The Meaning of Life

Delete post, please. Why do I bother? Probably just to see words in a different way.

I want to steal from him for my own fiction as much as possible! Ha ha.

We do and that's the point. We construct whole systems for the purpose of escaping death and the deeper symbolism behind sex.
Fucking we can cope with, sex we can't. We're mortally afraid of these things. Show me the apes who a) comprehend that fear the way we do b) build structures to escape it and c) talk about it on the internet. Fear is meaning. It qualifies our activities like death qualifies life.

Jimmy's right in that last post I think. I also think there's a word of warning to be uttered: don't join a religious group, don't use your insight to form a religious group. No-one can be persuaded to see it this way, they have to be dropped into it by circumstance. Persuasion is completely beside the point. Even those who say they understand usually don't - especially those who say they understand. Religion is a cavalcade of con artists and their dupes.

We don't.

We construct whole systems for the purpose of escaping death and the deeper symbolism behind sex.

You admitted that we don't. Systems and symbols disguise fucking and death.

and x-post - what the music mole said.

Fucking we can cope with, sex we can't.

It takes a strong person to cope with 'fucking' - basically that person needs love or society tells that person that they need love to continue fucking. You built a contradiction in those words, fucking is sex.

We're mortally afraid of these things. Show me the apes who a) comprehend that fear the way we do

Comprehension is fear.

b) build structures to escape it and

Fucking and death are the only real things to live. Structures are escapism.

c) talk about it on the internet. Fear is meaning. It qualifies our activities like death qualifies life.

Fear as meaning, I don't buy. Fear gives us ability to think that we are more than fucking and dying.

Life would be worthless without these things. You'd feel nothing.
You would be unable to enjoy music or literature. Feel love, joy.
These are forms of vital energy/intelligence. Without them you really would be an ape.

We do and that's the point.
We don't.

We construct whole systems for the purpose of escaping death and the deeper symbolism behind sex.

You admitted that we don't. Systems and symbols disguise fucking and death.'

Err symbolism is present as soon as intelligence is. You seem to be suggesting 'real' life is untrammelled animalistic experience. That's....unbelievable.

suicides of people you vaguely knew in a small town where you grew up.

Deepest commiserations Jimmy.
This really says it all.

I'm rambling because it struck me - I'm writing this book see, you know, its got alot about death in it - sort of a Bret Easton Ellis rewrite of Death and Denial and it threw me, if I was thrown into panic with regards of the death of a classmate I barely knew - who was I to write about death and fucking in even a vaguely comedic sort-of-way?

That's what I want to find out, Pete.

That's beautifully put, Pete. Truly it is.

"This is Freud / Lacan.

Maybe love is that supreme fiction, and hence consolation, in the face of sex and death."

'Everybody knows that you've been faithful give or take a night or two'

Perhaps, art, like love, is the supreme fiction.

The very activity of creating art (which is a response to sex fear and death) reveals the necessity, the ecstasy of these things.
Creation solves the painful lack of purpose we seem to feel in life.
That's why we do it constantly, because we're meant to.
If there is a creator, does this reveal his motivations?

If I were him, I'd think, "Aw, Jesus! Another fresh-faced, wet behind the ears, college kid. What did I do to deserve this? OK, I can either take him by his hand and explain him a few things, or I can toss him back in the pool and let him swim on his own. Fuck it. I ain't got the time for this crap." His answer indicates he felt much the same as this.

And the original question at the bottom was 'cheeky' - quoting Alfie at the bottom of a wondering email about death is not what I think - err ... me asking specifically What is the meaning of life.

If I were him, I'd think, "Aw, Jesus! Another fresh-faced, wet behind the ears, college kid. What did I do to deserve this? OK, I can either take him by his hand and explain him a few things, or I can toss him back in the pool and let him swim on his own. Fuck it. I ain't got the time for this crap." His answer indicates he felt much the same as this.

Naw. I actually took offence to this. He's not ilxor.com, you know. He's a pretty cool guy.

But then you realize you won't be able to afford a Don't Worry t-shirt and suicide is imminent.

But that's alright, since you can control your fears and thus don't worry about death.

Warm kittens.

Ge over it.

Fuck, kill, lie, cheat, hate, love, care, don't care, help others, beat the fuck out of the next person you see, help old ladies across the road, whatever.

It's up to you. None of it makes any difference to anything.

Mei is my third doppleganger....

But really, life IS what you make out of it: you can't wait for others to bring happiness to you. It takes sheer will to succeed, as well as a sprinkle of luck. Patience (which I've been told I ain't got, but I'm working on....)

The Meaning of Life is for sale on ebay, limited time only

The auction html looks pretty cool though right? I just don't know how to advertise it. Aol (or any online news source) needs to do an article on silly things that have sold for a lot on cheddar on E-Bay. Then they can mention The Meaning of Life is now on sale and put a link to it. Are any of you all internet journalists?

I knew a dude who ripped up a piece of paper a bunch of times and sold the little shredlets on ebay as magic paper. I think he said something like "This paper helped me get through some tough times."

i have been struggling with this. i mean, i think most people struggle with this, right? but although it's always present in the back of my mind, at times it dominates and drops a bleak layer over absolutely everything, if only because i can never find answers that are convincing. the most recent bout has probably come up through a weird combo of reading a bunch about AI and machine learning and superintelligence (yeah i know, roll your eyes) along with deaths and severe illnesses of friends that are older and younger and the same age as me, my grandma slipping away, just...lots of reminders of mortality. all of that, along with religious unbelief, which takes away many of the answers that seem to exist for most other people.

i feel like the magic 8-ball says "all signs pointing to no meaning in life". adopting a nihilistic view seems to be one logical endpoint of living in today's world, but it's still a dark road to travel. nihilism can be a narcotic that emphasizes whatever emotional trend you're currently on. it pairs relatively well with stability and ambition and creativity, but when one of the legs of that stool gets kicked out things can go downhill quickly.

if there is meaning, is it found in helping others or in helping yourself?

outward seems to be the first place to look: being in love, being a part of a family, having children. helping other people, being generous to someone, improving someone's life through your work. i believe that creative pursuits are valuable in and of themselves - that something can be art even if it exists in isolation (not everyone agrees with that), or at least, without the validation of others - but there's no denying the wave of emotion you feel when you finally share it with others, especially if their reaction is positive. all of those things are lovely and addicting. and maybe they really are the source of meaning, if not for me, for many others.

even if there is meaning to be found in the outside world, maybe everything still eventually comes back to making yourself feel good. because even if you find meaning in improving the lives of others, isn't at least part of that good feeling (if not all of it) arising because helping others makes YOU feel better as a person? i can see that working for some people, but it just seems so circular and ultimately empty. and just to totally discredit myself in the eyes of some, what if we had a better understanding of what makes us feel good, chemically, or via some sort of AI augmentation, and it was possible to just permanently check out by connecting to a dripfeed of Life(TM)? it's an extreme example, duh, but i doubt anyone would point to the blissed out zombie and think that the person had found the purpose of living.

or maybe it's just that although there is no inherent meaning in living, we're able to create it for ourselves? and some people find meaning through belief, while the rest of us sorry souls have to try to generate it for ourselves? in which case, i guess i'm screwed because i can't find it?

is the meaning of life found in the journey itself, or some similar bullshit? ugh

this all reads very gloomy. sorry, i didn't mean for it to be like that. i think there are probably more positive ways to talk about all this. so basically, can someone give me something to believe in, and in return i will worship you as my personal lord and savior, thanks. i suppose the more realistic option is just to continue to avoid thinking about it as much as possible, but the results of that strategy have not been promising lately.

don't say 42

reference images: Lonely guy just thinking baout things

I've accepted "no meaning" as the answer. But "no meaning" = "create your own meaning" and it's the latter that I find daunting, especially being a parent and feeling some sense of responsibility to provide meaning for my kids until they're old enough to handle "no meaning." Which I guess suggests a certain limited kind of meaning -- the responsibility I feel to my kids is meaning.

The problem is that nihilism is not really a system of meaning or belief, and really once you reach it, you can arguably fill the void with anything since all systems are equally meaningless. You can be a nihilist orthodox Jew, a nihilist radical islamist, a nihilist Unitarian, a nihilist new ager, etc.

Capitalism does well with nihilism, because being open to pretty much anything = lots of space for novelty and consumerism. Of course capitalism seems to find a way to adapt itself to almost any "system of belief" that isn't expressly anti-capitalist.

The place I always found the clearest sense of "meaning" is in music, especially music without words -- both listening and playing. I guess because something feels free of ambiguity about it given its lack of referential/linguistic meaning.

it's difficult to conceptualize of a unifying meaning to existence. in my life meaning has been relationships, love, (to the extent that i'll ever be able to understand it) truth, compassion and empathy, experience, and understanding and embracing my fundamental insignificance in relation to an infinite continuum of possibility blah blah.

it was at times difficult to accept/respect an utterly apathetic universe devoid of a metaphysical force that might define a common meaning for my life. ultimately though, i have found significant liberation in recognizing that my existence is simultaneously utterly/unfathomably remarkable and absolutely insignificant.

it's also, i'm finding, hard to define and hard to talk about without sounding like an asshole.

Camus figured this out guys

it is kinda funny this pops back up right after the "Burn After Reading" thread revive

man alive otm

KM you seem overly focused on religion? That's a bad trip IMO. Also I'm p sure that there's a nice comfy gap btwn "there's no package answer" and "o shit guess I'm a nihilist"

nihilism doesn't really permit the acknowledgement of something that feels like meaning in instrumental music, which is why I really think absurdism is more the thing

"this is all ridiculous and probably totally meaningless, but a defiant struggle to find meaning is all we can do" makes a lot more sense. nihilism in the EM Cioran sense makes a lot of sense up until the part where you don't just walk into the ocean and drown yourself

I don't even know about a defiant struggle to find meaning I mean what's admirable about that

Do like the general thrust of absurdism but feel that to attempt to adopt any actual aims or traits from any such strand of thought would essentially be breaking rule #1

I don't even know about a defiant struggle to find meaning I mean what's admirable about that

nothing. you're stuck with it though. roll the boulder.

Does everyone get a boulder? I don't feel like I've got a boulder tbrrwu?

karl, a good question is probably why do you even need to entertain the existence or nonexistence of meaning in life. but i'd say find the root of what drove you to write your post in the first place. there might be some more clues there?

over the shoulder boulder holder

I don't require meaning.

meaning isn't so much found, which implies it is both hidden and external, as it is created through engagement with life. just like spiders spin spider webs, people create stories out of their experience and these create meaning for them.

when you are experiencing life as empty and meaningless, it is generally because you are telling yourself a story about life which endows it with emptiness and denies it has meaning. you are generating that story, just as much any other story you might tell yourself -- and through the telling of it, that emptiness becomes real and, in a perverse way, becomes the "meaning of life" for you.

once you see the trick, you become free to change that story to something less empty, or alternatively you can find emptiness less threatening, because it is just a story you're telling yourself.

Oddly otm

people create stories out of their experience and these create meaning for them

this seems pretty similar to Joss Whedon's answer to a meaning of life question at comic-con - http://io9.com/joss-whedon-just-explained-the-meaning-of-life-to-us-1717277218

“You think I’m not going to, but I’m going to answer that. The world is a random and meaningless terrifying place and then we all—spoiler alert—die. Most critters are designed not to know that. We are designed, uniquely, to transcend that, and to understand that—I can quote myself—a thing isn’t beautiful because it lasts.”

Whedon added that “the main function of the human brain, the primary instinct, is storytelling. Memory is storytelling. If we all remembered everything, we would be Rain Man, and would not be socially active at all. We learn to forget and to distort, but we (also) learn to tell a story about ourselves.”

meaning isn't so much found, which implies it is both hidden and external, as it is created through engagement with life. just like spiders spin spider webs, people create stories out of their experience and these create meaning for them.

when you are experiencing life as empty and meaningless, it is generally because you are telling yourself a story about life which endows it with emptiness and denies it has meaning. you are generating that story, just as much any other story you might tell yourself -- and through the telling of it, that emptiness becomes real and, in a perverse way, becomes the "meaning of life" for you.

once you see the trick, you become free to change that story to something less empty, or alternatively you can find emptiness less threatening, because it is just a story you're telling yourself.

― Aimless, Wednesday, November 18, 2015 8:29 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I sometimes wonder if it's not the absence of meaning but the "fall" from meaning that makes people feel sad and empty -- I was raised conservative Jewish and spent a lot of time in synagogue and generally thinking about religious things, even though I started questioning them pretty early. Once the whole thing either felt no longer tenable to me or just clashed too much with other received ideas I had, I pretty much dropped it, and now I sort of dip my toes in on occasion just because it's something to do and because I have kids. Of course religion itself is an exercise in creating meaning from chaos -- after all, I don't think the OT is exactly an internally consistent text or even coherent taken as a whole.

once you see the trick, you become free to change that story to something less empty, or alternatively you can find emptiness less threatening, because it is just a story you're telling yourself.

I don't think it's esy just to change the story.

Also, meaning is not just generated at the individual level; there are narratives constantly generated by society as well that impact on all of us e.g. what it means to be male, female, single, what constitutes 'normal' etc.

man alive, Tombot, Aimless, Joss Whedon OTM.

I'm trying to get to a place where I stop mentally affixing a 'MORTALITY DISTRACTION' label to everything. I don't think there's any meaning on a cosmic level, but I'm pretty sure there's more to be found within my own self/life/sphere. Everything is meaningless, everything is absurd, everything is beautiful (in it's own way).

Now reading The Looming Tower, and one of the things that strikes me about the narrative of Qutb's religious awakening is how willful it seems to have been, like he made a *decision* to have the awakening. I also think that our generation(s) of Americans and Europeans tend to feel very cautious about the idea of any such awakening, as we associate a lot of it with mass atrocities, whether communist, christian, islamist, or whatever. We fear absolutes and prefer to crouch in uncertainty.

I think everyone decides for themselves what their life means or has meant. That’s really the only way I can conceive of an answer to this question. For me, personally, a narrative or story isn’t the best way to approach this. That seems to involve making others complicit in something that so ultimately has to rest on you as an individual. This can get dark pretty fast if it feels like nothing in the world means anything at all. And then sometimes it can seem like a miracle that we even have meaning to begin with.

Laurie Anderson's new film includes the Wittgenstein quote, "I don't know why we are here, but I'm pretty sure that it is not in order to enjoy ourselves."

At a Q&A after the screening I went to Laurie quoted her Buddhism teacher to the effect that we are here "to have a very, very good time."

Your move.

I'm trying now to remember the name of the documentary film I saw at The Kitchen in Chelsea that was all about utopian thinking and distrust thereof, and I think I in fact saw Laurie Anderson in the audience (although that may have been at another thing at the Kitchen, I'm getting confused).

Laurie on Lou Reed: “Lou did give my life meaning […] A partner does that, and just defines you, much more than I thought. As I’m living without it, it’s very extreme..."

The meaning of life is to prepare yourself for the eternity in hell you'll be spending

^James Joyce's monsignor, ladies & germs

life is but a short Vorfreude before an infinity of glorious hell

I have started to prepare myself by meditating on the image of Christ/Satan while looking in the mirror.

I eat a strict regimen of canned cream of mushroom soup. My earthly skin will be sloughed as I descend into the depths of perdition and cleanse myself in the fire.

Soon I will be a miserable piece of excrement and regain the lost contact with mother filth.

Hail Satan.

My religion is like Hellraiser but with shit

I didn't understand the concept of "meaning of life" until... I dunno maybe my early 20s or something. I understood what was meant but did not get the urgency about it, seemed so obvious there was none - but so what? That's not how I feel about it now - and haven gotten the concept has made me enjoy a lot of art that revolves around this question. But anyway, I still think about not "getting" the question from time to time, and I feel it's not because I was a dumb teen (I was p clever actually :P) but because there's maybe sort of something... artificial or abstract to the question.

Anyway, to try and give another answer to the question along the lines of man alive and Aimless, what's the meaning of a game? Nothing outside the game - actually if you look at a football game or a game of chess or whatever from "outside", you can see the arbitrariness of all the rules and that the outcome of it doesn't matter much. But if you actually play the game you're likely to find it very meaningful, on an emotional and intuitive level - and you'll end up like Monty Pythons football philosophers if you stop and reflect on the rules too much.

And I see life kind of like that - the meaning of life, at least most of the time for me, is undeniable as long as you take part in it - but for good and bad it kinda disappears when you "observe" it from afar, which you do from time to time. Handy when you want to distance yourself from emotional pain but mostly just a mindfuck.

another v good post ^

I think in re the first part of your post, something has happened to me as I've gotten older where I feel like I'm a bit spent on the amount of meaning "mileage" I can get out of enjoyment of cultural products, like that whole Woody Allen laundry list of stuff from Manhattan as the meaning of life. Not that I've stopped enjoying cultural products, I just no longer find them satisfying as the center of "meaning" in my life.

Can't really agree with niels post, which seems to me to have a strong innately conservative element ('play the game and you'll find the meaning').

Society has a way of stacking the deck so that games are fixed and can be very unpleasant indeed for some players.

but for good and bad it kinda disappears when you "observe" it from afar, which you do from time to time.

True. I also believe that thinking about this type of question doesn't do much good. Live life, don't think about. That way lies madness etc etc. My pets don't worry about this shit and if you can combine that with the human ability to override some of your negative instincts (eg fear) and appreciate some of the things they can't (eg art, nature) that's the tits.

I don't think niels was implying that there is a single "The Game" in life, just that any system of meaning you choose is analogous to a game inasmuch as it has "meaning" within the confines of its closed system.

yeah that's what I was going for

but can understand if that may sound a bit privileged, it presupposes the game is endurable, but that's what my life's been like so far

sometimes it's fun to think about the meaning of life, but when it's not fun to think about maybe it's better to try and make the question seem less relevant than to answer the question

I feel like this question might have two distinct sets of answers for a) people with kids and b) people without kids.

it's boobs. the meaning of life is boobs.

I don't think it's easy just to change the story.

I agree entirely. Seeing past your present sight is never easy. But getting a good look at the mind's mechanism at work provides the basis upon which to begin. It lets you disengage from your innate belief in your current story and opens a path to a much different perspective.

Going back to Karl's post, it seems apparent that a primary reason for his questioning state of mind is mortality. We don't go on forever. That's a hard conclusion to evade, unless you adopt one of the religious narratives of reincarnation or of a life-after-death in a spirit world.

I can't offer much that's going to alleviate the sadness of knowing that people you love will die and you will die and our pets will die and every blessed thing you see alive today will die. imo, that sadness should not be avoided. But at some point it is necessary to fully, if intellectually, realize that corporeal life is unthinkable without corporeal death and then to grasp that spiritually speaking, their unity is a mystery beyond thought or words.

Laurie Anderson's new film includes the Wittgenstein quote, "I don't know why we are here, but I'm pretty sure that it is not in order to enjoy ourselves."

At a Q&A after the screening I went to Laurie quoted her Buddhism teacher to the effect that we are here "to have a very, very good time."

Your move.

― skateboards are the new combover (Dr Morbius)

this is p funny. in this story i picture laurie anderson as like an old miley cyrus or something

All I know for certain is that I know nothing for certain (except that Zep is the best band ever).

Some other ilx threads with relevant thoughts:

Death: Classic or Dud
Fear of Death

As to whether or not we're just here to enjoy ourselves, I'd just add that while I think everyone has to decide for themselves the meaning of their own life, judgment about that life lived is prob a different uh 'game' or whatever. Definitely not a self contained one. most definitely not

lots of great posts - i knew i was kind of making an ass out of myself in the revive but i was hoping to at least prompt substantive responses. i do like monster mash's response too, though!

KM you seem overly focused on religion? That's a bad trip IMO.
- d

I sometimes wonder if it's not the absence of meaning but the "fall" from meaning that makes people feel sad and empty -- I was raised conservative Jewish and spent a lot of time in synagogue and generally thinking about religious things, even though I started questioning them pretty early.
- man alive

yeah, i didn't mean to focus too much on religion in my post but i had a similar experience to man alive (substituting bluegrass glossolalic pentecostal for jewish) so it's kind inherently wound up in everything. i once thought i knew the meaning of life, and then when i ran away from religion, not knowing or caring about the meaning of life somehow felt like a heavy burden had been lifted. but as the realities of getting older start piling up (constant reminders of mortality, as aimless mentioned a few minutes ago), i find myself wanting to come to some sort of closure with some of the Big Questions that religions typically provide answers to. i mean, i know no one has the answers to these questions, or that the answer is probably that there is no answer. or that everyone has their own answer. but it still feels important to talk about and think through.

i was trying to sort out the ways that nihilism and absurdism overlap and differ, and thought this was a useful way of simplifying things (warning: this is just some IT security guy with a popular blog):

Existentialism is the belief that through a combination of awareness, free will, and personal responsibility, one can construct their own meaning within a world that intrinsically has none of its own.

Nihilism is the belief that not only is there no intrinsic meaning in the universe, but that it’s pointless to try to construct our own as a substitute.

Absurdism is the belief that a search for meaning is inherently in conflict with the actual lack of meaning, but that one should both accept this and simultaneously rebel against it by embracing what life has to offer.

In general, there are three ways of practically dealing with the situation.

Suicide due to life being ultimately meaningless and therefore either too boring or too painful
Embracing a meaning framework such as religion or spirituality
Acceptance of the lack of meaning, and living on in spite of it.

Perhaps he excluded it as impractical, but a lot of people opt for numbness.

Also, it's fairly limiting to suggest that a 'meaning framework' is only spiritual in nature. Family, community, art, expression, conservationism, stand-up comedy, Thai cookery, knot tying, pimping one's ride...literally anything (or combination of things) can be the focal point around which one constructs a meaningful existence.

ya take it where ya find it

I can't offer much that's going to alleviate the sadness of knowing that people you love will die and you will die and our pets will die and every blessed thing you see alive today will die. imo, that sadness should not be avoided.

This is sort of a bummer. I really really want to know how the story of humanity/Earth unfolds over the ensuing millions of years, but won't get more than another 60 yr glimpse at most. Thing that alleviates the sadness for me is I won't ever know I'm dead! "Man this dead thing SUCKS. Totally wish I was still alive, FUCK!!". Sure I'll prob know my time is winding down, but I'll prob always think "got at least one more day here". Or I'll be so decrepit I'll welcome death! Plus it's silly and pointless to detract from these 60 years by spending any part of that time bemoaning the fact that it's going to end. Like I hate the tendency to get mildly depressed about a vacation/trip having to come to an end and that fact tainting the enjoyment of its last couplefew days.

There is no such thing as hindsight when you don't exist. I'm going to enjoy myself as much as possible and strive to spend time bemoaning missed opportunities as little as possible. I certainly like creating things, so if I leave behind some form of art that I know has resonated for others than I will feel comfort that something I've made is going to last longer than I will.

i sympathize with that kind of thinking, but it's also one of the things that can lead to despair.i like creating things, too. at times i've entertained the notion that maybe that's the ultimate meaning of life, for me at least - to try to create things that others can find meaning in, and that might live on for a while after you pass away as a reminder of your existence. but god DAMN do things go south when you're not on a creative roll, or when you know you're not making anything good, or when no one cares or has a reaction. so it seems like a dead end to rely on something like art as a source of meaning when it can all fall apart so easily, and sometimes based on factors outside of your control.

Also, it's fairly limiting to suggest that a 'meaning framework' is only spiritual in nature. Family, community, art, expression, conservationism, stand-up comedy, Thai cookery, knot tying, pimping one's ride...literally anything (or combination of things) can be the focal point around which one constructs a meaningful existence.

and i think that applies to things like that, too. all of those things can fall apart (ESP. KNOT TYING!). and yeah, if they do, then one should seek out another interest or something that makes you passionate, and make that a new central part of your constructed meaning (and that's pretty much what i really do - i bounce around from interest to interest, always, on and on in 2-3 year cycles it seems). but noted normal person philip k dick had that saying about reality - that it's that which remains there even when you stop believing in it. and somehow i feel like there might be a corollary of that which applies to meaning, like there should be some source of meaning that exists and is there before you find it and stays there even after you leave. that's probably totally wrong, but it's my impulse to think that it should be there. that's where the religion thing comes in for a lot of people, i think, and although i rejected that path a long time ago i think that my restlessness comes from searching for that constant of meaning which probably isn't there.

welp looks like my hour is up so see you next week doc

Well, I was sincerely enjoying your twitch stream for one. Doing anything that has some effect on others is of significant value. I'm lucky enough to have gotten myself involved in a project that a lot of people are interested in, but I do know that it's tough to feel motivated or fulfilled when a project's not going well or isn't well received.

Just an unfolding, within an incomprehensibly greater unfolding.

Self is just a story our unconscious parts tell the conscious parts.

Gotama of the Shakyas was spot on with pragmatic approaches to alleviating our own mental discontents, as well as the suffering of other feeling unfoldings.

As I was telling my 90 year old mother a couple of days ago, now that we've been here, the universe won't ever be able to get rid of us entirely. She laughed, but she caught what I was saying.

Karl seems like your despair comes from ego, no? Ego death is a hard concept to wrap my head around but feel like every time I willfully try to at least tame it, the results are positive in many areas.

like the more thoughts you have that have "I" as the subject the more negative thoughts/emotions/actions/consequences you have

That's a truth bomb

have to wonder if Karl would have a different outlook if he had gotten that championship ring :(

The contemplation of the immensity that contains us makes us all the more aware of how puny we are. This may be wounding to our ego, but it also enlarges our soul, because the ego has been put in its place at long last. It has stopped taking up all the room.

meh, i guess if that works for you

BTW Karl you mentioned AI and I think the threat of AI is very ego-wounding! It's all about machines surpassing humanity and making us seem kind of quaint and useless.

ACCELERATIONISM

I hit a wall with this shit a few years back and ultimately came to the conclusion that, yes, ego death/suppression is key to digging yourself out. It's a bit of a blow initially to acknowledge one's own insignificance and the extent to which one's feelings about this shit really don't ultimately matter, and it isn't particularly conducive to being a functional member of society in a day-to-day sense, but it can be liberating if you set some time and space aside to let the "I" fade away now and then.

A good first step, I found, is letting go of the idea of being right. Ever, about anything.

I hope you're not a bridge builder!

Only of emotional bridges.

is there a non-Tolle book on being less I-focused (or what it's called) anyone can recommend? I'm sure The Power of Now is a good book but can't get to much with (what I experience as) his whole I AM SO SMART thing.

Another thing that I am finding fascinating in my reading about Qutb and his brand of Islam (admittedly, via a pop writer rather than in his own words or via academic work), is his desire for a kind of total system -- Islam as not just a religion but a system of governance, as something that pervades and dictates basically every aspect of life. I think there is a part of me that can relate to this desire for a complete, closed, internally consistent system, but thankfully I have other aspects of my personality that keep that in check. There is definitely an emotional component to the kind of meaning we tend to seek out.

sorry i've been shrooming for 3 to 5 hour-years now, losing sight of the ego dudes

seems foolish to try to place my wants and desires (for order, for meaning, for beauty etc) onto the universe. i guess that aspect of buddhism rings true to me ie let go of desires. just take it how it is and be content with that rather then trying to shoehorn it into what you think will make you happy and fulfilled.
also think it's folly to have your personal creative outlets dependent on other people's reactions to them for them to be worthwhile and fulfilling to you. if you enjoyed creating the thing but no one else gives a shit...you shouldn't give a shit about their non shit-giving! drumming is fun ~in the moment~ and that should be enough.

I don't think Karl or I meant to emphasize that aspect of motivation for creative outlets over others. Karl covered it a bit more thoroughly "but god DAMN do things go south when you're not on a creative roll, or when you know you're not making anything good, or when no one cares or has a reaction". It was merely one motivation. Context is important; if you're creating a video game and your motivation comes from the idea that others will enjoy it, reactions are directly relevant.

True. Feel that depending on others to give you meaning/fulfillment is a bad course tho. The process of creating the game should be fun and fulfilling in itself. Otherwise...there's that ego again. Hey everyone appreciate me and what I do or I'll be depressed. I don't see any way to consistent and long-term well-being/fulfillment with that outlook. Not saying it isn't a good feeling to be appreciated and we don't all like that. But whether someone likes the video game or not, you're still alive and well, there's no injuries or scars other than emotional ones which are due to...ego. I dunno, I guess I'm not big on needing a creative outlet to begin with, for well-being to be dependent on that. To be alive and fascinated by so many things and interacting with the world and people and animals and tacos, roof over head, food in belly, having "freedom", a better standard of living than 99.9% of people who ever existed...who am I to demand more than that out of life.

Like if getting in creative slump makes things go south...seems like the better solution would be to decouple creativity from "going south", rather than trying to "improve" yourself so that you're always on a creative roll. even the greatest creative geniuses in history had lulls or just lost their mojo altogether.

not trying to criticize anyone...just hate hearing/seeing people beat themselves up over so many things. /stuart smalley

is there a non-Tolle book on being less I-focused (or what it's called) anyone can recommend? I'm sure The Power of Now is a good book but can't get to much with (what I experience as) his whole I AM SO SMART thing.

Have you heard of this thing called Buddhism?

Is that the one with Buddha?

on being less I-focused

Download every Alan Watts "dharma talk" you can find. I have around 120 hrs from a torrent binge a few months ago.

One thing I was reminded of today -- don't completely deprive yourself of pleasures, because the mind starts to go to dark places, at least mine does

Listening to Watts is a good move. For every nine things where you're like, uh yeah figured that out when I was a teenager dude, he'll throw in a tenth thing that swings your brain all the way around.

Cool, will check it out.

I've heard abt Buddhism, yes, also taken part in a yoga/meditation retreat where I had the opportunity to speak w a zen "master", she was actually p cool - doing some synchretistic stuff though so wasn't orthodox Buddhist. Maybe should seek out more, any good reading advice?