Are your challenges really so challenging? Are your trials and tribulations so taxing? Or have you become soft and weak, coddled by the trappings of society and bound up by infantile ego demands?
Could you survive on the steppe? Could you reach down inside yourself and draw out a calmness, a focus, a hardness, that make the trumped-up stresses of modern life seem as nothing?
Could you find peace as the eagle… or the wolf?
From the derpy but occasionally brilliant folks over at Reddit:
Here’s a way of approaching the universe: You are a tiny speck of insignificant biological material in an immense universe that probably defies your brain’s ability of understanding. Yet you are remarkable, in innumerable ways. Every second of every day you are a walking ecosystem of life, housing trillions of microbes that continuously interact with you to keep both you and them alive. Your body is constantly building and rebuilding itself, encoding information on simple strains of molecules at the speed of jet engines, in each and every nucleus-possessing cell in your body. You are a walking, talking, living, breathing orchestra of life, a beautiful display of the potential inherent in our particular universe.
You are the remarkable product of an unbroken, let me say that again, UNBROKEN line of descendants stretching all the way back to the very first interactions of seemingly pointless inanimate molecules. You share a common ancestry with every living thing ever, including the estimated 106 billion humans who have ever lived. You are tied to the trees and the birds and the small phytoplankton that gently ride the crests and dips of the oceans of this world. You are part of the vibrant tapestry of what we refer to as life, a piece of art that stretches back billions upon billions of years. Everything this universe has thrown at you and your ancestors has been roundly defeated – from harsh radiation, to extraterrestrial objects, to volcanic eruptions and more. You are a symbol of utter perseverance, of the sheer will to continue onwards. You are a cry in the dark, the voice of one who will not be quiet.
So now you’ve realized that there is no inherent meaning to existence. So what? This doesn’t mean life has suddenly lost meaning – it means there was no meaning in the first place. So you haven’t actually lost anything. Instead, you have gained a wonderful opportunity. Give existence the meaning it is seeking. MAKE a purpose for yourself. Maybe it should be your kids, or maybe it should be giving from the bounty you have (because let us face reality – if you have an internet connection and personal computer, you are in the top 10%, maybe even the top 1%, of humanity). Maybe you should learn a new skill, explore a new facet of creation that you never realized was open to you.
So why do you teach a toddler how to behave? Because maybe that toddler will be the one to find other life, other existence in our so far lonely universe. Or maybe they will be the father, the mother, the close friend, the lover, the supporter of the one who does. Or maybe they will be the person to speak out at just the right moment, the one to stand up and stand out, who will provide the inspiration, or the moment of connection for the person who does. Or maybe that toddler will be the one to protect the life around us from an otherwise inevitable end, from the sucking void of empty existence that we struggle against every second of our being.
Are you just a breeder? Just biology? What an insult to biology! Just?!? I forgive you, because you know not what you say 😀 You are the product of a few basic particles, a few basic forces, yet you are impossibly complex, impossibly intricate. The sheer unlikeliness of your very existence is staggering, and yet here you are. The title of “breeder” is just a single facet of what you are. You can be a teacher, a leader, a thinker, a cook, a scientist, an artist, a musician, a protector, an enlightener, a champion, a peacemaker, a lover, a friend, a companion, a confidant… the list is as vast as the seemingly infinite complexities of neuron interactions in the collection of molecular structures known as cells in your brain.
And let us not end our poetic license there, for if all that is true, than this is also: There is something after death. The part of you that continues to exist in all life around you will never cease to be, not as long as things from this planet continue to live. You will continue on, interminably, from the beginning of life to its end potentially countless aeons from now, if ever. Maybe through some fluke you will be the Eve for humanity in the future, the one woman every human will trace their ancestry back to. Maybe not. But who can tell what the future holds. Rather than collapse under the imagined weight of nothingness, I posit that you should grasp hold of your life, and take it to heights heretofore unseen.
Given that Metaprocess is a multi-decade project by design, there will inevitably be cycles of high and low activity.
Low cycle periods do not come about for lack of project-specific content — there is an epic backlog of that — but simply because joyous life intervenes.
Food for thought from Richard Dawkins:
We are going to die, and that makes us the lucky ones.
Most people are never going to die because they’re never going to be born.
The potential people who could have been here in my place, but who will, in fact, never see the light of day, outnumber the sand grains of Sahara.
Certainly those unborn ghosts include greater poets than Keats, scientists greater than Newton.
We know this because the set of possible people allowed by our DNA so massively exceeds the set of actual people.
In the teeth of these stupefying odds it is you and I, in our ordinariness, that are here.
We privileged few, who won the lottery of birth against all odds, how dare we whine at our inevitable return to that prior state, from which the vast majority have never stirred.
Lao Tzu: If you realize that all things change, there is nothing you will try to hold on to. If you are not afraid of dying, there is nothing you cannot achieve.
~
Sartre or Camus would surely have laughed at this (or at least cracked a smile).
p.s. There is, of course, a more enlightened option when it comes to contemplating one’s demise…
Some time back Jack posted on The Twin Sphere Paradox and Self-Created Meaning. Here is a quick excerpt:
There is no such thing as independent or transcendent meaning… whenever one ponders the “meaning” of something, it is always in relation to some vantage point of consciousness. “Meaning” is tethered to consciousness, and thus becomes a non sequitur when severed from some originating form of “self” — be it the personal self, the self of some other human being, a collective societal self, or what have you.
And so, given that meaning is 1) tethered to consciousness, and 2) grounded in personal vantage point, it is logical to recognize that all meaning is self-created. There is no other mechanism than consciousness (which in turn implies the existence of a self) to generate it!
The whole post is worth reading if you find the topic intriguing.
Self-created meaning, or SCM, is a critical metaprocess concept because it resolves the seeming conflict between nihilism and purpose. To observe the universe with open eyes is to potentially fall into despair (“alas, no higher meaning exists”). On the other hand, to force-feed one’s self the belief that higher meaning does exist — in spite of clear evidence to the contrary — is to deliberately distort one’s instinctive perceptual faculties (assuming one has been honest in the full attempt to “see reality as it is”).
This willful dreaming has an effect not unlike building a house on a slightly off-kilter foundation. Errors of foundational belief lead to egregious distortion and contortion further on down the line.
What to do then? “No meaning” seems to warrant despair… yet the defiant embrace of purpose apparently comes at great cost (the cost of self-delusion).
There is good news. The freeing message of SCM — as further communicated in The Door at The End of the Universe — is that we are free to create our own meaning… and that self-created meaning is just as “real” as any other more official or widely recognized form of value assigment, because there is no higher arbiter to nullify or transcend it.
Three teachers sit by the side of the road.
The first teacher cries, over and over again, “All is meaningless — you MUST accept this!”
The second teacher cries, just as loudly, “All has a deeper hidden purpose — you MUST accept this!”
The townspeople, curious as to which teacher is right, inquire of the quiet third man, hoping he will break the tie.
But, instead of picking a winner, the quiet teacher merely smiles and responds: “These two are as noisome twin brothers — what they say is the same. There is no universal truth… how could there be, when even the sun and moon will one day go out.
All this came back to Jack’s mind via quick recent comment on another blog called Who is the Absurd Man. There was a scuffle some time back (between Jack and one of the blog’s creators) as to whether self-created meaning was a valid concept, or whether honesty required the vehement denial that any type of meaning could exist (nihilism with an evangelistic twist).
Anyhow, on a recent return visit, Jack couldn’t help but notice (and respond to) some further confusion as to what “meaning” has to mean.
In the spirit of resolving a false dichotomy, the following analogy resulted (as taken from comments on this thread):
[Quoting previous commenter] You are running into the stone cold wall of contradictions that I highlighted in past responses to posts by Rick and Inigo on this blog. If one takes as fact that there is no meaning then all that is left is nihilism.
[Jack’s response] Ah, but meaning DOES exist, even for the absurd man. It just happens to be self-created. And thus wholly portable, malleable, customizable, and perfectly matched in duration to the being who created it.
For those who (still) object to the idea of self-created meaning, think of a song. Where does a song come from? Here is one potential path: A musician first hears the song in his mind. Then he plays it on his guitar… tweaks it a little… and voila, a song is born. Would we say the song is not “real” just because it was born in the musician’s mind? No. Of course it is real. He can play it on his guitar, put it on itunes, or what have you. The seat of consciousness is as respectable a birthplace as any other.
Perhaps many others hear and enjoy this song. Or perhaps it is kept private. Perhaps when the musician dies, hopefully after a long and happy life, his little song dies with him…
Self-created meaning is like that. The things I place value on in life – what I believe, what I hold dear – are like the songs I sing to myself. It doesn’t really matter who likes my songs (unless I choose for it to matter). And the universe certainly doesn’t care. My songs are temporal, ephemeral, transient… and yet they are very real, and of great importance to me, as I play them out on the existential guitar of my brief and shining existence.
Where people get tripped up, I think, is in assuming that “meaning” has to be permanent… or eternal… or transcendent. People think meaning has to be timeless… that the universe has to have a say… that some broadly applicable consensus is required.
Not true at all. Meaning doesn’t have to be any of those things. It can be whimsical, ephemeral, personal, and created or extinguished at whim – just like a song.
Why does it have to be “the rat race?” Why can’t it be the fun race instead?
Idea being: What if, instead of seeking to impress the most people, accumulate the biggest pile, or score the most guilt-driven brownie points etcetera, one’s life goal was to simply have as much fun as possible (over the full spread of a life well lived)?
When you think about it, a lot of people’s supposedly sober and respectable goals are downright idiotic trivial. Beyond a certain threshold of comfort, does making lots of money really have any more merit than, say, trying to accumulate the greatest number of Facebook friends? (And don’t even get Jack started on how pathetic it is for people to live out their entire lives in thrall to the judgments and opinions of others they don’t even like!)
Admittedly, to make life a pursuit of pleasure (i.e. “fun”) could be considered a selfish thing. And in that respect, Jack is glad that many think differently. He observes with gratitude that plenty of others are willing — eager, even — to prostrate themselves at great personal cost before the feet of their fellow men. In pure economic terms, light-hearted selfishness is all too rare a commodity. Pious sacrifice is in no short supply.
Does living to have fun mean wasting one’s life then? Not necessarily. And even if it did, what of it? In matters of ultimate meaning, Jack is inspired by the great Diogenes of Sinope:
When asked how he wished to be buried, [Diogenes] left instructions to be thrown outside the city wall so wild animals could feast on his body. When asked if he minded this, he said, “Not at all, as long as you provide me with a stick to chase the creatures away!” When asked how he could use the stick since he would lack awareness, he replied “If I lack awareness, then why should I care what happens to me when I am dead?”
One might object that living for fun means destroying one’s body with drugs, drink and the like. But if such temptations do not strike you as fun, then why indulge in them? Some people’s idea of fun might be solving complex mathematical equations, translating philosophical texts from the original Greek, or tracking the mating habits of Himalayan blue sheep.The point is to find and embrace what floats your own boat, not someone else’s boat.
But to pursue fun as a sole objective is not rational, still others might object. Well why the hell not? In fact, what could be more rational in the face of ultimate futility? Consider this cheery bit from Bertrand Russell:
“…All the labors of the ages, all the devotion, all the inspiration, all the noonday brightness of human genius, are destined to extinction in the vast death of the solar system, and the whole temple of Man’s achievement must inevitably be buried beneath the debris of a universe in ruins…”
Oh, how deeply depressing — for the poor silly sod who shoulders the heavy burden of purpose that is. It is all rather amusing to Jack.
And speaking of “rationality” as juxtaposed with “fun” — can a sufficiently motivated individual not apply rational means to even the happy task of having a damn good time?
A maximally lived life is one that embraces a diverse mix of pursuits (i.e. not all steak, not all chocolate cake). Figuring out the right mix requires discipline, concentration, creativity and forethought.
We are used to casting aspersions on those who make fun their life goal because such individuals are typically loosely disciplined at best and bad at life management on the whole. But the chips need not fall this way. The sufficiently enlightened individual can recognize that sacrifice and planning are required over the course of a well balanced life — even in pursuit of fun.
From the vantage point of respectable society, Jack intuits a knee-jerk aversion to this idea. Why might this be? To hazard a guess, because society wants something from you. Society wants your allegiance… your obeisance… your submissive acceptance of the established ways. The great herds of sheep do not like the contrarian-minded fellow who dares wander off on his own. They squint in suspicion and suspect him a wolf. Self-righteousness and unhappiness, insecurity and suspicion — these things go hand in hand.
You mean to say I can chuck all that societally imposed bullshit and just… live life the way I want to?
Well, Jack would argue, it depends on what you genuinely believe. If you firmly believe the answer is no, then you are correct — the answer is no. Self-imposed limitation equals self-fulfilling prophecy. It’s practically axiomatic.
But if you believe the answer is yes — that yes, you can be free — then once again the truth becomes what you make it. No one and nothing beyond or outside ourselves has the power to dictate who and what we live for… unless we hand that power over, by accident or on purpose.
A poignant scribble from Jack’s notebook (as penned over coffee in a quiet café):
In the presence of death, all lesser fears recede. As a constant companion, the reaper is not unlike a jealous angel, warding off demons with a casual glance.
As Thoreau so wisely urged: Simplify, simplify, simplify.
Rather than worry and fret over a great many small things, in other words, it is perhaps better to “simplify” and worry about just one big thing. And then, beyond that, if the one big thing (death) becomes a comfortably accepted reality — and thus no longer a source of anxiety — one need not truly “worry” about anything at all.
There are at least two potential motives for focusing on death (or otherwise entertaining a casual preoccupation with death). One of these motives is bitter, egotistical and life-denying; the other is pragmatic, joyous and life-affirming.
The life-denying motive typically contains an embedded “woe is me” component… a sense that life is not fair and the universe sucks.
The joyous motive, in contrast, is associated with loving life… in Jack’s case, a love of life that runs so deep it hurts. From this perspective, the recognition of loss – you are going to lose your life, you cannot hold onto it — becomes an exhortation to fully and truly live while one can. (William Wallace: “Every man dies. Not every man really lives.”)
Whether the life-affirming pragmatic result of accepting death means greater motivation to kick ass, a deeper desire to kick back, or a healthy combination of both, the point is to savor the flavor while we’re here.
Steve Jobs expressed this concept masterfully in his Stanford University 2005 commencement speech:
No one wants to die. Even people who want to go to heaven don’t want to die to get there. And yet death is the destination we all share. No one has ever escaped it. And that is as it should be, because Death is very likely the single best invention of Life. It is Life’s change agent. It clears out the old to make way for the new. Right now the new is you, but someday not too long from now, you will gradually become the old and be cleared away. Sorry to be so dramatic, but it is quite true.
Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life. Don’t be trapped by dogma — which is living with the results of other people’s thinking. Don’t let the noise of others’ opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.
Whether the shoulder tap comes at age 33 or age 103, life is too short for bullshit. Once past the fright, amiable companion death is a friendly reminder of that.
The topics and post ideas continue to pile up, like doubloons in a chest… and life continues to intervene.
From Pico Iyer’s 2007 introduction to The Snow Leopard (1978):
The central feature of the practice of meditation and hard work known as Zen is that, as Mathiessen says, it “has no patience with ‘mysticism,’ far less the occult.” Nor does it have any time for moralism, the prescriptions or distortions we would impose on the world, obscuring it from our view. It asks, it insists rather, that we take this moment for what it is, undistracted, and not cloud it with needless worries of what might have been or fantasies of what might come to be. It is, essentially, a training in the real, what lies beyond our ideas (and they are only ideas) of good and bad. “The Universe itself is the scripture of Zen,” as Matthiessen puts it, and the discipline initiates its practitioners in the clear, unambiguous realization that what is, is; the world (enlightenment, happiness) is just that lammergeier in the sky, this piece of dung, that churning river, all of which have life and blood as our perceptions or ideas of them do not.
In that regard, The Snow Leopard records a journey into real life and into the life that lies on the far side of our notions, our ceaseless chatter. Up near the Crystal Mountain, creating a home-made meditation shelter for himself (he says earlier that sometimes he is pushed to do Zen practice just because it is so cold), Mathiessen enters at last a moment that seems to open up unendingly. “These hard rocks instruct my bones in what my brain could never grasp.”
As a result of the Door at the End of the Universe post, an intriguing email discussion took place with a friend.
Via back and forth correspondence, Jack clarified a few viewpoints. Those clarifications seem worth sharing, so here they are.
The friend’s comments are in blue italics; Jack’s responses in plain text (and first person).
I would say atheism comes in various stripes: e.g.,
i) Douglas Adams’ self-styled radical atheism (which meant “don’t ask me if that means I’m agnostic”),
ii) Dawkins’ evangelical atheism,
iii) those people who simply feel that it is not possible for any critically-minded person who has thought about these issues to believe in god(s), and so on.
Agree there are plenty of good-natured atheists (Douglas Adams being a prime example). I would also count Dawkins among the good-natured in respect to his genuine willingness to engage. Adams approaches the question humorously; Dawkins approaches it scientifically; while Dawkins is evangelistic in a sense, it is more in defense of evolution (which is very much under attack). Dawkins does not strike me as acting like a religious zealot, as a number of atheists seem to. The great irony is in atheists acting like those they discredit. I don’t see Adams and Dawkins doing that.
Re, “those people who simply feel that it is not possible for any critically-minded person who has thought about these issues to believe in god(s)”… such a position strikes me as not thought through. There are plenty of explanatory reasons as to why otherwise intelligent and rational individuals end up believing in god.
Those who assume “no one rational could believe in god” overemphasize their own experience and their own rationality, in my opinion. Otherwise rational people find cause to believe many strange things for practical reasons that suit them on a day-to-day basis. This does not make them crazy or stupid by default, only philosophically inconsistent on a level that may or may not matter in the big scheme of things.
I don’t feel agnostic is the most appropriate philosophical stance because I think the evidence leans more one way than the other. In this respect, to be agnostic about the existence of god is comparable, I think, to being agnostic about evolution vs. creationism.
Is it not more logical for a person to call himself an atheist, but to be absolutely rigorous to say that the non existence of g/God was an operating hypothesis, pending falsification by his/her/its appearance. (This would be non-inconsistent with Hume’s powerful critique on miracles, if you are familiar with it.)
Re, more logical for a person to call himself an atheist… perhaps this comes down to personal preference. At the end of the day I would rather just say “I have no idea,” because I think this answer is more honest, more technically correct, and more personally desirable from the standpoint of trickle-down effects.
An individual who is willing to place uncertainty at the heart of their belief structure is more likely to stay open to unexpected possibilities, in my view. An individual who chooses to embrace certainty where it does not fully exist, on the other hand, may be more susceptible to embracing unwarranted certainty in other areas of life. I would rather stay closer to what I perceive as true and highlight my own fallibility in recognizing that I really don’t know either way.
With that said, it’s understood that a lot of these issues might be considered nitpicking in the extreme. My practical and pragmatic views are in most ways almost indistinguishable from a general atheist position. I just prefer the more honest “I don’t know.” I am certainly willing and desirous of assuming the full implications of no god, that is to say, “no message.” But at the same time, I also still sometimes wonder “Why is there something rather than nothing.” I will most likely never know the answer to this question. But it is still an interesting question, which further generates impulse in me to say “I don’ t know” as opposed to “I will assume there is no creator.”
p.s. Just to make clear, I have zero doubt evolution is true; the scientific evidence in support of evolution is compelling, beautiful, and beyond overwhelming.
I am not sure you are leaving room for if such a person is making what he/she perceives to be his/her most reasonable best guess?
Re, reasonable best guesses… I guess my attitude would be, “why guess when you don’t have to guess.” There are certain instances in life — many instances actually — where we have to make decisions based on imperfect information. But why make an uninformed decision when no one is asking you to? I guess one of the things I have found value in is the idea of embracing uncertainty as a fundamental principle.
People are free to make their best guess of course. And if I were forced to speculate, I would probably speculate that whatever is behind the door is so far removed from the bounds of understanding that human efforts to comprehend would be futile even if the door were opened. I suspect we are less important in the big scheme of things than the bacteria beneath an elephant’s toenail. But I would much rather say “I don’t know” than to guess where I don’t have to.
I think coming to a provisional view that there is no meaning is so unpalatable that only people who are extremely open-minded are going to get there – and such a person is just the last kind of individual to be dogmatic.
People whose views I’ve encountered who’ve leaned to this view – Feynman, Camus, et al. – have been quite the contrary. In this light, I would have thought a dogmatic nihilist would be more a theoretical concept – unless we’re dealing with someone who’s thoroughly depressed!
Re, “coming to a provisional view that there is no meaning”… well, that is more or less my view. I think there is no meta-meaning, thus creating a vacuum in which we are free to create our own. I would wholly agree too that Feynman, Camus et al are not dogmatic in respect to meta-level things. That is one reason I like them so much (and why I quoted Feynman specifically).
It’s hard to believe, but dogmatic nihilists are out there. I have run into them repeatedly. They tend to be philosophically obtuse individuals who do not see the hypocrisy in rejecting all systems of truth as meaningless, then unknowingly arguing from a standpoint of absolute truth that their particular view on whatever subject is absolute, i.e., transcending the subjective. In a very real way, these individuals tend to not actually realize the implications of what they are saying.
What do you think of the idea that G/god is like the aether? It is a concept that served an intellectual purpose once, but in light of modern understanding should be dispensed with?
I guess I would say, how do we know God is like the aether? How can we say anything intelligent about God at all, except in respect to natural laws regarding the world and universe we have inhabited?
I think it is hard to compartmentalize the “I have no idea” around certain religions and not others. Imagine you went to Mars and found the Martians all worshipping their God…would you be so open-minded as to the possibility of their beliefs being valid, too?
We can say, strictly speaking, we have no idea if Horus exists, but I am willing to make a guess. (This is why religious zealots can’t stand cultural relativism. It undermines the superior position they would fain assume).
I would argue that varying subjects have varying degrees of common ground, and the subject that has the most common ground for all of us — including martians — is natural laws. As long as they reside in our universe, even far-flung alien civilizations would operate under the same laws of physics.
And thus, unless the martians had found some way to prove otherwise, I would no more feel the need to accept their religion as (possibly) true versus, say, Christianity or Islam.
To put it another way… I believe with asymptotic certainty that evolution is true and the world’s popular religions are false. Available evidence strongly supports the notion that whoever or whatever set off the great chain of events did so many billions of years ago, and has shown no observable sign of intervening since. (From a probabilistic standpoint, our reality behaves exactly as it would, and should, were it wound up like a watch and then left to its own devices.)
This means that all popular religions are likely to be false, even alien ones, because religion tends to claim special favor or special dispensation from a creator within the span of mortal time (the evidence for which is grossly lacking).
Or even more succinctly: From a Popperian standpoint, religious claims can be falsified; religious logic can be tested. Therefore all religions lacking scientific proof of favor or dispensation can be dismissed as false.
But this still deals with negatives (shooting down unjustifiable / irrational claims). It does not bridge the gap to making a positive statement about reality, i.e., “I know what is behind the door.” We can know what is justifiably dismissable as silly, but we cannot know that which is permanently beyond us. I believe this an important point.
Metaprocess 