Yes, I certainly have - and such things as angst, ennui, etc., are still things that haunt me - and I've come to think that they haunt everyone who has yet to take the blue pill...
Anyway, the largest one marked a crossroads in my life. At that time, I was either going to give up any will to live, or find some way to do something to address the source of the problem. I spent a lot of time in serious reflection upon my life, reconstructing it from my earliest memories, first with my usual attitude, and then, after remembering some things that brought me a glimmer of confidence, looking over my life again in light of THAT attitude. This process ultimately culminated in an epiphany that lead me to the next step I had to take.
I decided that I would do what I could to open up dialogue about the very problems which lead me to crisis - "How should one live?", "How can one lead a meaningful life?", "What direction should all this be headed in?", etc. To that end, I chose to return to school, study philosophy, where I met some like-minded people who are my companions in the mission to find/create meaning (not the 'every man for himself' individual meaning which is clearly insufficient, but a meaning that can be shared across humanity). I'm now in graduate school, on my way to teaching, so that I can extend the dialogue to others with similar experiences/concerns. I still don't have the answers, but genuinely working to do something about it has kept me from outright nihilism, and validated my concerns by letting me know that I am not alone in struggling with such worries, and they are a serious problem not to be dismissed - indeed probably the single most serious problem one can concern themselves over.
Anyway, the largest one marked a crossroads in my life. At that time, I was either going to give up any will to live, or find some way to do something to address the source of the problem. I spent a lot of time in serious reflection upon my life, reconstructing it from my earliest memories, first with my usual attitude, and then, after remembering some things that brought me a glimmer of confidence, looking over my life again in light of THAT attitude. This process ultimately culminated in an epiphany that lead me to the next step I had to take.
I decided that I would do what I could to open up dialogue about the very problems which lead me to crisis - "How should one live?", "How can one lead a meaningful life?", "What direction should all this be headed in?", etc. To that end, I chose to return to school, study philosophy, where I met some like-minded people who are my companions in the mission to find/create meaning (not the 'every man for himself' individual meaning which is clearly insufficient, but a meaning that can be shared across humanity). I'm now in graduate school, on my way to teaching, so that I can extend the dialogue to others with similar experiences/concerns. I still don't have the answers, but genuinely working to do something about it has kept me from outright nihilism, and validated my concerns by letting me know that I am not alone in struggling with such worries, and they are a serious problem not to be dismissed - indeed probably the single most serious problem one can concern themselves over.