I remember when I was young, it suddenly really hit me: I’m going to die. That means that for an eternity I’ll not exist in the same way I didn’t exist before I was born. How could that be?! I was terrified of non-existence, of the sheer length and breadth of it, and what it really meant. I can’t say that I’ve ever really gotten over it, but I live with it. At the time I could hardly sleep, I became anxious and depressed.

To me, that’s the ultimate face of an existential crisis; confronting the reality of what our existence is. We’re almost unbelievably brief sparks in an endless darkness that didn’t notice our arrival and won’t notice our departure. What does it mean? Nothing really.

For some I guess the solution is believing that they’ll live forever in one way or another. For me it meant not thinking about a grim reality that saps joy from life, and just focusing on the people I love, the time we have together. It might not be ideal, but it’s what we have. What is an existential crisis? IMO it’s what hits when you when reality starts to seep into you in some small way. Maybe it’s mortality, or the absurdity and arbitrary nature of human endeavors, or something else.