Sense of purpose & Nihilism

Sometimes, ideas jump out at you.

What if Nihilism is the normative response as a coping mechanism for the lack of meaning and purpose in one's own life? We all live in our own little worlds, created by the filters of our own perception, defined by intention. This much is absolutely true, is as much as we think. If you choose not to think, then you'll just be led like sheep through your life. 

But if you think, and you find your life to be without purpose or meaning, while living in a world where you believe that everything matters, then you choose to suffer a private prison. A private hell.

In the face of this,  you have two choices; find/create purpose & meaning in your life, or change what you believe about the world to resolve the conflict and cast off your burden. 

Here's the problem with that choice (aside from it being a self deception); pursuing your bliss is empty and only a momentary reprieve from the private hell.  Only meaning and purpose have the depth of importance to sustain you.  

So I would contend that Nihilists are the  disillusioned and disconnected among us who changed their frame of relation with the world to make their hell, appear less so. This does not have to be a conscious choice, as I have found much of the motivating aspect of my nature comes from a subconscious level. You may be able to rule your subconscious,  but it steers you back in small ways.

All the more reason to be in touch with that inner voice and hear its whispers. It is trying to help you as best it knows how.. but sometimes it s wrong.. but still listen. Have that dialogue.

What if..?

What if you're exactly where you belong? 

What if the circumstances of your life are not a conspiracy of punishment and pain?

What if this IS 'the plan'? 

What if all the emptiness and lack are here to call forth the muse, to fill it?

What if the void exists for an orchestrated reason?

After all, The Universe abhors a vacuum..

Why has the question not shown itself before?

All this birthed from the echoes of beauty, witnessed in passing, burned into memory. 

Perhaps the bird in the bush is worth two in the hand.

here's a thought you won't often hear

I know something about this subject.. 

Anxiety and depression are your friends

Yes, they are.

Anxiety and depression are merely the emotional equivalent of an muscle strain or ankle sprain, they are an indication that something is wrong or has been injured. Maybe you pushed too hard while working/playing or working out, or on a training exercise.  

Maybe you've found yourself in a socially toxic environment that punishes you for your virtues, or maybe you've offended someone and are being rebuked because of it. 

Like physical discomfort, your emotional pain is a warning system to tell you, something is wrong. Either you're doing something the wrong way, or in a place/battle that is past saving and you need to (conceptually/ physically/ emotionally) extract yourself, regroup, recalibrate and figure out a new direction.. or new mission parameters.

And that warning system is a GOOD thing, because in its absence, what would happen? You'd stay in that same toxic relationship or situation or workplace forever. 

What is the alternative? 

Socrates said, "those who want the fewest things are nearest to the gods" and it is a state of mind I have aspired to most of my life. I can find contentment in a moment of peace and enlightened pondering. But that is not motivating, it is aspirationally paralyzing. 

You NEED to characterize the problems AS PROBLEMS before you can conceptualize the need for an alternative plan,  because in the absence of a plan, nothing ever changes for the better. 

Lastly the only truly problematic issue of anxiety and depression is that they are states that draw our attention to them (as all problems should) but what has been lost is the recognition that it is simply a sign, a marker of a problem that requires a solution, and we fixated on the problem instead of finding the solution. 

Do not bury or rationalize or medicate away your emotions, they are trying to guide you to a better life! Process what needs to be processed, flush the rest, and seek a path forward.

Seek and you shall find!

He who has a why

 This has been rattling around my head for a few years now.

I have repeatedly posted a quote from Nietzsche saying, ‘He who has a why, can tolerate almost any how’. This correlates nicely with a quote from Frankel (sp?) saying, ‘A man without purpose distracts himself with pleasure’ which I recently realized has been the synopsis of the majority of my free time pursuit for years.. Largely because the desired purpose seems all but closed off to me.

This may suggest to the observant what I have long known to be true, I lack a why, a real purpose. I continue to be adrift, and ever moreso now without the moorings of local friends and/or family. I have made myself the stranger in a strange land, an island of sorts. In many ways, it suits me.

My move to the south was an effort to pursue a purpose in the desired adoption of a specific responsibility, which has long since turned toxic and so my vacated purpose has left me adrift once again, and trying to find my bearings.

See, what so many people don’t understand is that the responsibilities of life that people often complain about the weight of, are the very thing that give you purpose and meaning, and for those who have a high degree of conscientiousness, purpose and meaning are more sustaining than food or water. They are the harness on a sled dog that gives them something to pull against, a job to do, and the absence of it may be just too free.

There is a saying, “hard times create strong men, strong men create good times, good times create weak men, weak men create hard times”.. Perhaps the reason this seems so true is that hard times give men a purpose, a harness to pull against and a job to do.

So as a man who feels a particular lack of purpose, I ask you, What is your purpose? What is your why?

Sentimentality

I'm having difficulty reconciling my high degree of sentimentality with my absolute ability to disconnect emotionality from people who should be pivotal people for me. Like Sandy. 

I have been toying with reaching out to her for months now.. but also toying with reaching out to other people who I cut out my life in much more recent time frames. 

I am not asking you for advice, I am just trying to figure out my own motivation or lack thereof, so that I may know if I am lying to myself or repressing some thought about this all, in context to one's own mortality. 

I do know that I tend to want to reach out when I am at a crossroads or feel more particularly solitary and indulging my sentimentality. 

Life is after all at least largely about relationships, if not to specific individuals, then to humanity as such. And I know I am failing or lacking in every single relationship in my existence. Even my relationship with my own being. I have always, and perhaps will always want more, and today have nearly nothing.. and that is the exquisite torture of a sentimental soul.

Truths become self evident

Perhaps the reason that being able to carefully and judiciously break rules is a good thing is that the rules need to evolve as our understanding of the realm we live in grows to new paradigms

Like the constant course corrections on a long roadless journey, we nudge our trajectories to a closer approximation of perfection. 

We must take aim

we are all fools

Peace is only complacent and teaches nothing. Turmoil, conflict and the constant battle between chaos and order are more visceral and teachable than the narcotic effect of peace and complacency.

We love peace but we are made for the battle.

As much as I might wish it weren't true,  you will always hold an exalted place in my heart. 

Anyone you ever truly love, you always will.

How foolish is it of me to still hold fantastical dreams of what might have been between us. Dreams born of fantastic projections of who you could have been to me. 

Love is a fools errand

And we are all fools