True. it's fascinating that we're programmed in such a way. Kinda like how nature ''knows'' to give us a liver for filtration, or eyes for vision.

I don't know about other dimensions, all i'm referring to is the existence/inexistence of any sort of objective doctrine

Yeah you got it, the emptiness of predetermined prophecy or purpose

Happiness is definitely one of the major players in determining a purposeful life. You're saying satisfaction and pleasure overall is life's purpose? Are you referring to hedonism perhaps?

I remember not too many months ago, I went through a sort of anxiety/depression at the face of death. I would think about how there is really nothing but the present moment and that literally each passing second right now is irreplaceable and that writing these words has taken 5/some odd minutes away from my life that i will never be able to get back. I remember feeling like my daily actions had to have depth and meaning, i.e, going on walks on the traintracks by my house was something I considered poetic and meaningful in a way, and If i didn't do anything ''poetic'' or aesthetically rewarding or immersive then i felt lazy and unmotivated because my day didn't have enough signifigance to me.

Yeah, it is kind of pretentious. I only considered those things stories because what Pinocchio and the function of leafs or whatever have in common is that they're made of these same shapes your're scanning with your eyes at the moment. The same letters of the same alphabet. What I'm trying to say in a nutshell with that story baloney is that meanings require a recognition of certain shapes and sounds a.k.a. language and the alphabet. Or, simply put, knowing how to read or understand language. Or perhaps only when one begins to understand language does meaning start to exist...?

By existential tangibility I mean something that remains true even through an external disembodied perspective. I.e., ''matter exists'' is found to be true even if we imagine leaving our human perspective of these senses we have no choice but to be familiar with and imagine looking at the world like an invisible spectator. So IMO the existence of matter is existentially tangible not because the proof is in the pudding, but because the proof IS the pudding. Something not existentially tangible would be ''greed'' for example. Remember, the disembodied observer Isn't human. The observer looks at greed and is only capable of noting unconventional behaviors in comparison to ones we'd consider conventional- the un-greedy ones. What I mean by this ''observer'' character is a POV that is separate of human bias and mindset. A perspective as close to objective reality as possibly conceivable.

As for what I mean by 'stories', an example would be that the story or meaning of a lightbulb is to produce light. The story of a leaf is that it produces chlorophyll and photosynthesizes. I know it's like i'm hopping from sides of the fence here in relation to the existence of meaning. That's because part of me agrees with what you said about ''of course it exists/this is obvious and boring''
and part of me is saying that this ''obviousness'' is exactly what the ego employs to assuage truths that the psyche is developed to avoid.

My current view on meaning is blurry to say the least. I'm still rather new to existentialism and philosophy in general... but the way I see it presently is this: a meaning is a story that assigns an object, circumstance, or otherwise with a value. As for the existential tangibility of these stories, I don't think I'm in any position yet to say whether it exists - at least not quite yet.

It's really simple, and complicated at the same exact time. In a nutshell, if the mind truly believes something, it is a reality. It's almost scary. I remember hearing about a story where a man got locked inside of a refrigerated truck I believe it was, and he ''froze'' to death not because it was cold in there, but because he THOUGHT the freezer was on.
'' [He was] convinced he will die and begins writing letters. His letters end with a final passage where he is saying he can not write anymore because his fingers are beginning to freeze. When they find him dead, not only do they find the letters but they discover that the freezer's temperature never dropped below 50 degrees.'' ~ from the Snopes article on the incident. Obviously not all things can be cured/treated by the weirdness of the placebo effect, but if your mind is in the right state and is open to the situation completely, the placebo effect could literally save your life somehow someday.

Dreams are very fascinating. Surreal films created by a lump of meat.

You're saying that the universe is an exaggeration/fabrication of ego?

True love is being accepted in pathetically vulnerable states. For instance anyone can have sex in a romantic relationship. Sex becomes ''making love'' when the vulnerability and preciousness of the scenario is considered and deeply admired.

Often I try and picture myself from an outside perspective. Like an invisible spectator. And when I do that I realize that I just continue moving. It's not a vision or anything like that at all, but imagining seeing yourself from an external perspective you see that you're continuing to walk or talk while 'observing' yourself. You realize that you are a function of existence, and not a subjective manipulator.

It's really amazing. The iron in our blood was literally forged inside a dying star billions of years ago

bingo

I don't know about you guys, but when I see pictures like this, (especially elephants in particular) I can't help but feel that love really does exist. Romantic love is definitely the delusion.

When I first realized that I was a mortal being, and that death is terribly certain, I spiraled into a pretty un-fun depression in the face of my mortal existence. But you know what? It scared the shit out of me to where I confronted it and embraced it for the sheer certainty that it is, and proceed to live and enjoy life anyway. I am sure that there are more revelations and realizations that await me, and I can safely say that these presently hidden realizations of the nature of being are gateways to a life of authenticity and depth.

I'm currently in therapy, and my therapist is interested in my interest in existential and absurdist philosophy for my age. (i'm 17 though, a rather typical age to run into existential walls.) I try and hint to him that my anxiety around other humans could be somewhat affected by all this existential knowledge being juggled around in my brain on a daily basis. And I feel like there's a part within me that feels bad for everyone else.. everyone who hasn't picked up philosophy. I know I know it seems rather ignorant to think that but I swear philosophy is the thing that can make people love one another and themselves more than just about anything else.

It's probably the little Kierkegaard on my shoulder, or my past experiences in love and loss, but to quote him roughly; "Marry and you will regret it. Don't marry and you'll regret it. Marry or don't marry, you will regret both.''
I really identify and understand his fear and anxiety with love. He ended a relationship with a beautiful woman because he knew that staying committed would mean nullifying the passion that had drawn him to her. Leading to boredom, one of- if not the worst form of despair in Kierkegaard's eyes.

No i'm equating Nihilism with Absurdism. Existentialism is much more open than nihilism obviously

Ah I couldn't agree more. Most people, especially teenagers, chase after love like its something they need but instead it's ego-centric desire and lust. And not even mentioning that most relationships we see around us are rather sadly ''shadows" of what a loving bond should look like. Maybe it's just me, but when I see people in relationships, i can't help but get the feeling that these people are in it for themselves. Less and less are people taking their time in love and learning,

I do have to agree Nihilism is very liberating. It kinda sucks that most don't really see that so they go to Absurdism, which is pretty much the same thing. Existentialism is honestly one of those things that once you become interested in, it just kinda grows on you and you become rather obsessed.

Bukowski had many flings with prostitutes in his day, and wrote about all the sublime experiences in ''Women''.
If i'm not mistaken he had a wife, so i'd assume he has fallen in love at least a bit perhaps.
I like to describe love as the cheapest and most corrosive street drug on the market. Sure, it makes you feel great, but if it's real, it comes with many burdens and sorrows. And could end up leaving us dead one day.

Great point.. I can see the fallacy in my thinking. Sartrian existentialism is definitely not inexact though. It's honest in a strange and beautiful way

No, what i'm doing is nothing more than sartrian analysis

Perhaps chemical imbalance is at fault, or at least a major player.
In my case and perhaps with your anxiety as well, it always felt/feels like there's a ''correct'' response to everything. And although there is no such thing, it feels like I must carefully reiterate my dialogue into just the right thing to say. I constantly catch myself saying insignificant awkward things, and I dwell on it for a while. It's like there is a 'proper' way to communicate. But there isn't. In the ''The Babble of Babies'' discussion, it was said that ''adult'' language has been recognized as the ''proper'' way to speak and that any other mode of communicating is deficient in some way. In other words, the system of speech you and me use has been set unto us by our formers. (formers meaning any person who has ever spoken to you.) And their system was set unto them by their formers. As my dad had once said;
''you know what every clock on Earth is based off of? Another clock.''

I'm kinda a newbie to this forum and philosophy in general, so i'm not well versed in the ''big boy words'' yet haha. The reason I claimed it would have been much easier for there to have been nothing, is because the very thing you need for any existence of any kind is space. And energy has to be the prerequisite to space in order for space-time to have expanded. And while my laptop was dead last night, I was thinking ''the Bootes supervoid in the bootes constellation is a completely empty pocket of space, with very little atoms and maybe a few galaxies if that. This thousands-upon-thousands of light year wide void is generally considered massive.'' How weird right? We just gave the identity ''massive'' to a region of no structure. Whereas if we have Big Ben, you see that it is indeed a massive tower. A tower that occupies space and region. And as for the ''day zero'' of the universe, I thought about how simple occupiable space itself requires three obvious things. Depth, length, and width - aka the three dimensions. And these all require something... depth requires length. Length requires width. Width requires length. And all of these together require energy- perhaps a wicked terrifying amount, in order to somehow ''open'' the nothingness and allow the existence of these things and other things.

The Big Bang was apparently a singularity - a planck-length point of existence that contained anything and everything that could have ever became. And this absurdly dense point of existence existed for an unimaginably short amount of time before the obvious onset of creation. My damn laptop is dying and I don't have a proper charger, so this hopefully isn't my first and last discussion.