Life crisis after a relapse

On my day 46, I relapsed. I've been careless a few days before that and I was weak and unmotivated to go further and it happened.
But this is not the (main) reason I write this post. If it was just about that, I'd just try the reboot again, as I have countless times. There are deeper, underlying problems which caused me not to have any motivation anymore and I also suspect them to have influenced my relapse, especially because the urges were stronger several times before. I didn't relapse because of strong urges, but low motivation.
After the relapse, I just went back to the neutral state of mind I'm normally in. Not happy, not sad... That was already a great success, as I was very sad or angered or ashamed of myself when I previously relapsed. I then wanted to systematize my life more and find answers to a few more fundamental questions, because I was sure if I managed to do so, it will be a lot easier to be disciplined enough to do what I have to...
The central question was: "How do I want to live", with all of its facets. I didn't have an answer. In all the years I've never been really happy and satisfied. In general, I've always been in a rather neutral overall stance, with some positive events and some negative ones, connected with some positive or negative emotions respectively. When I pursued a target and didn't make it, life was normal shortly after, if I did reach the goal, the same. In that light, how does it even make sense to pursue any goals? My other problem about having no "target function" in life is that it turns life uninteresting from my point of view. Everything turns into being arbitrary. If the result is the same, what fun is there in choosing?
The next days, I didn't try to set up a new reboot. I tried setting no goal for one day, and while I per definition managed to reach it, it also felt a little empty and I could imagine living without goals gets harder as your life standards worsen. I thought it would be an acceptable "safety net" for a minimum happiness level if everything else fails, but that brief period of time was enough to convince me I don't want to live that way. It would probably need another 2 or 3 crises to make me appreciate this emptiness, if that will happen at all. I went back to living after a method which merely focuses on the path of the least resistance, because from my current standpoint which I would love to replace there is no point in going for another path. Except for keeping some options open, I estimate the probabilities for an answer I haven't found yet to be there high enough to discard any options that limit my potential to change my life immediately, such as suicide.
I think I overcame materialism to a great extent already before this crisis, meaning that I wouldn't count the possession of sth. as an end to itself. The same is currently happening with my goals.
Then it crossed my mind that I should focus more on happiness itself and that it was premature to assume every action would result in the same happiness level. This is where I am as I write this post, and as I begin to reconstruct my inner world I shattered with my doubt (reminds me of Descartes). The more contradictions I can resolve, the better...

I welcome feedback, do you have any opinion on this or any life experience that could help me here? Please share your thoughts!

 

@FreedomIsHere I don't think the relapse was the problem, it just was the cause to explore my inner conflicts which I ignored before. Keep on going won't work as I'm currently indifferent to PMO-abstinence. If I don't know what I want I can't judge if PMO-abstinence is a step towards it or not. Also, I started with PMO relatively late (MO: 14, PMO: 16) and I can tell you your problems won't magically disappear if you do not have that habit. I bet there are (as example) a lot of alcohol addicts that think they will be happy beings if they do not consume alcohol. I do not consume alcohol and still I do not consider myself happy. Focusing on getting rid of that habit alone in blind belief that it will solve problems not connected to it, or barely connected to it, is escapism to me, to avoid having to deal with the "big" questions. PMO-absistence is no end in itself to me, and if there is no goal to which it could function as a means, it is worthless to me.
I probably won't start another reboot unless I know what I want and PMO-abstinence is a step in that direction.

@AyyyyLmao Thank you for your support! I'd like to know what is your way to deal with these questions, and what stops you from deeming your choices irrelevant. I know for a fact that common methods include
- just ignoring the questions, which could backfire in the end as the problems are never resolved
- having more urgent life problems, which can stop questions like those from coming up. This doesn't make it better.
- some mechanism to outsource your responsibility, like religion, which is a form of escapism to me (I know there is more to it, but in this aspect it is just like that)
- defining arbitrary goals which are not questioned (plus a belief that reaching those goals will make you permanently happier), and repeating the process after those goals are either reached or not reached. This is what I did before, in mix with ignoring the questions, and now I have problems with continuing it.
One of the toughest parts is that I have reached a new level of insight, and, as it always feels when you do (at least for me), it feels like you see the (ultimate) truth and are disappointed, and there is no way back. My hope is that there is a level above which will give me goals and/or a meaningful life again.

 

While this is a popular opinion, I can't make too much sense out of it. The self is changing quickly and the concept of a stream of conciousness, opposed to the concept of one self, doesn't exist eithout reason. In the process of mastering the crisis I would need to change and with that also my perception of what makes sense to me will change. I can't predict the future, so I can't know if it will make sense to me. Right now nothing makes sense to me but I think this will change again, so I try not to obstruct too many possibilities.

You are right that impatience is one of my weaknesses, yet I think this impatience is somehow justified. Currently "keeping going" would seem ridiculous to me as it implies that my problems will be solved by doing that and I would be able to redefine happiness. On what ground can I assume that this is going to happen? If someone who was in my situation tells me that PMO-abstinence makes one happier permanently, I might do it. Most people here come here (as I did) with the goal to kick the PMO-addiction, which is then seen as an intrisically meaningful goal. To me, it isn't anymore. If I had a "target function" in life, it would probably involve kicking the addiction. Just the way it has been all my life, if I continue and maybe make 1 year without, I'm happy for a few hours or a day, if at all, and then everything is back to normal and I'm griefed by other troubles. I don't see why PMO-abstinence should help me.
On a more abstract level, your method here seems to be (please forgive me if I understand it wrong): Do something of which you assumed before that it would help you and continue until it helps you.
My method rather is (or has become): Before you set an aim, ask yourself if it makes sense in view of your "overall life plan".
Since I currently have no "overall life plan", all aims are therefore irrelevant. My method will probably change over time, but I don't think I will go back to the method that you described (at least from my understanding) becaus

I think I should be happy. If I could control to be happy, I would be happy almost all the time. Fact is, that I am not happy and try to change that. I'm interested, does trying to be happy for you. If yes, can you share your secret? I feel the higher my emotional control rises, the more neutral my state of mind gets, less sad, less angry, less ashamed, but also less happy.

That would imply I would be happy unaddicted, and I went through different levels of addiction and I think I have a rather lowish level of addiction right now, I've never really felt a difference. I don't think my only reason to exist is to satisfy my next urge, but rather that there is no reason to exist at all, at least objectively. But I always ignored that notion and just went on living my life. Now, I can't ignore it anymore, as that would just be delaying the problem.

 

I'm interested in reading about psychology indeed, lately. If I observe my mood and emotions dependent on various factors, I could find out more about what could make me happy. I don't know if a sense of community could help me. I partly reject the concept of communitites as a form of particularism.

 

Those books rather sound like they are helping to achieve something, or helping to build habits.

 

First of all, thank you all for your feedback. At first I wasn't sure if I should post it here, because I regarded NoFap rather as a community that wants to help an individual achieving the existing goals (in most cases PMO-abstinence), rather than getting through a phase without goals. I didn't know whereelse to post it though, and the feedback shows me this was the right place to post.

@Kiddy Your last question is very interesting. I also ask myself if I would be happier with more or less social contact, and I haven't asnwered that question yet. It seems that there is an evolutionary drive towards socializing, which is counteracted by inertia (at least in the internet era), sometimes the differences between other people and oneself and the fact that socializing can shift focus away from other issues. From my own experience I can tell that people who socialize more have less introspective and understanding of their own person, which is definitely needed to answer these questions (of course there are exceptions, but there is probably some correlation). Also Maslow's hierarchy of needs suggests that the singer in your example couldn't achieve esteem because of her isolation, but that the "higher" need of self-actualization is still possible and maybe even easier to achieve (?) when one is isolated. Right now I am shifted towards an answer that contact with people is helpful if it either is connected with another goal or to get a form of input for the own development, but shouldn't be seen as a goal in itself.
About PMO, I will probably try another reboot, just because I think it could help with a clearer mind and a clearer mind is needed to cope with these problems. If I then find an answer to some of the questions, I will be able to tell what to do with PMO or my sexuality in general.

@RyanRVA I will read it. It seems I first have to get used to it as it is written in its very own style. Why did the book influence you so much? Why did it make you feel like everything you learned was wrong? I've read a bit about taoism before and it was interesting in a few aspects, but not always convincing to me. I've had problems to relate with the dualism in taoism (for example yin and yang). I don't know what should point towards a fundamentally dualistic universe, other than maybe the high applicability of the negation as unary operator and the resulting dualism of an attribute and its negation.

@JustBert123 I haven't studied yet as I'm 17 years old. I still have read a lot about philosophy and I'm very interested in it. My latest idea was to try to solve the issue empirically by trying different concepts out and observing my happiness levels. It is quite unrealistic to acquire such a knowledge about oneself without any feedback that the top-down-approach I first wanted to find won't lead anywhere. Still, the question remains with which method I determine the concepts I test, without them being too arbitrary, and without missing concepts that one wouldn't have thought of initially but that yould help to increase the overall happiness permanently. I think I will start by meditating more as it creates a healthy distance from oneself that allows to view the situation clearer and with less distraction caused by emotions. I will also try actively to be happy in the moment, and see if that works. Also, when pursuing arbitrary goals, understanding the way there as the most important part. Using the lack of goals to accept situations that one would normally deem negative as neutral, by continuously asking "What is so bad about it?" or something similar, finding out that the only bad thing about is is that one thinks it is bad. Maybe also giving up the concept of "me and I" as I feel it makes me project the reality on a created self-image more often and in many cases leads to unhappiness. More focus on what I am doing and less being distracted. Striving for knowledge, too, as increasing my understanding was maybe the least primitive enjoyment of all primitive enjoyments in my life I will slowly try to implement those, and while I doubt it will be fully satisfactory due to not being able to answer the "deep questions", I could very well see that it leads to some kind of improvement. If not, I will try out some other concepts, and apply the scientific method to see which suit me best.

 

To me, these are just some paradoxical sentences. I can't let a book (or any source) teach me without questioning it, although there are degrees of questioning depending on how credible the source is to me. I'm just very much a science guy
Apart from this, I can relate to some of this. The first paragraph could mean that you first need to accept how things are before you can change. Some other parts also make sense to me, but I can't grasp why that book should be the ultimate truth.

The first part reminds me of Freud's theories, where he claims some form of sexual energy, which he called eros, is produced, but it can be sublimed and used in other non-sexual contexts.
How did you practice this kind of sublimation? It would be pretty useful to be able to do that.
Why should I offer my attention to other people? I don't think they really need it, they could also get other people's attention. Is this an ethical duty is Taoism? Do I have any benefits from dealing more with these people?
If I let go of emotion, how am I capable of love which allows to perceive according to you? If I am capable of loving, why should I do it?

 

@inthenow650
If I understand you correctly, you say that helping people and not being self-centered cures a person mentally, or at least helps changing the personality in a positive way. Why is that? Do you see it as a kind of balance between interior and exterior, or as positive distraction? What would keep a self-centered person from being happy? Do you think the social contacts are that fundamentally important for the well-being?

 

Some thoughts came up after some reflection and reading a lot of articles (mostly Wikipedia) in the internet...
I'm actually quite sure right now there is no given sense of life, but there is either one to be found or to be created, and both only works individually. I had problems with this concept because I always prefered objectivity, and thought my own person should play no role in answers to such questions. From math I was used an answer existed (even if that answer meant there was no solution or that the issue is not solvable) and, more importantly, the answer was not depending on my person, or if it was, there was a definite set of variables with which something is solvable. Not sure if that made sense, but with the task to find or create a sense of life with endless possibilities, everyone being infinitely arbitrary, and knowing I would question this sense all the time because of its arbitrariness, I knew this won't be easy, and felt like in a giant nothing because I had to throw away everything that helped my decisionmaking. This time I really want to solve the issues instead of repressing them over and over and therefore just living on as if nothing happened. I feel this inner conflict is one of the reasons I am not happy. However, I fear that if I don't find a positive response, I will have to live with repressing the senselessness all my life. I can't imagine a life with nihilism and/or amoralism where I can accept it and don't need to repress it.
I also want to find out more if I have a social need and if yes, how to satisfy it best, because it could very well be that I ignored this need in the last years. The main reason for this was that differences between other people and me increased and if it was not connected to a non-social goal, social interaction was futile from my point of view. I also didn't know how to spend so much time doing nothing. To me, social activity was always a "half-activity" that could be combined with another or multiple "half-activities", such as not actively listening to music, playing non-demanding games, doing unpleasant boring activities that had to be done, just anything that didn't need any focus and where more focus on one activity could even lead to boredom.
I've also thought a bit about the relation of truth and happiness. Would I live a life based of a false premise to be happier? I'd say no, but that might be because the increased happiness could go away if you figure out that the premise is false, so the average long-term happiness is greater. If we guatantee the average long-term-happiness would be guaranteed, would I sacrifice truth for happiness? I don't know, but if the answer is no, my entire concept "How to get happier?" could be wrong.
I will have to think about all of this more...