simply don't get it

I simply do not get the way the world works.
First, cars, buildings, technology, anything, really, comes out of people.
Now, most take this in stride, but I can't wrap my head around it. It seems like some kind of colossal joke.
To further complicate it, the people who create from their thoughts the physical world around us, cars, buildings, etc, have at a certain point no knowledge they will do such, or, this really gets me, even the mental ability to create these things.
What I mean is, innovations, etc, we now take for granted, we ourselves who came up with them, could not have even imagined them not that long ago.
These facts don't seem to phase anyone.
It feels to me that, due to this, anyone with any job, teaching, doctoring, writing, etc, is really only capable of walking and talking, and all these things they claim to have created, they are deluded about.
Now, there is a Buddhist school of thought that reality as we know it's an illusion.
Sometimes I think that, and sometime is think I am insane to think these things. I think somehow it is true that people use their minds to create the world and their own future, the same mind that can't predict hat future, and either way, I know if I just thought like most everyone else, my life would be different.
Perhaps worse, but at least not feeling frozen and detached, and feeling as if I was watching another dimension through some portal, when everyone else sees me as like them, living in their world.
Does anyone else ever think this way, feel this way?
It would help greatly to know I'm not alone.

My dear friend,

I did have such thoughts, but I realised that they were only making me more progressively depressed. Let me tell you a few things I did to change:

- Stop thinking so much.
If you feel that you are about to embark on such thoughts as the ones you have mentioned in your post, then do something else to avoid them (put on music, go for a walk, or call someone)

- Be more 'ad-lib'
Do things without thinking and be as natural as you can. Thinking too much about how the world works will always be a depressing thing to do. The world IS a terrible place, but you are here for now and had better do your best to enjoy it.

That's all that I have to say.

Good luck
Kevin

You are clearly a person who thinks deeply about things. It's fine except for one thing... It's doing your head in! Enough things come up in life that cause us distress anyway, so please stop adding to that by doing it to yourself! All that time spent thinking and being distressed by the pointlessness of it all, could instead be time spent doing activities that may make you feel better or at least not make you feel worse. X

They say ignorance is bliss for a reason.....

I'm not sure if I'm tuned in to the same channel you are but I often wonder if we really get the knowledge that our society is built off of, could it really be explained to an alien, say for example how a plastic bin gets to every store in town for $2. Sometimes I wonder if we were someone else looking in, how the way our world works would be viewed (I don't recommend this, the results aren't great!) but I do *try* to apply it to my life - like we in north america put our babies to sleep by themselves in their own room in the house and if they cry we try to teach them to get over it. Seriously? Not happening in my house.

I try to compartmentalize these thoughts in time. I give myself sometime each day to work on my gender. I give my self some time each week to think of humans and planet earth (often gardening because my hands are in contact with nature and I can't help but think about it).

I like the existential argument that everything each of us do is for all of humanity. I had trouble wrapping my head around it at first but if you think about it everything that humans are able to do, or that we have created, or that are a result of our existence is because of individual people and things they do alone or in groups. So the good is that if you think about it hard enough you can also see what magnificent creatures we are despite the crap. And for you to see this and acknowledge, rationalize and think these things in my mind makes you even more magnificent. Not a lot of our species are capable of this!

But the brain is vulnerable, so try to limit if you can!

honestly, asking yourself these questions isn't a bad thing. If you look at today's society and feel that something doesn't seem to be right, its because in a way, you're right.

There's a big paradox of things that people don't take their time to realize. We have more knowledge than ever yet people are more narrow-minded and have less patience. We spend more yet we have less. We have bigger houses but smaller families. More education but less judgement. More diplomas but less common sense. We spend but we dont think.

Think about it.

I guess its about purpose. People do things but they fail to see the purpose behind it. People live their lives but never ask themselves what is their real purpose of life. Some will make up a purpose but that doesnt means its the one that they should follow.

Interesting take on the world. As an engineer I have a great appreciation for the marvels the minds of so many have created. Your claim of people not being phased by this is correct. Technology is almost entirely overlooked only ten years after it is first released. Look at flight, cars, internet, TV, microwaves, electricity, etc. It is not as though they are not wonders, it is that the average person really couldn't care less about how much engineering goes into a turbine on an aircraft. They are concerned with making their next flight, or the crying kid next to them. I find comfort in realizing the complexity of the world. Knowing that I am so fortunate to fly, freaking fly, in a matter of hours to anywhere in America is a marvel.

Not to shoot down those that simply say think less, but I don't think I can. I have found one way of mitigating my endless thoughts of the world, or my tendency to disconnect. During periods of time where my minds\ seems ablaze with thought, endless confusion, or severe disconnection, I make my best attempts at writing. I cannot tell you how limited my thoughts actually end up being. Despite how anxious I might have thought myself, or how intense I would think on a subject, my writings would rarely go over ten pages in a night. Writing brought my complex and jumbled thoughts into the room with me. It is near impossible to consider ten pages of words and thoughts in your mind, despite how intelligent one may be. writing makes it simple. Don't worry about others, grammar, spelling, whatever, just write. I am a terrible writer, but manage to use my limited vocabulary and sense of structure to its fullest.

I hope you can find some form of expression that can convert your thoughts into something tangible. I believe it will help you. Good luck,

Thanks for the replies. One of you mentioned feeling disconnected. That is exactly how I feel 24/7 365. I know that is why, unlike everyone else I seem to come across, I do not have the ability to change my life.
It simply amazes me how people go from being one thing to another, say from being unemployed or underemployed to a college student to someone with a degree making 50 grand a year doing something that fulfills them creatively and intellectually.
And not only that, but the fact that when they were unemployed or underemployed, they had no idea their life was going to take such a radical turn, indeed, they at a certain point had no idea they were going to go about changing their life, or that they even wanted to, yet, when all is said and done, in retrospect, the attitude is always "I changed my life because I chose to."
Maybe I'm not explaining it right but the point is the world works a certain way that I just don't get, and because I don't I am left out of what everyone else seems to take for granted: The ability to fulfill potential, the ability to change lives.
All I seem to be capable of doing is treading water, staying afloat, and I barely can do that. I need assistance with the basics of life just to keep a roof over my head.
This is especially disheartening for me, as I have SO much potential: looks, talent, intelligence. When I bemoan the gap between who I am inside and the life I lead, everyone invariably says "Well change your life. If you are unhappy and have this potential then change things."
Well, if I even remotely felt the ability to participate in my own life, instead of feeling it was a weird waking dream I had no control over, then I certainly would do that.
I think the one person's advice to not think so much was best. Maybe I have developed a higher conscious, seeing things that are there that others refuse to see. Maybe I'm crazy.
Either way, I am here in this world, stuck with this life, such as it is, and if I am trapped, the more I think about it the only thing it will accomplish is to get me more depressed.
So, I'll just pray for a miracle and try to keep my mind free of so much thinking in the meantime.

When i try to change my life, i tend to screw it up instead. lol i see things differently to how a lot of some people do too... and it doesn't work too well for me... so i figured, i have to change some things about me first, before i can change my life. maybe there are unresolved issues preventing you from being able to "just get on with it" as people might suggest. give yourself a break, and a chance.

Thanks, but although there are probably things about myself that need changing (who can't say that!)
the main problem as I have come to realize is the fact I have this overwhelming, persistent feeling of disconnection.
Everywhere I go, whatever I do, I feel like Scrooge in a Christmas Carol. In the various scenes, but not really there at the same time.
So, since not existing in the real world, therefore unable to make changes in the real world like others do, that would change my life.
I read books, watch movies, tv, etc, and realize that none of these things exist in a vacuum. They were all created by people.
People who like me grow older and have bills to pay, etc.
There's a strong feeling that somehow they can produce these things while going about their daily lives, but I can't.
There is a state of mind I'm in, where I wake up, have a long, long dream, no matter what happens, no matter who talks to me, that I am sleepwalking, not affected by or affecting anything around me, until the moment I lay my head down on the pillow and go to sleep.
I know the daydreams I have and the dreams I have are not reality, but they feel much much more real than the actual physical reality I encounter while awake.
I listen to people that have achieved things in their life, and realize they weren't always this person.
They have talent, intelligence, and ambition, like me, but, unlike me, they are mentally connected to the world around them in a way I am not.
That is how people claim responsibility for the changes in the world around us, and the changes in their own lives.
They don't know the future, yet, somehow, they are able to create it in their lives.
I am flabbergasted by this. It seems most are not, and that's the difference between them and me, and why, with all my potential, I am barely existing. Lousy jobs, no romance, etc.
If there were just some pill that would slam me into the same reality most seem to live in. I might have books out there, or at least a job that's better paying and more suited to me, and a little romance in my life.