Awakening from the meaning crisis

[tentative]

Way to go Tab. You had to bring up Dao. “The sage does not go out to meet them nor see them off.” Basically, check your assumptions and your pre-conceived ideas. If there is such a thing (condition) as mindfulness/flow it is quite simply that. Sadly, very few people can live without their pre-conceived ideas. In fact, it may be next to impossible. But it may be possible to reduce our assumptions and really experience an experience. I’ve managed it once or twice. It isn’t easy to be in a state of not knowing.

About the meaning crisis: I noticed that almost all the references here suggest that meaning comes from or through a process outside ourselves. Is it possible that meaning is found inside an experience? Does that change anything?

[Bob]

@Tab

Socrates’ principle of ‘know thyself’ has been very important to me since I started thinking and reading and spouting nonsense about 15 years ago. Sounds very unphilosophic but I did it by reading up on everything from neurophysiology to geopolitics.

I took ‘thyself’ to mean ‘human’ rather than ‘myself’. I think only other people can really ‘know’ you in the traditional sense, your own model of self is too biased. From getting an idea of how a human functions as a singular being I moved onto how humans function in groups.

What you said about spouting nonsense seems very familiar to me, although I don’t remember you doing that I was struck by the awareness that, contrary to what I thought, the world had very many facets and I didn’t know very much at all (“I know that I don’t know”). Therefore I began reading as much as I could, albeit very different subjects than you turned to.

The humanistic, “know thyself,” became more meaningful the more I meditated. Through that experience, I came to realise that we often need the other person to illuminate those areas of our lives that are in the “shadow,” and which we try to fade out. However, “shadow work” is something that every spiritual practice should incorporate, whether religious or not. Unfortunately, this isn’t the case in many religious groups and I’m not sure that the non-religious pay much attention to this either.

@Tab

I have noticed what the guy spoke about in lecture 5, when knowing more about the realities of what I am/we are both feeds into itself and reduces stress. Most of that comes from being wholeheartedly able to forgive some of my personal mistakes in the past, as well as those who have trespassed against me. If an agnostic can borrow from the Lord’s prayer for a sec.

The same goes for the hoary wisdom of “grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, Courage to change the things I can, And wisdom to know the difference.” It’s galling to me to have arrived at the same places via vastly more complex routes. It’s like I set off on a footrace with a monk 15 years ago, ran like a bastard all the way, only to find the guy already at the finish line, thumbing through his bible, and mumbling bits of the dao de jing.

I know how you feel, I am much the same. Serenity is something I aspire to (I’ve even got a stone with “Gelassenheit” written across it in the bathroom) but often fail to achieve. Much of it comes from my tendency to think that I need to do something rather than not do things.

What impressed me was how Vervaeke pointed out how Socrates was disappointed at the amount of “bullshit” that was going on amongst the sophists. You could say that it is just like today. We’re surrounded by it.

[Bob]

@tentative

I noticed that almost all the references here suggest that meaning comes from or through a process outside ourselves. Is it possible that meaning is found inside an experience? Does that change anything?

Long time no read…

Yes, experience or happenings can be full of meaning. It is just that we generally seem to have little time to savour them. Even though I’m not working, I’ve struggled to keep up meditation and contemplation. There still seems so much to do. But I do enjoy sitting in the garden watching the smaller songbirds chase each other through the small garden, squirrels are also a joy to watch. It does feel idyllic. And books - my goodness - books seem to fill so much time.

[Tab]

@Bob

What impressed me was how Vervaeke pointed out how Socrates was disappointed at the amount of “bullshit” that was going on amongst the sophists. You could say that it is just like today. We’re surrounded by it.

Yeah, you have to work very hard to avoid the bullshit these days. Insane amounts everywhere. I insulate myself to the extent I don’t have a facebook page, twitter account or a mobile phone. I realise this is a luxury afforded by my age and profession, the less antiquated people pretty much cannot function in the workplace or society in general without all three, at least so I’m told.

Worse still, the algorithms used to recommend things on the internet I think draw people into ever decreasing circles of nodding heads all agreeing with each other. Flat earthers, anti-vaccination-ers being extreme examples but in general I think people are less exposed to ‘dissent’ in their lives leading to calcified opinions and beliefs.

Perhaps this makes people leary of meeting new ‘real’ people out in the wild Perhaps this tendency to over-react, and knee-jerk outrage is simply a symptom of people just flaty unused to others not holding the same beliefs they do, about anything.

I remember when a forum was a table in a pub, and your connection to it was a pint of beer.

Argh old maudlin man is old and maudlin.

Much of it comes from my tendency to think that I need to do something rather than not do things.

At the risk of sounding sexist, I think some of that is simply a ‘man’ thing. I’m the same, everything is a problem, everything needs fixing. If someone is unhappy, I listen until I hear something resembling a problem, and imediately attempt to fix them, forgetting that half the time they already know what they need to do, and just wanted a sympathetic ear. I’m trying to mansplain less these days but… it’s hard lol.

The rest is I think, regret-o-phobia. Endemic and pernicious. That fear of not doing something, only to think later “Damn that might have worked - I’m such an evil person for not trying it.” Or worse still, someone else saying “Damn that might have worked - you’re such an evil person for not trying it.” Even though if you’re honest there wasn’t a chance in hell of it doing any good. Personally, I blame films. “It was a million to one chance, but they pulled it off.” etc.

It makes me want to start a film company that only makes films that reflect reality. The romantic comedy where people meet under humourous conditions, get married in haste, then make each other utterly miserable for the entire last hour of the film. The action film where the hero gets a flesh wound, toughs it out, then dies slowly from sepsis. The sci-fi thriller that involves serious scientists, in a lab, monotonously repeating a single experiment, over and over, with very slight variations in a single variable for 2 and half hours, only to get their funding cut in the last scene.

I know. Instant box-office smashes every one.

[Peter_Kropotkin]

I am coming at this from a different angle and without the
benefit of watching the vid’s…(as is well known, I hate the use
of video’s in place of arguments even if the vid’s do a better job
of argument then a synopsis of the video would do… I just don’t like
video’s doing the arguments, but it is a personal thing… sorry)

awareness… I have argued for self-awareness for some time now…
but why? I see the question as being about “knowing thyself”

how do we engage in “knowing thyself”? or how do we begin to
know who we are by becoming aware of who we are…

this awareness, which can be thought of as focus upon oneself…
thus focus upon oneself isn’t the solipsism of the young where they can
only focus upon themselves without becoming aware of anything outside
of their own thoughts or feelings…

my concentration is upon this focus…the act of becoming aware…

the problem with the modern world, one of many problems, is
that we are distracted by multiple things going on…one of reasons I
stay so isolated from people is to remain focus on my thoughts…
if I allow others to engage with me, I lose focus on what is important which
is my engagement with who I am and how I can become human……

I basically work or I am at home… that is it…I don’t go out, I don’t talk
on the phone, I don’t, for the most part, engage in e-mail or facebook or
anything else that might distract me from my becoming aware…

I keep isolated to help me remain focus on what it means to become human…

I have removed the distractions of modern day life and I am solely focus
on becoming…to become aware, to engage in becoming aware, requires
this focus of isolation…we cannot allow the modern world to distract us from
our goal, be it becoming who we are or be it engaging in the task of
Socrates which is “the unexamined life isn’t worth living” so, I have
engaged in my examination of life and my life in particular……

but to do so, requires, demands isolation and focus upon the task
at hand and that takes a certain dedication to isolate one from
the habits and routines of the modern world…another form of
being solipsistic as exhibited by the young, but not really…

the perfect example of solipsism is the idea of “what is in it for me”

as if every single question must some how relate to oneself or it isn’t
meaningful…a question can be meaningful and still not directly
be about any specific person…

now I may completely missed the point here, but hay, that is isolation
for you… sometimes you miss the direct point but you make the point
anyway because about it is about everyone…

do you have the ability to focus on the task at hand or are you a “modern”
person who has a million things trying to gain your attention?

Kropotkin

[Tab]

Ok, just noticed there are 50 videos of an hour apiece in this series.

Ouch.