Intrigued by the responses I will get, I must ask this question.
Have you come to embrace our “meaninglessness” after an existential crisis? Or do you simply block the realization out of your mind and live on aware of this, however trying to live (not in denial) but as if it is not so?
Personally, I am in between both. Although I have come to the " ](https://www.ilovephilosophy.com/uploads/default/original/2X/7/7c349bf1053f368a5729d053e1e91215f22ce66c.gif "Brick wall"){kind=small}
" of the existential crisis.
que sera sera
-Imp
The existential crisis is largely a post-Christian phenomenon. One requires an ordained telos to feel the effects of its loss.
Xunzian - you think the sort of instinct which says life is or should be meaningful is purely an artifact of religion?
No, I think existentialism and nihilism are an artifact of Christianity. The sort of absolute meaningless assumed by the OP demands an absolute meaning, as presented by something like Christianity.
Man, I hate posting behind Xunzian because he is always fucking right.
Anyway here goes, I too have been in the midst of an existential crises.
I have attempted to state it in other threads, but words have fail to explain my current state.
In the past, I recognized the futility of our lives, but it was more of a intellectual response, not
an emotional response. Today, I feel it down to my soul and beyond. It is a feeling of overwhelming
despair because this life I lead is nothing, means nothing, has no point. What boggles my mind is how
can other people miss this? If my life is nothing and has no meaning, I don’t see how other life’s can have meaning
if the same conditions exist for for them as it does me. But that leaves the argument that different conditions do
exist for everybody. But does it? Death does exist as an condition for everyone as it does for me. What creates meaning for everyone?
Around this question, lies the crux of the matter. Ideologies, religions are an attempt to create meaning in our lives. But
if this existential crisis does comes from this increasing loss of belief in these ideologies, what next? HOW does one
regain what has been lost? Simply drifting from one ideology to the next looking for some meaning seems to be a pointless exercise.
simply withdrawing into oneself, tending one’s own garden as it were, also seems to be pointless. IN fact, every possible action,
seems to be an exercise in futility. There is no way out of this conundrum. Thus, the existential crisis which seems to have no
solution.
Kropotkin
Peter illustrates my point (thanks man).
If you can’t paint the Mona Lisa, why paint? But, of course, such a view is self-defeating on the face of it. Mastery along those lines can’t be created without a long learning curve. Long-range achievements tend to be more happy accidents than anything else. I always like reading interviews with scientists upon their receiving a prestigious award. They are almost always shocked. Not because they didn’t think their work was awesome, but because rather than on focusing on some ephemeral goal like the award, they were just doing their work day-in-day-out. Meaning was found in those micro-goals as opposed to elusive grand narratives.
When a student asked Confucius about the nature of death and the hereafter, Confucius responded with, “We don’t know anything about life, so how can we ask about death?” Confucius was likewise taciturn about spirits, gods, and other grand narratives. If the most successful amongst us cannot envision their own success but rather manifest it through gradual action how much more so when it comes to things like the meaning of the Universe? That question is above our pay-grade and that is OK.
Xunzian:
If you can’t paint the Mona Lisa, why paint? But, of course, such a view is self-defeating on the face of it. Mastery along those lines can’t be created without a long learning curve. Long-range achievements tend to be more happy accidents than anything else. I always like reading interviews with scientists upon their receiving a prestigious award. They are almost always shocked. Not because they didn’t think their work was awesome, but because rather than on focusing on some ephemeral goal like the award, they were just doing their work day-in-day-out. Meaning was found in those micro-goals as opposed to elusive grand narratives.
K: but then with so called micro-goals, nose to the grindstone type of thing, then we become nothing more than ants or worker bees.
I would hope we are something more than ants or worker bees!? Is the human potential nothing more than just keeping busy?
I would paint the Mona Lisa and then what? Just go on painting to what end? Hoping to find perfection in those paintings?
I would doubt it. If the answer was painting the Mona Lisa, than why did Da Vinci keep going? Once you painted perfection, you are done, nothing
more to do.
X: When a student asked Confucius about the nature of death and the hereafter, Confucius responded with, “We don’t know anything about life, so how can we ask about death?” Confucius was likewise taciturn about spirits, gods, and other grand narratives. If the most successful amongst us cannot envision their own success but rather manifest it through gradual action how much more so when it comes to things like the meaning of the Universe? That question is above our pay-grade and that is OK."
K: which is a subtle call for god, higher pay grade and all. I submit we are the highest pay grade and we just don’t know it.
Kropotkin
yeah, i know - it’s equal parts annoying and awesome
then try questioning the notion that you have a soul, that will distract you, at least for a while
life has no particular meaning, so it can have whatever meaning you want
but that’s just it - nothing was LOST because nothing was ever there in the first place other than the illusion - it’s dissillusionment but it puts us in a more advantageous positin with regards to materiality, as long as there is no spirit, then you haven’t really LOST anything - it doesn’t have to be doom and gloom nihlistic, just because the popular nihlistic sneer occasionally exerts an aesthetic appeal (and invariably it does for certain personality types) it doesn’t make that attitude a logically necessarry consequense of the loss of meaning.
so? sex is always an exercise in futility, doesn’t mean it isn’t fun
why is the arbitrariness of meaning really a problem, tho? other than it leads to disagreement … which isn’t in and of itself a bad thing
ultimately, if you just can’t help feeling that way (that life is a hopeless tedium), the practical thing to do is to drink a lot - kill time long enough and an exciting opportunity is bound present itself, after a few times of that happening at random you’ll learn how to make it happen
One way is to distract yourself often enough that you don’t live the duration of your life in the perpetual fear of death. Tell yourself the only purely futile behavioral gesture we can make is suicide and go on living with the emphasis on living.
or whatever.
Sure, the micro-goals are only meaningful insofar as we derive meaning from them. If you don’t find meaning in those micro-goals, well, time to find new micro-goals. That is hard because we often have relatively few choices when it comes to our micro-goals. They are a result of a gradual accumulation of mostly small, seemingly insignificant choices as well as bonds (some of our choosing, some not) with which we are entangled. Mid-life crises and nervous breakdowns are a result of inauthentic lives – when people find themselves living lives that they don’t feel are really theirs. It is tricky.
As for the question of “what after the Mona Lisa?”, I think that such a question misses the point. If one is engaged in a gradual process filled with meaningful micro-goals a Mona Lisa becomes just another project. There are accomplishments we make where we can look back years later and continue to say, “Yeah, that was awesome!” but those accomplishments are a part of a tapestry, not the entire tapestry. It is like the Nobel Laureates I was talking about. Winning the Nobel prize is a perk, a nice part of their career, not its entire point.
Can’t a man quote the President anymore? I’ll admit, it isn’t as fun as “misunderestimating” but it works. The point I was trying to make is that questions like “What is the meaning of life?” can’t and shouldn’t be asked from a human perspective because they are meaningless. Given the inescapably limited nature of human beings, trying to model an answer for a complete system is a fool’s errand. We occasionally charge at those windmills because we’ve been influenced by traditions that claim access to a non-human, more perfect or even just perfect perspective. But that is silly.
I’ve never really had an immediate religious presence in my life, so the question of the meaning of life isn’t too pressing, I’m quite comfortable with their being no purpose or whatever and i’m quite happy with recognising the limitations of my species etc. But the problem of authenticity in my life is much more of a concern, i feel i’m in a constant struggle between who i am and who my true self is. not that i really understand what that sentiment means in itself, ‘my true self?’ maybe the notion of self is a christian one, i don’t know.
I’d say that Aristotle pretty much outlined a good assay for determining whether one was living in accordance with their true selves: eudaimonia. A life well/authentically lived results in a feeling of contentment/joy. There have always been a lot of countervailing forces that prevent us from achieving that state. Most of these come in the form of a focus on external goods. Such a focus necessarily traps someone in a web of greed, envy, and jealously all of which prevent someone from actually stepping back and enjoying themselves. This is made all the more difficult by the internal colonization that modern capitalism employs. Creating new markets from the same population requires keeping them in a constant state of displeasure. The women’s beauty industry is the clearest example of this. They are constantly told that they have to be thin and have big boobs and a big butt. Even if they are in the minority that manages to manifest that phenotype (exceedingly rare) there are imperfections in the skin tone, pore size, skin clarity, hair (which needs to be both straight and curly both long and short), and so on. I mean, the tension between the Super-model and the pin-up babe is clear and vital. The whole thing is that all advertising works along those principles. You have to keep up with the Joneses and doing so rarely provides the sort of rewards that actually make someone happy.
The mind frets.
Concentrate, see the stitching
in the ball as it approaches.
Feel the sand shift, Hear the
children laugh. This is all
happening in here. You are the
game .
You are the game of life.
Don’t be on the outside.
When you are the spectator of
life the mind judges and
measures and frets.
Why, MagnetMan, I didn’t know you had taken to sock-puppets 
Is this contenment something which we should expect to have 24/7? For example, i’ve spent the day strolling around in the sunshine, lazing around and feeling pretty content about it but tomorrow is monday, back to work. If work doesn’t bring a continual joy should it just be jacked or learnt to be dealt with? I mean, Aristotle didn’t have to herd sheep or farm land, he spent 20 years as a student, lounging around contemplating life and then went on to teach kings…almost like one of those minority cases of women with the natural beauty that the rest spend their lives trying to emulate.
To “embrace” implies that which is embraced is lovable; so then that embrace would be meaningful (joyful).
I do not resign to the idea of meaninglessness, as you can tell from this thread:
http://www.ilovephilosophy.com/phpbb/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=168755
For me, “post existential crisis” or “feeling uncomfortable with the loss of absolutist delusion (a.k.a meaning of life/existence)” was very short. It lasted probably less than a few seconds because I understood that presuming the (absolute) was silly and it was the cause of the discomfort.
So, not presuming (absolute) meaning/value/moral/notion became pretty much normal/ordinary/banal state for me.
In other words, if someone is having problem with the “meaninglessness”, I’d say the person is still hanging on to the desire/hope/delusion of presumed (absolute) meaning/value/moral/notion.
I think this presumption of absolute notion(s) is the very base how our “self” (or illusion of it) is constructed.
The presumption of absolute notion(s) is, in turn, based on the presumption of absolute focus (or absolute separation/division/isolation).
And our awareness is held and confined by these presumptions to the kind of narrowed self-centered and more or less juvenile world view that things/notions (meanings/values/morals/beliefs) are absolute and exist without limitations nor conditions.
When you grow a bit and become slightly more “rational”/“logical” in your thinking ability, you will come to see (fully or partially) that all meanings/evaluations are dependent of perspective/focus (or the evaluation method).
This will cause (total or partial) loss of the presumption (or the innocent juvenile blind confidence) of the absolute notions/beliefs.
If the realization of relativity is partial, you go into limbo and stay in the “existential crisis”.
If you become fully aware, then the old notions simply drops and fade away, gradually and/or suddenly, depending on how their degree and state of “stickiness”.
If you talk about “embracing” the meaningless, it indicates your understanding of relativity is partial and you are still fighting within yourself.
You may try to go back, to stay in the silly but somewhat comfortable delusion of “absolutified” perspective by popular means such as religion, ideology, professional and/or family life, hobbies, and so on.
Or you may come to understand the futility and silliness of the delusion and live less restrictive and mentally/emotionally free life. 
I guesstimate that more than 90% (if not 97% or more) of world population prefer to live in the absolutist delusion.
That’s why there are so many religions/fanatics/collisions/silliness. And I don’t think the situation would change.
Moreover, I’d say that having absolutist delusion and oscillating between the awareness of relativity is probably somewhat “normal”. I say so because the nature of the universe and things is the oscillation/spinning/spiraling.
The life is movement, and thus wondering/swinging mind is natural (for life).
Becoming fully aware of the relative nature may mean the death, in some way.
So, I’d recommend anyone, who desires to live longer (survival fanatics) and who seeks positive things because they are cemented in negative background perspective, to delude oneself by all means.
And they do it generally very well. 
Well, Aristotle thought that if done properly it would be constant. But if you ask me, the only way for someone to constantly to be in that state would be if some scientists hooked an electrode to the orgasm center of the brain and switched it on. I think that a notion of ‘constant’ is as fallacious as the sort of ultimate telos that I’m rejecting here. After all, Aristotle did embrace completeness to his system due to his reliance on reason.
I think it is more of a “more often than not” type situation. Are those days where you feel that contentment relatively rare or are those moments where you are really frustrated relatively rare? If the former, you probably are doing pretty well. If the latter it would probably be worth making a few changes.
I guess that is a fairly practical way to look at things. Do you think that changing the way we look at things changes the way we experience them? This topic began with the problem of the meaningless of life, but if one lacks the initial belief that there ever was meaning in life then the whole problem suddenly becomes obsolete. Then the problem may shift from concern about life’s meaning to something much more selfish i.e. one’s daily life and work for instance, earlier you mentioned material desires being a cause of dissatisfaction, this dissatisfaction being something which prompts the continuation of capitalism. People pursue material goods, people pursue lifestyles. Is it knowledge of these working which enable us to rise above the problems they cause?
I can’t speak for anybody else, but I know that I can’t leave the human perspective. That means that the symbol whereby I recognize a thing and the thing itself are effectively synonymous. I can’t separate the two so unless there is a very good reason to try and pretend that I can I should treat the symbol and the thing as the same. Indeed, the ‘good reason’ for trying to separate the two usually arises because one is trying to substitute a symbol. They believe something but know (through markers like cognitive dissonance and the like) that their belief is faulty in some way, so they create a silly construct that lets them bridge that gap.
The trick is that in order for how we experience something to change we actually do have to change the way we look at it. It is pretty easy to lie to ourselves and say we are viewing something differently than we actually are.
Depends on what you mean by “knowing”. If one believes (as I do) that understanding demands action, then if not rising above but mitigating or correctly emphasizing them. The reason I invoked Aristotle and not the stoics is because I think he was right in thinking that external goods do play a role in satisfaction. To me that seems pretty obvious: the reason why so many people expect to gain satisfaction from these things is because they are indeed satisfying. It is just that the satisfaction is ephemeral and, more importantly, non-generative so if they are relied on exclusively as a means for satisfaction they become an addiction, a never ending spiral of “more, more, more” with no meaningful end in sight. This futile quest can eclipse the practices (and the internal goods contained within) that were originally used to achieve the external goods.