I always wonder with these "nothing we do has meaning" pieces... what WOULD give life 'real' meaning? As in, what alternate reality would provide meaning?<p>I can't imagine a universe where things would have 'meaning' in the manner the author of this post seems to desire. Even if you believe in a God that gives our lives meaning, doesn't that just push up the search for 'meaning' one level? How is God choosing an arbitrary meaning for our lives any different than some other human choosing a meaning for your life?<p>I can understand being frustrated by the drive for status and recognition, but that doesn't have to be the source for meaning in your life. We can find meaning in all sorts of things in our lives. We can find it in our relationships with our loved ones, in our enjoyment of our favorite activities, in our striving to advance human discovery and understanding of our world. These are things that can have intrinsic meaning, not things that only have meaning in the way they increase our status or grant us some secondary benefit.<p>I would really suggest reading "Man's Search for Meaning" by Viktor Frankl
I enjoyed his points. I've often thought of the meaningless of things, but I like how he called them rituals.<p>“Vanity of vanities!” says the Teacher,
“Vanity of vanities! All is vanity!”<p>The above is a quote from Ecclesiastes, which, even if you're not religious, is a pretty interesting book, and it seems to sum up pretty much what he is saying.<p>Fitting enough, shortly after that opening statement in Ecclesiastes this is said.<p>"What has been—it is what will be;
what has been done—it is what will be done;
there is nothing new under the sun.
There is a thing of which it is said, “Look at this! This is new!”
But it already existed in ages past before us."
<a href="http://xkcd.com/220/" rel="nofollow">http://xkcd.com/220/</a><p><a href="http://xkcd.com/167/" rel="nofollow">http://xkcd.com/167/</a><p>Yeah, sometimes you lose sight about what's beautiful in life. But its the human inside of you who determines whether life is beautiful or not.<p>Why does anything matter? Is it all just a meaningless "ritual"? Maybe, if you don't care. But that doesn't seem like a very healthy mindset to keep yourself into.<p>Life only has the meaning that you assign to it. Others will judge you for "meaningless" tasks, or you yourself may feel like things are meaningless at times. That's normal. Congratulations, you've rediscovered existentialism. Now either play the ritual of philosophy and find meaning in that discovery, or play something else.<p>In any case, seeing life as a serious of "meaningless rituals" ignores the beauty and discovery that life gives us. We all have that phase in our life where we lose meaning, but one day you'll come back around and discover the reason why you continue to march forward.<p>And at that point, you'll rediscover beauty and adventure. Life will be interesting. Today is not that day for you yet however.
You are in a desert of dunes. The day to day is between two dunes. You look up, you see sand.<p>There are mountains in the distance. If you never walk up to the top of the dune, you won't know that, and if you don't make it a habit, you'll quickly forget that you saw them.<p>Your life can be a procession of views of sand grains in between a few dunes, or it can be a deliberate migration towards the mountains.<p>We are not terribly far from an ascension that will completely change the human condition, make it irrelevant as to what we our ancestors were in the evolutionary past, and make it possible to choose everything about what we will be. The future is glorious, golden, and accelerating. You can work towards that, or you can choose to ignore it.
I was with you right up until the last line. I don't understand why most people view nihilism as bleak and depressing. Why do we crave meaning to give us direction?<p>Nihilism feels so <i>liberating</i> to me. I have thoughts like these daily, they serve to remind me that we don't have to do the rituals if we don't want to. We can do <i>whatever we want.</i> At any moment. And nobody can say it's "wrong" or "bad," because those concepts don't exist in the universe at large. There's no point, there's no meaning, there's no goal - it's an open sandbox. Go play, while you still have the chance!
The use of the word "ritual" seems to imply behavioral patterns done without fully understanding them. But a full explanation for human behavior requires a lot more than just understanding monkey behavior (why stop there rather than at mammal behavior, or tetrapod behavior, or RNA replicator behavior), it requires a perfect model of the universe extrapolated over 14 billion years which is forever beyond our grasp.<p>"Ritual" also implies behavior that is done by rote or under duress. But that leaves out behavior that is done because it is desirable or an expected end of it is desirable. The drive to pursue pleasure does not require an explanation, it is its own explanation, much like the drive to avoid pain requires no explanation either.<p>> It makes me wonder what would happen to us if we didn’t have any more rituals to perform or standardized games to wake up to.<p>You describe the absence of all drives, a very unusual state. Sounds like depression, frankly.
<i>It makes me wonder what would happen to us if we didn’t have any more rituals to perform or standardized games to wake up to.</i><p>We'd develop them again. We didn't get the set we have by accident.<p>Some variation would be found, certainly, but cultures around the world converged on many similar notions reaching where we are today.
A little too self-indulgent for my tastes. Any time someone refers to humans as upgraded monkeys I have the same reaction ... "yeah, I get it. Now get over yourself".
My two favorite books on this subject:<p>1) James Carse, <i>Finite and Infinite Games</i>, <a href="http://amzn.com/1476731713" rel="nofollow">http://amzn.com/1476731713</a><p>2) Antoine de St.-Exupéry, <i>Wisdom of the Sands</i> (Fr. <i>Citadelle</i>) <a href="http://amzn.com/0226733726" rel="nofollow">http://amzn.com/0226733726</a>
<a href="http://www.smbc-comics.com/?id=2394" rel="nofollow">http://www.smbc-comics.com/?id=2394</a>
<a href="http://www.smbc-comics.com/?id=2871" rel="nofollow">http://www.smbc-comics.com/?id=2871</a><p>But I think between these two concepts:
<a href="http://www.alexwg.org/publications/PhysRevLett_110-168702.pdf" rel="nofollow">http://www.alexwg.org/publications/PhysRevLett_110-168702.pd...</a>
<a href="https://www.quantamagazine.org/20140122-a-new-physics-theory-of-life/" rel="nofollow">https://www.quantamagazine.org/20140122-a-new-physics-theory...</a><p>there might be an implied purpose to the "universe".
An oblique point, but we apparently have more in common with apes than monkeys. Admittedly, you could have just as easily compared us with wolverines. Nicely written!
Well... yes. There's more to it than that. The author pretty much stopped when he could keep going further.<p>A lot of our identity is attached to these meaningless rituals and games. However, the one constant in all of it is Awareness. It's here that when one starts trying to find just "who" is aware that things get interesting again. It leads to some place much deeper and goes beyond the existential dread.
Yes, we are animals. That much is obvious. Yes, we are predictable animals. What is the point of it all? I think those that have found the courage to break free of the shackles of these "games" have found it. I hope to be among them one day, but right now, I am here, seeking freedom like the rest of us.
When you remember that we are evolved monkeys it all makes perfect sense. Not saying it's somehow gratifying or inspiring but leaves little mystery. Probably not the answer you were looking for.
Embrace nihilism! (if you want)<p>But definitely read Camus and Nietzsche.<p>Camus is particularly good if you'd like to be exposed to philosophies/ideas that result in happiness, rather than ones that demand you just have it.
seems to devalue the practice of ritualism, while mocking the social constructs of presumably a city. maybe try reflecting on one or the other instead of devaluing the potency of each.
Sure this kind of posts get pretty annoying. As the author keeps repeating "existential longing" I want to yell "get over it already" or "stop smoking pot".<p>But then I remember that I have my moments too. It's not everyday, but I definitely have times where I look at the mundanity of programming. Today, making these pages render in a few milliseconds gets me excited, but the other day I was watching a live feed from the international space station and simply switched the channel. Because what's is the damn point.<p>I don't find these posts meaningless. And don't be too quick to judge. Today it is him/her, tomorrow it is you!