The meaning?

innominating · 2017-12-26T19:57:33+00:00

I was once prone to deep, ruminating thought. I would think myself into despair and depression, just as it sounds like you have.

You have a core belief that will continually cause you pain: “Everything we do is insignificant, we are insignificant in the big scheme of things.” As long as you continue to mentally masterbate on that thought you’ll be fucked.

Give up the philosophical thought and live in the present. Be a simple man with simple pleasures and be happy.

snatch_haggis · 2017-12-26T20:25:14+00:00

And God created every living creature that now moveth, and one was man. Mud as man alone could speak. God leaned close as mud as man sat up, looked around, and spoke. Man blinked. "What is the purpose of all this?" he asked politely.

"Everything must have a purpose?" asked God.

"Certainly," said man.

"Then I leave it to you to think of one for all this," said God.

-- The books of Bokonon (Vonnegut)

I'm the best version of me yet in my life, but I have this ache inside, this question why?

I don't think there's a thing wrong with feeling that way in your 20s. You're looking for your mission, your purpose in life, why you're here.

Read Pook. Read Subtle Art of Not Giving a Fuck. Read Way of the Superior Man. Dig deeper. Zen Buddhism. Paolo Coelho. Dalai Lama. David Foster Wallace. Existentialism.

Take some philosophy courses if you're still in school. Or even if you aren't. Great way to meet college-age girls, too. :)

And enjoy the ride. That fact that you want a purpose and a path in life is a very good thing, don't try to suppress it.

My best advice to someone in their 20s, and the advice I wish someone had given me, would be that now is the time to burn everything down and start over any time it feels right.

You aren't saddled with a marriage, kids, a mortgage, a 401K, you can pull up stakes and go anywhere, the only thing stopping you is yourself.

So do it. Go on walkabout. Keep building yourself up and tearing yourself down until the true best version of yourself comes to light, and the mission will make itself apparent to you.

Keep asking yourself hard questions like this. Just realize the journey is the destination. I'm in my 40s and I still ask myself these kind of questions.

Don't get comfortable, push yourself, work hard, don't waste time on shallow people and partying, and don't ever stop looking for meaning. It will find you.

GargantuaBlarg29 · 2017-12-26T21:05:49+00:00

The meaning

Rian_Stone · 2017-12-26T20:39:05+00:00

I prefer MRP over TRP because it feels more mature

Starts off with a qualification. Do you really think so little of your post that you need to start off with an excuse?

fucked my relationship

This is something that would have been good to detail. Her getting mad is a lot different than charging you with a DV charge. One is fucked up relationshiping, the other is you being a sissy.

Everything we do is insignificant, we are insignificant in the big scheme of things. That is the harsh truth, but I can't shake the feeling that there should be something more. Something at all that makes me feel like life is worthwhile.

Get rid of the shit you don't want, helps while you figure out what you do want, and stop having an exestential crisis. Quick question though, did you do a stack over the last few months? Had a buddy who talked like this, but he never bothered with estrogen blockers

rebbit_reddit · 2017-12-26T21:48:38+00:00

Don’t worry, you’re not a special snowflake. Early 20s is when a lot of people realise that life isn’t all Hollywood and fairytales. Your brain is only fully developed at 25 so you’re just becoming fully conscious.

Life is essentially meaningless. We are born. We bitch and moan for 80 years. We die. From an individualistic point of view, most of our life is taken up by trying to find happiness, or at least contentment. Martin Seligman has done a lot of research into this and says that happiness is built by Pleasure, Engagement, Relationships, Meaning, Achievements. That’s what I focus on now. For a long time, I was fixated on creating some sort of legacy. Now, I’m not as interested in that. Just achieving lasting personal happiness will keep you busy for a long time. Fortunately, just working on the things Seligman has identified will tend to guide you to do things that have real meaning. Your legacy becomes the way you have affected people. Having kids always helps. Gives you a focus.

Good luck

Reach180 · 2017-12-26T22:21:29+00:00

Guys here will be happy to let you learn from them if you shut the fuck up about what you think about yourself and be open to learning. If you think you're special and none of this applies to you, "Actually, that's not my problem", "Well what if that's not be what I want." Shut up.

Shut up and wax the cars, paint the house, paint the fence, sand the floor. You'll find The Meaning in the doing. If you don't want to, or you want us to tell you why you should, then fuck off. Nobody here recruited you.

BobbyPeru · 2017-12-26T23:52:00+00:00

I just don’t see the relevancy of your point

I will nominate this for DEER post of the week though. You’ve deered to almost everyone who has tried to help you.

StandardIlluminant · 2017-12-27T14:41:34+00:00

"This ache" is you romanticizing how special you are, how unique and sophisticated your tastes are that nothing satisfies you. (Hint - I'm being sarcastic about your sophistication.) That's not a very useful or helpful thing, it's part of the ego story you tell yourself to keep up your facade. That same ego that people have been calling you out on. I used to tell myself pretty much the same story and I finally figured out it was bullshit.

However, the good news is that you don't actually have to search far and wide for that one magical yet elusive thing that will give you fulfillment. Or find that perfect goal that will drive you to a life of joy. You can create your own goals just because you feel like it, and enjoy the process of reaching them. If your goals are stupid and destructive, that's a different story, but as long as they roughly line up with somewhere you think you might want to go (like, travel, a better career, a different career, a life devote to the service of others, a spiritual path, a life devoted to fucking women from all 50 states, whatever), you'll find some meaning and satisfaction from the pursuit, planning, and progress towards them. It doesn't have to be the perfect path. It just sorta has to be somewhere in line with where you might like to see yourself going. Your brain is just one big feedback loop that makes its own happiness from positive reinforcement, so start putting something nice into that loop, keep at it a little bit every day, and watch it grow. Habit is a powerful thing.

ParadoxThatDrivesUs · 2017-12-27T19:20:17+00:00

I understand exactly what you are asking and why you are asking it. I don’t have an answer to your questions, but after struggling with the same questions for years, I can share a few thoughts that may be helpful.

First let’s pin down your question a bit more precisely. When you say that things are insignificant, what you mean is that they are meaningless. Things have meaning by reference to something larger outside of themselves. The larger structure gives meaning to the smaller things that it contains. So, for example, if “winning the war” is the larger structure, then “winning the war” gives meaning to all of the actions and sacrifices that form a part of “winning the war.” And by the same token, “winning the war” is meaningful as part of the larger structure of “preserving our way of life” or “advancing the interests of our nation” or whatever.

What you’ve noticed, though, is that if you keep examining these chains of meaning – smaller things to larger things to still larger things – you always eventually reach a dead end. The largest structure – the one that gives meaning to everything within it – is always ultimately meaningless, because there is no still larger structure to give it meaning. Which is inevitable, if you think about it: if a still larger structure existed, then it would simply push the question back to why that still larger structure had any meaning.

In my experience some people care a great deal about this lack of meaning. It bothers them, even torments them. Other people don’t seem to care at all – indeed, some people don’t even seem to be aware of the issue. The paradox is that while the people who don’t care seem to have a workable solution to the problem, you will never get any useful advice from them because they don’t truly understand that there even is a problem.

There are a few solutions you can try. First, you can take meaning for your life from something larger than you, and then deliberately avoid noticing or thinking about the fact that this larger thing actually has no meaning. So religion, for example. Lots of people take meaning from religion, but for it to work, you have to insist on never questioning your religion. Hence, faith. Dogma. The absolute need to expel anyone who questions the faith. Etc.

Patriotism, family or marriage can also serve the same purpose for some people. You give your life meaning by reference to those greater values, and then you deliberately avoid questioning why those things have meaning. Which is why you often see the same sort of dogmatic thinking about those topics as well. If you’re relying on your marriage to give your life meaning, then you will naturally resist questioning the meaning of that marriage (although anyone who makes it to this sub has obviously already crossed that bridge and is likely experiencing a crisis of meaning in their lives).

A second approach is to try to “create your own meaning.” For me, at least, this isn’t a satisfactory answer. The whole point of meaning is that it must be created by reference to something larger. Things can be intrinsically satisfying, or intrinsically pleasurable, but that can’t be intrinsically meaningful.

A third approach – and I think what people really have in mind when they suggest the second approach above – is to just accept that nothing in this universe has any ultimate meaning and just stop thinking about it. If you’re obsessed with the meaninglessness of life, then I know this sounds like no answer at all. But if you’ve reached the point where you’re posting about this in a reddit forum, then I think you’re likely to find at the end of the day that it’s the only possible solution that can work for you, because you’ve already thought about it enough that you’ll never be convinced by the other solutions.

The good news is that it is possible to accept that things have no ultimate meaning and just move ahead with your life. Despite what you may think, ultimate meaning is not actually a necessary ingredient for a happy, satisfying life. I predict that eventually that’s where you’ll land.

red-sfpplus · 2017-12-26T20:26:57+00:00

Everything we do is insignificant

Bullshit. I have a profound impact to my direct family, and the 20 families I support with my USA tax dollars. I have helped major corporations with their IT problems, built and purchased real estate other people live in.

Am I Mayer Rothschild? No, but in my circle I have a profound impact on the people in it.

Personally, you sound lazy and that you are not challenging yourself enough in life. Let me give you some perspective:

The meaning of life is constantly changing in my mind.

Right now, as my kids are 9 and 8 my main mission in life is their education and upbringing. My #1 goal ATM is to ensure they graduate college with 0, and I mean ZERO college debt.

This simple thing (not really simple mind you) is a very large thing that can literally change the course of their entire adult lives.

If your looking for lives instruction manual, let me know when you find it.

This is no "easy" mode. The game is constantly changing and adapting. When you think you have the right cheat code entered, it stops working suddenly and you have to find a new one.

Am I currently the best version of myself at this exact moment on Dec 26, 2017? Nah. I have been eating peanut butter balls like a mad man, with zero gym time in 10 days now. Am I the worst version of myself? Nah - that happened when I was in a physic ward dealing with Xanax withdrawals.

The goal post is always moving, and when you think you find it, the fucker has a tendency to move.

But that - is the fun part of life.

Work harder kido.

matrixtospartanatLV · 2017-12-27T17:27:05+00:00

Stoicism.

Stoics.

Fucking google it and start reading.

You feel useless and insignificant because you are a black hole of resources. You suck in but you don’t blow out.

You need one area of your life where you give of yourself to another human being and help them. Not your fucking money, your time. 1-2 hours a week should do it.

I’m not going to suggest in what way.

The way you find for yourself will give you the meaning you search for.

Now quit sniveling and get back to fucking work

Title	The meaning?
Author	Fragosus
Upvotes	3
Comments	35
Date	December 26, 2017 7:27 PM UTC (8 years ago)
Subreddit	Posted in /r/askMRP
Original Link	https://old.reddit.com/r/askMRP/comments/7m9qfi/the_meaning/
Archive Link	https://theredarchive.com/r/askMRP/the-meaning.205023 https://theredarchive.com/post/205023

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