that to anyone when I can't embody that myself? I mean, I struggle with finding meaning in my life, it seems mighty hypocritical to me to go on a tangent about how brave they need to be in the face of a problem that intimidates me as well.

>>9264835
It's not the interaction itself that makes me uncomfortable, it's my ambition to be able to have something valuable to say and realizing that I don't. Which, as severla people have pointed out now might be a result of their inability to formulate a problem that anyone can really approach and "solve", they might just be airing their frustrations

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actually forgot I had this thread open a couple times. I'll write a proper reply in case you're still here.

>>9264741
starts out well but gets stupid before actually making the point. moralizing over the acceptability of nihilism obviously will have no fucking traction, besides just being a dick move. what it gets right is that the question of nihilism and doubtability of everything is more or less unanswerable.

the typical existential crisis is founded on an argument approximately structured like this:
>I don't actually know anything for certain
>what if god isn't real / human affection isn't actually all that transcendental / other concern about central metaphysical idea in their life not being real
>therefore everything is probably terrible and I should kill myself

all of which is held to be one question, to be doubted or believed simultaneously.

normally you cannot go at people and tell them to dissect and address it properly because they have found it convenient to hold the entire thing as a justification that works for everything they like to do and leaves that troubling consideration about the goals of their life as a whole to be considered by someone else or likely no one. when they pose it as a question to you, however, it is vulnerable.

you can deal with it another way if you want to fuck with them or something but basically do like this:
>no you don't actually know anything for certain
>it probably isn't or at least you've misunderstood it. anyone with a sharp mind can probably ridicule it pretty accurately. (you can usually look up such a thing online pretty easily)
>you don't know that either, you fucking dumbass

at which point you double down on 1. and point out they've begun to doubt the positives of their preferred metaphysics while still holding the negatives as a certainty. you offer the negatives of alternative metaphysics to show the worst thing they can imagine isn't even the worst thing they could imagine, point out other ways they could have doubted their metaphysics and the ways their preferred metaphysics isn't even necessarily invalidated by the specific doubts they had.

if you did it right you'll leave them confused which is what you should aim at, because the only two actual possible states for a human are confused and stupid.