How to: survive an existential crisis

Often people talk about having an 'existential crisis'- the definition of an existential crisis being 'the moment at which an individual questions the very foundations of their life; whether their life has any meaning, purpose of value.'

For me, it's never been that hard to accept ('it' being that the fact that anyone is alive is a complete accident and serves no purpose whatsoever)- one day I kind of 'realised', but I had known before that anyway.

I guess I've dealt with the whole 'my life is meaningless existence is purposeless are we even real?' thing quite efficiently- whilst I have no idea why I so readily accept the idea that even as I type these words they hold no meaning, it does put me in a position to give advice, in a way, or at the very least to tell you how I manage to go about my day to day life knowing that, like, the universe might not even exist.

There are not many things that we can know for certain, but I try to base my aims in life around things that I do know to be true

1. That I am alive, or living in some sort of imitation of life that it is close enough to be considered a life
2. That there are many other people who are also alive, or 'living' in a shared experience of 'life'
3. That there will continue to be life or 'life' in some form due to the infinity of the universe
4. (The universe is infinite)

(4. is not directly relevant, but it's just about my favourite thing to know. Consider- there will always be something more, something else)

From these observations I sat down and thought 'what should I do? How can I justify doing things? Can anything really ever be considered worthwhile?' And I thought 'yes', and this is how:

1. Yourself. You exist, or think that you exist and hence exist in some form, so aim to be happy. Aim to find enjoyment in the things you do in whatever way that you can.
2. Others. There are other people that exist similarly- billions of others. Try to help others in whatever way you can- whether that is by being a friend to someone or through education or charity.
3. Future. More people will exist in the future, and whilst you may not be there to see them, help them in whatever way possible. Build foundations for a better world.

This is starting to sound really silly now, and if I'm being perfectly honest the whole thing sounds way more pretentious on paper than it does in my head (the 'in my head' version is more of a 'do good stuff for you, others and the future the end') but I wanted to write it down, so I will live with it seeming pretentious.

Lastly, I would like to add a point- perhaps the most important of them all. You don't have to do this. You are alive, and you can chose to do whatever you want with your life. Don't want to, or can't help others? That's fine- everything you do is your choice, and more often than not our choices seem to be all that we have that show us that we are people. Please, if you are reading this, don't feel bad about yourself- you are alive and therefore you are perfect.

Anyway, there's my how to guide for how to exist in a meaningless world- I hope that you enjoyed it, and maybe even that it helps in some way.

-Orla

About videos

This is a post that I am writing after days (literally days! More than one day!) of frustration in trying to upload a video to YouTube. I will say this now- every problem that I have encountered has been entirely my fault.

Basically, I left in a five second clip of me saying 'this also applies to other people' that made absolutley no sense without the rest of the sentence that I had remembered to cut, so hence I took it out and started converting and uploading the file from scratch. It's probably going to be another hour before it uploads.

I like making videos. I really do. It's a flping pain in the ass as well, though. I now have a video making corner that I keep tidy in order to give the impression that my bedroom is also tidy, but before that I would have to tidy about half of my bedroom before making a video.

Also- clothes and hair and makeup, sometimes? I feel like I should be wearing either a bra or a massive jumper, my hair should look nice/clean (or else wear a hat) and my face should look like a face that someone would want to watch in a video. Not in an extreme way, but I normally wear some concealer (this was not an option yesterday as my sister STOLE MY CONCEALER AND WENT TO SCOTLAND) to avoid things like this video where I have a spot on my chin that looks super shiny and annoying. Ugh.

Then there's the talking bit. I'm not good at talking for the most part, and I always joke that if I posted an outtakes video everyone would simultaneously laugh at and pity me. For every sentence that I say, there are normally three or four takes of it, which makes editing a long and horrible process, and means that my videos are quite jumpy and the intonation of my speech often sounds really off.

Eye contact is also an odd one. I film on a camera on which the screen is on the back of the camera (like most?), so sometimes I position a small mirror behind it so I can see that I'm in the frame. The disadvantage to this is that often I look at the mirror (or above the camera) instead of looking into the camera lens, so that's not the best in terms of how the video turns out.

My current video is still converting now. Luckily I've got the thumbnail and description ready, so all I need to do is set it to upload while I have a shower and breakfast, and my new video should be available on my YouTube channel (Orla Blue) shortly after I am ready to begin the day!

So, so long! And thanks for reading a random self-criticism of my video making skills (well deserved, to be honest- I'm lucky to get here before someone else does). Hope that you enjoyed this instance of nonsense, and follow me on things for more like this!

-Orla Blue

First post?

It occurred to me after setting up the layout and design here that it might be, you know, a good idea to actually write something? Possibly?

So, here I am, writing. This blog can be classified as a nonsensical, rambling meaningless blog, by the way. I will probably write about ~topics~ at some point, but for now it's just another venting platform. Like tumblr wasn't enough.

Where am I at, at the moment? In my life? I'm about to finish my GCSEs (this blog was created purely as a method of procrastination, by the way), and after that I'm going to have a summer of on-off fun and social media. (The 'on' is when I'm not doing stuff, and then 'off' is when I'm on tour and doing the NCS thing. Such fun.)

I had an exam that I utterly messed up on Friday. I've sort of gotten over it though- it was the Ad Maths FSMQ, which means that although it's kind of crap that I did mess it up (I got 97% in my mock! How do you go from that to probably a D???) it actually bears no relevance to my college application (cause I've already got GCSE maths yay). Still, it was a shitty kind of feeling (you know, of absolute failure) but I'm starting to get over the whole thing and focus more on -not- focusing on my remaining two exams.

This morning I got to see the finished product of the film that Daisy and I were making for our leavers assembly- it's really awesome, and also our favourite teacher who left at Christmas sent a clip to be in the video, so it's pretty emotion as well...

I'm currently supposed to be editing a video that I recorded of an 'adventure' yesterday with some friends, but I can't bring myself to struggle with Windows Movie Maker's 'this file is in a format that cannot be recognised' every other minute. Also, I think there's only so long that I can stand looking at my face and listening to my voice.

That's all for this first post- a taste of the nonsense that will be frequently displayed on this blog, so (wait can you follow people on blogger?) do the thing that means you see my blog more, if it's following, or whatever it is. Fun.