“It’s a question of point of view. How can consciousness exist...

“It’s a question of point of view.  How can consciousness exist in a material world?  Perhaps consciousness is an illusion.  But if I perceive consciousness to be an illusion, then surely I must exist.  These questions give me so much anxiety.  I can’t stop thinking about them.  I’m not attentive when other people speak to me.  I forget to clean my room.  I don’t do my homework.  I can’t learn my lines in drama class.  It creates so many problems in my life.  My parents tell me: ‘You could win this award.’  Or: ‘You could easily make these grades.  But you don’t care enough.’  They’ve taken me to ten psychologists.  Never a diagnosis.  They just say that I’m a dreamer.  And in this world dreamer is not good.  Dreamer means child.  I need to become an adult and do material things.  So that I’m stable.  So that I can buy a house one day.  So that I’m not just living beneath a bridge, thinking these thoughts.  But it’s so hard to find the energy.  Before I begin I must know if life is absurd.  I can’t live in an illusion.  I want to be lucid.  I need to know that I’m doing things for a reason.  That I’m expending energy for a reason.  If death is the end of all this, and nothing but emptiness after that, then it’s a terrible problem.  It would be better to not exist than to exist in a world without meaning.”
(London, England)