Does anyone REALLY wake up excited in the morning?

[Kung Fu Steve]

I just think that what I do is too obscure and that people doing stuff that's objectively of low-value (look at your average influencer) get more rewarded. So it makes no sense to invest so much effort to appeal to such a small number of people who do find value in what I do. Why write long, thoughtful articles and work on my newsletter if people posting 5-second social media videos get more engagement and all the money.



Damn Gary was such a great writer. I never saw this ad but it's awesome (and also a bit sad at the same time).



I guess if I were getting paid for this then I probably would care less about whether people are using it or not. But since I'm neither getting paid nor having any impact then it seems senseless to do it.

Which probably means I'm in the wrong business (if I can call my newsletter a business).



Yeah I live a good life. I challenge myself daily, though, so I have a lot of discomfort in my life as well.

As for the second paragraph - definitely. I was very driven when I needed to make a lot of money. Once you do, and money was a strong driver for you, nothing can replace that motivation (and you can't bring back the same desire to make money).

Brother, if I may be so bold, you're strategy is just way off.

If you want me to take a look at your stuff let's go through it. Send me your offer, landing pages, funnels, copy, and let's just clean it up. You have something to share with the world, it's probably just not positioned properly. These are solvable problems.

I've got some time today if you want to send it over. Email or here or whatever.

 

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[MTF]

Brother, if I may be so bold, you're strategy is just way off.

If you want me to take a look at your stuff let's go through it. Send me your offer, landing pages, funnels, copy, and let's just clean it up. You have something to share with the world, it's probably just not positioned properly. These are solvable problems.

I've got some time today if you want to send it over. Email or here or whatever.

Thanks, PM sent. I'd appreciate any thoughts you may have, including stuff like "dude this sucks and it won't work."

 

[biophase]

Planting a single tree doesn't change anything. It may be dead within a year. It may be cut down by an idiot. It may be snapped in half during a thunderstorm. But it may also have a long life. It may be cool to look at it while it grows, knowing that you helped it get there. It may help start a forest even if that forest will be gone in 500 years to make space for another McDonalds (you can't control it so why care?)

I disagree with this. You don’t know if this tree will or will not make it. You also don’t know if this tree will provide food or shelter for a bird or a caterpillar. It may be meaningless to you in the span of 500 years, but it may provide a lot of value to a bunch of insects for the span of their life.

Picking up trash in the wilderness has no meaning. For every piece of trash you'll collect there'll be some F*cker who'll litter again. But if it makes you feel good and temporarily makes the environment a little more pleasant, why not do it?

What if picking up that piece of trash prevents an animal from getting stuck in it?

What you do in life can affect many others. Does the squirrel thank you for planting a tree? No, it’s going about it’s life and the tree was just there. The squirrel will be dead in 10 years anyway. Do you feel better knowing that the tree you planted helped it live a better life?

I guess that’s up to you. I know I would.

 

[MTF]

I disagree with this. You don’t know if this tree will or will not make it. You also don’t know if this tree will provide food or shelter for a bird or a caterpillar. It may be meaningless to you in the span of 500 years, but it may provide a lot of value to a bunch of insects for the span of their life.

My point was exactly what you wrote. I think I could have worded it differently but what you wrote was exactly my point. You don't know what will happen so you may just as well do it if it makes you feel good (and not worry about what's going to happen later).

What if picking up that piece of trash prevents an animal from getting stuck in it?

What you do in life can affect many others. Does the squirrel thank you for planting a tree? No, it’s going about it’s life and the tree was just there. The squirrel will be dead in 10 years anyway. Do you feel better knowing that the tree you planted helped it live a better life?

I guess that’s up to you. I know I would.

Same as above. I actually planted a tiny forest following the Miyawaki method (used for planting fast-growing native forests) and it's been growing spectacularly well. It does give me joy to see it even though I also know that one day it'll probably be gone.

 

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[Trevor Kuntz]

1. Life is meaningless but it's what you have. Do whatever you want. Don't try to find some deep purpose in it because there's none.

I want to make a counterpoint to this conclusion which is not that life is meaningless, but that there is no way for us to concretely know what life's meaning is, if any. Personally, I am not a nihilist and some nihilists would look at my arguments and say I am in denial for continuing to explore questions of meaning and purpose. I do recognize that if there is any objective truth to the universe, it is highly unlikely I will ever have ample evidence for it and almost certainly not within my lifetime. If there is an afterlife, I cannot know until I am dead.

I will never stop exploring purpose and meaning and the more I learn about the world, cultures, philosophy, etc only encourages me to continue exploring even deeper. What I would absolutely argue against is religious/philosophical zealotry and mental rigidity. Being certain of one's truth about the nature of the universe, of life, etc is almost certain to be wrong because our base of knowledge and viewpoint is too myopic.

I know this doesn't help the "We're so insignificant in the grand scheme of things!" point of view here at all but can you guys imagine "modern" humans fighting Neanderthals for 150,000 years?

Hunt, fight, eat, procreate, sleep, repeat. That's all our ancestors did.

Imagine how many happy/sad/epic stories unfolded but will forever remain untold throughout 150,000 years of the above.

That @Simon Angel brought up early humans brings another unique perspective to this conversation. The fact that you and I are here, descendants of literally hundreds of thousands of generations is something of a miracle. Unlike geological history, human history is very limited in scope but there are still so many mysteries to be explored within humanity's historical journey, particularly the 99% of human history before 10000 BC.

Humans have long had an innate drive to understand the meaning of the universe and life; us 21st Century humans are certainly not the first to experience this angst. One of the books I read on the origin of religion posits the question: which came first, the city or the temple? From excavations at Göbekli Tepe in Türkiye, there is actually decent evidence that the temple there was being constructed prior to the advent of agriculture and farming and that religious ideas spurred the development of agriculture and not the other way around. That is certainly an interesting development in understand the importance of religion to humans universally.

2. The drive to be remembered or do something long-lasting and meaningful is foolish.

It is clear I mostly agree with this and have thought it often. I sometimes laugh when thinking about the ways in which people choose to "build a legacy." Having children is probably the most common way. I look at my own family and realize that unless my sister and/or brother have children, the bloodlines of my paternal grandparents (3 kids), maternal great-grandparents (3 kids) and grandparents (2 kids), and my own parents (3 kids) would all end. Considering the world we live in, the chances of one's bloodline continuing past 2 or 3 generations is decreasing rapidly unless you have probably 3 or more children.

Many legacies are attempted to be developed through enterprise companies or the building of inheritable houses and things like that, but how many of those generally last more than 100 years? Unconventionally, I think the best way of prolonging the story of one's life would be to etch it deeply in stone tablets, with the same texts in multiple modern languages, accompanied by simple, easy-to-understand drawings, and then bury them in an arid area of the world with few inhabitants akin to a modern-day Rosetta Stone. I'm not really even opposed to doing that myself at some point in my life.

3. You don't need to wake up REALLY excited. Being content is fine.

I 100% agree with this. Contentedness is the ideal human state of multiple religions and philosophies and many of them actually deride exuberance as fleeting and undesirable. I think your original post was misunderstood as you being depressed, but you were really just saying you don't feel exuberant and that is not unnatural at all.

4. You may not see any meaning in life but you can still serve if that makes you feel good.

I would and sort of have argued that service provides meaning.

Often, I look at my dog and realize that he never questions the meaning of his life. His life has no true purpose, but as far as I can tell, he has no clue about it. If he and I were separately dropped into unending wildernesses, my domesticated dog would die pretty quickly and I would probably die not long after, but in the modern world, we will both probably live out our natural lives nearly to the end. Even though I think his life has no meaning and I think my life maybe has no meaning, we both provide meaning to each other. We both enhance each other's lives, regardless of whether either of us has an ultimate purpose. Me serving him adds meaning to my life, whether that is objectively true or not.

This spring, I planted 30 native pollinator bushes in my backyard to be survival shelters, breeding grounds, food, and pollen providers for pollinating insects. Without those insects, humanity would have a much harder time surviving and for many reasons, those insect populations are struggling to survive. My impact is not global or even regional, but I help them, they help me, I provide for their purpose and in doing so, I feel I add meaning to my life. In the process, I meet more people doing the same in my community and build friendships with like-minded people and learn about nature and insects and all that.

5. Remind yourself of your insignificance often.

I find nature the best tool to remind me of my insignificance and also gain some peace when it comes to the cycle of life.

One of the reasons why I find nature so therapeutic is because in nature everything is insignificant. You're nothing against the power of the ocean. You're nothing against severe weather. You're nothing against wild predators. You're but one creature among millions more living everywhere around you. Humans may be more inventive but they're still a part of the same cycle.

Also, when you spend time in nature, there's no purpose to it other than the experience and/or survival (depending on the circumstances). There's no point to surfing. It just feels good. There's no point in going on a long hike, either, except the experience of it. And that's a good thing as each time you do that, you can remember your existence is the same thing. Just a tiny nothing in the vastness of the universe.

I envy your close connection to nature. It is probably because I live in a big city in a desert and would have to drive 2 hours to be in a pine forest, but you obviously value nature to the highest degree. In the modern world and especially in the city world, we think we are so detached from nature, but I know that I am able to live comfortably only because of the modern invention of air conditioning. Lol. If an EMP attack or Carrington Event ever occurred in Phoenix (or most any city, for that matter), we would quickly realize how unremoved from nature we truly are.

Nature seemingly has no meaning, but almost everything about nature has a purpose. Every bug dragged into an ant hill provides nutrients for the soil and we are not so different from that bug. Since most humans throughout history have been intimately tied to nature, many of the myths and creation stories involve nature. Exploring the etiology of human cultures can be quite fascinating if you aren't looking for objective truths. I've found that human creativity knows no bounds and that all cultures create fascinatingly unique mythologies the likes of which the Marvel cinematic universe could only wish to imitate.

You asked about books in another post, so my recommendations would be Walden by Henry David Thoreau and Letters from the Earth and The Innocents Abroad by Mark Twain and Self-Reliance by Ralph Waldo Emerson. Each book is suited to different interests you've expressed in your posts.

 

[MTF]

I will never stop exploring purpose and meaning and the more I learn about the world, cultures, philosophy, etc only encourages me to continue exploring even deeper. What I would absolutely argue against is religious/philosophical zealotry and mental rigidity. Being certain of one's truth about the nature of the universe, of life, etc is almost certain to be wrong.

No disagreement here, I think your view makes more sense than mine. Nothing worse than being "sure" about something.

Unconventionally, I think the best way of prolonging the story of one's life would be to etch it deeply in stone tablets, with the same texts in multiple modern languages, accompanied by simple, easy-to-understand drawings, and then bury them in an arid area of the world with few inhabitants akin to a modern-day Rosetta Stone. I'm not really even opposed to doing that myself at some point in my life.

Lol that could be a nice business idea. Find an earthquake-free arid place and bury people's stone tablets there so they can feel like they left a legacy.

I think your original post was misunderstood as you being depressed, but you were really just saying you don't feel exuberant and that is not unnatural at all.

That might be it but I might be depressed as well. It's just word choice, in the end there's little difference here because it's a philosophical problem, not a chemical one.

This spring, I planted 30 native pollinator bushes in my backyard to be survival shelters, breeding grounds, food, and pollen providers for pollinating insects. Without those insects, humanity would have a much harder time surviving and for many reasons, those insect populations are struggling to survive. My impact is not global or even regional, but I help them, they help me, I provide for their purpose and in doing so, I feel I add meaning to my life. In the process, I meet more people doing the same in my community and build friendships with like-minded people and learn about nature and insects and all that.

That's very cool. In addition to the tiny forest I planted (mentioned in my previous post) I also planted native pollinator bushes around the forest as well. My mom also keeps a considerable part of my parents' land as a natural meadow. It's awesome (compared to terrible lawns that are biodiversity deserts).

I envy your close connection to nature. It is probably because I live in a big city in a desert and would have to drive 2 hours to be in a pine forest, but you obviously value nature to the highest degree.

I live in a city as well (but very small compared to Phoenix) but I have a forest right outside my apartment and a bigger forest a 10-minute drive from where I live. In the summer I drive a few times a week to the nearest clean lake which is about 35 minutes away from where I live. It's the closest thing I have to a commute lol.

What I don't do (yet) is spending more than a few hours at a time in nature. In my country there aren't really any true wilderness areas as there are in the US.

Nature seemingly has no meaning, but almost everything about nature has a purpose. Every bug dragged into an ant hill provides nutrients for the soil and we are not so different from that bug.

That's a good way to put it. I enjoy watching nature documentaries and learning about these relationships. I remember one episode of The Green Planet where David Attenborough talked about ants feeding a freaking fungus growing in their nest. That was extremely weird, sort of as if they were "feeding" their god.

You asked about books in another post, so my recommendations would be Walden by Henry David Thoreau and Letters from the Earth and The Innocents Abroad by Mark Twain and Self-Reliance by Ralph Waldo Emerson. Each book is suited to different interests you've expressed in your posts.

Thanks for the recommendations. I usually struggle with books written so long ago but I'll see if I can read some of these.

 

[Trevor Kuntz]

Sincerely, thanks for starting up this conversation, @MTF Funnily enough, this conversation has been half of my "reason to wake up excited in the morning" for the last few days and all of the contributors here have taught me a lot and expanded my thinking.

MTF, you were the speaker I had seen at the summit (2018, I think) and I hope we will get to meet up in the future since we seem to share a lot of similar thoughts. I primarily recommended Thoreau and Emerson because of their deep connections to nature and transcendentalism, but I think you will have no problems with Twain since apart from his better-known fiction, his non-fiction books read more like a 21st century writer stuck in the 19th century.

 

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[Trevor Kuntz]

That's very cool. In addition to the tiny forest I planted (mentioned in my previous post) I also planted native pollinator bushes around the forest as well. My mom also keeps a considerable part of my parents' land as a natural meadow. It's awesome (compared to terrible lawns that are biodiversity deserts).

You should also post a photo of the forest you planted and the meadow. I'd definitely follow a "progress" thread of the forest

 

[Jerma]

My conclusions from this thread so far:

1. Life is meaningless but it's what you have. Do whatever you want. Don't try to find some deep purpose in it because there's none.

Some people think that life has meaning and some people think that it doesn't. Since I can't fool myself that life has meaning (just look at all the living beings in the world and then look at the number of galaxies and the vastness of the universe), I most relate to @Trevor Kuntz's post and view on things.

In accepting that life has no meaning perhaps I can actually find humor in all this and see that seeking purpose is some funny a$$ shit I'm foolish to chase. It doesn't mean resignation, though. It just means seeing the world as absurd in a good way.

2. The drive to be remembered or do something long-lasting and meaningful is foolish.

Time destroys everything much sooner than we think. Besides, if you cease to exist after your death, there's no point worrying about your "legacy" or purpose while you're alive.

IMO even people who think they leave something behind them because they have kids are mistaken. Your child may die before having children. Your child may decide not to have children. Shortly after you die, your entire "legacy" might end as well. But you won't know it anyway so who cares.

Feel free to have legacy projects or feel free to not give a F*ck. Either way it makes no difference—and that is neither a positive or a negative thing. It just is.

3. You don't need to wake up REALLY excited. Being content is fine.

I got up at 6:30 am today and decided to go on a bike ride. I wasn't ECSTATIC but I was content. I had the luxury of waking up early, healthy, and with sun in the sky and go on a bike ride in the forest.

I was content and that was good enough. It had no purpose and no meaning other than experiencing life. I don't need to be exhilarated or jumping up and down like a cheesy motivational speaker if that's not my wiring.

Maybe @Andy Black won't agree with me but I think that since I'm more of an even-keeled guy I can simply embrace that stability and quiet peace of mind (over shouting from the rooftops how EXCITED and HAPPY I am oh my gosh!)

4. You may not see any meaning in life but you can still serve if that makes you feel good.

Planting a single tree doesn't change anything. It may be dead within a year. It may be cut down by an idiot. It may be snapped in half during a thunderstorm. But it may also have a long life. It may be cool to look at it while it grows, knowing that you helped it get there. It may help start a forest even if that forest will be gone in 500 years to make space for another McDonalds (you can't control it so why care?)

Picking up trash in the wilderness has no meaning. For every piece of trash you'll collect there'll be some F*cker who'll litter again. But if it makes you feel good and temporarily makes the environment a little more pleasant, why not do it?

Heck, you may not even see any meaning in helping your friend install some new bullshit lights on the terrace but if that makes them feel good and serving them makes you feel good, why not?

Nothing matters so who cares. Do whatever you want.

5. Remind yourself of your insignificance often.

As with other conclusions, not everyone will agree with that and that's fine. It's my personal conclusion.

Why does reminding yourself of your insignificance help? Because this way you won't feel dissatisfied that you aren't better than everyone (hence, you'll feel okay being mediocre if that's all you can personally reach, for example when starting late in sports). You'll also stop worrying so much about having an impact because the truth is that your impact, no matter how big you are, will still be insignificant given a long enough timeline. Even the most "world-changing" people of today will be all largely forgotten within a century or two (and that's laughably short).

I find nature the best tool to remind me of my insignificance and also gain some peace when it comes to the cycle of life.

One of the reasons why I find nature so therapeutic is because in nature everything is insignificant. You're nothing against the power of the ocean. You're nothing against severe weather. You're nothing against wild predators. You're but one creature among millions more living everywhere around you. Humans may be more inventive but they're still a part of the same cycle.

Also, when you spend time in nature, there's no purpose to it other than the experience and/or survival (depending on the circumstances). There's no point to surfing. It just feels good. There's no point in going on a long hike, either, except the experience of it. And that's a good thing as each time you do that, you can remember your existence is the same thing. Just a tiny nothing in the vastness of the universe.

---

Yeah, it's nihilistic but I think it's nihilistic in an empowering way.

I'm a little surprised that this is your conclusion here. I think that this way of thinking could potentially be dangerous and make you even less excited about life.

The philosopher Thomas Nagel wrote about this kind of thinking in his book "The Absurd," and he does it much better than I ever could. If you are interested in digging a little into the philosophy, there's a good summary here :

View: https://youtu.be/Fi8RVTkjve4

 

[MTF]

You should also post a photo of the forest you planted and the meadow. I'd definitely follow a "progress" thread of the forest

I wish I had taken pictures each year with something for scale and always from the same perspective but well... It's not the greatest progress photo series but it is what it is.



The first year when we planted it (2019) the tallest saplings were about 1.5 meters (most were 1 meter) and all were basically thin sticks. Right now the tallest one is at least 5 meters (I need to measure it but it's really tall now).

Here's how dense it is inside now (consider that mere three years ago it was almost nothing, as you can see in the picture above):

https://imgur.com/a/GkqfMi2

View: https://imgur.com/a/GkqfMi2


Come to think of it, seeing stuff like this is is what makes me feel excited and hopeful.

 

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[MTF]

The philosopher Thomas Nagel wrote about this kind of thinking in his book "The Absurd," and he does it much better than I ever could. If you are interested in digging a little into the philosophy, there's a good summary here :

I found a summary here and it basically says the exact same thing I wanted to say in my post:

Summary – Life has no objective meaning and there is no reason to think we can give it any meaning at all. Still, we continue to live and should respond, not with defiance or despair, but with an ironic smile. Life is not as important and meaningful as we may have once suspected, but this is not a cause for sadness.

 

[Jerma]

I found a summary here and it basically says the exact same thing I wanted to say in my post:

I think he's saying something more profound than what you are assuming.
He's saying that you are right in a way but that the very arguments you used in your conclusion are irrational. They come from a feeling of absurdity, not a rigorous logical process. He's also saying that you cannot discount the subjective point of view.

The danger is this: you seem to tilt too hard to the objective point of view, and in doing so, you discount the subjective point of view (which is equally valid).

An example of how it can backfire: Let's say that legacy is meaningless from the objective point of view. Yet, let's say you or a part of you (your unconscious) might deeply care about your children and their children. You are not engaging in that legacy project because you know that objectively it doesn't matter, then you alienate yourself from that part of you that cares about it. It turns out that part of you (the unconscious) is the part of you that controls if you feel excited in the morning or not. Thus you F*ck yourself up and you kill your own spark. I don't know if it works exactly like that, but it's worth thinking about.

 

[Deleted88861]

I've been practicing gratitude with my girlfriend for almost a year already. Each evening we share 5 things we're grateful for. I'd say that I got very good at seeing even very little things I'm grateful for.

But from my experience being grateful doesn't equal feeling like your life has meaning. You just aren't that negative and entitled.



Sometimes but usually not.



No. I have recurrent headaches but not at night (unless I don't take a painkiller before going to sleep when I already have a slight headache but then I'll wake up dying from earsplitting pain).



I've tried a shit ton of different things, and of course all the basics. Now it pisses me off when people give cliche advice like "take vitamin D" or "have a morning ritual" (I'm not pissed off at you, just pointing out what I often see online).



Yep, and that's my problem. No idea how to re-establish it or re-figure it out.



I did one hour of meditation a day for 257 days in a row. It messed me up instead of helping me and I'm so F*cking glad I don't have to do this bullshit anymore. Since then, I'm a meditation hater lol. Meditation while doing sports or being out in nature >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> BS "sitting" meditation.

Hmm, yeah there are a lot of bollocks out there when it comes to meditation/mindfulness. If you are given shitty ideas and guidance then it's understandable that you look at it that way, lol. There certainly is a hell of a lot of cheesy and cringe meditation people trying to teach it in weird ways. I personally would recommend OSHO (there are many of his videos on YouTube that explain his idea of meditation) as his stuff helped me a lot, especially when I have the attention span of a frog (or less)... They have a good app as well, though I don't really use it much for now. Meditation without the cheese is the best kind

 

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[Matt Sun]

Have you tried charity work MTF ? As a teen I used to do it for rotary club (for teens), once we celebrated the birthday for all the kids of an orphanage. We served them food and went there with clowns and magicians and little pedal carts, It always stayed with me that just playing with theses kids gave me so much happiness, and I gained nothing, technically, oh but I gained so much on the inside. Anyway just a thought, interesting thread.

 

[MTF]

Have you tried charity work MTF ? As a teen I used to do it for rotary club (for teens), once we celebrated the birthday for all the kids of an orphanage. We served them food and went there with clowns and magicians and little pedal carts, It always stayed with me that just playing with theses kids gave me so much happiness, and I gained nothing, technically, oh but I gained so much on the inside. Anyway just a thought, interesting thread.

Not in person. I donate to some charities but it's mostly environmental stuff. This may sound a bit ruthless but I don't care about humans as much as I care about the environment and animals.

 

[Black_Dragon43]

I did one hour of meditation a day for 257 days in a row. It messed me up instead of helping me and I'm so F*cking glad I don't have to do this bullshit anymore. Since then, I'm a meditation hater lol. Meditation while doing sports or being out in nature >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> BS "sitting" meditation.

There isn’t just one kind of meditation @MTF. They actually have different effects on the brain and are not at all similar.

What most people consider meditation nowadays is basically Buddhist mindfulness. It’s a training of attention - you being your attention back to your breath (or it could be yournheart beat etc) every time it strays away. This is an effortful meditation, where you’re fighting against yourself.

There are other forms of meditation too. Open monitoring meditations, where you leave your awareness to notice whatever is coming up. This is the “do nothing” meditation. This is still effortful because once again, you are actively seeking to pay attention to what’s happening… not to a particular stimulus, but to all of them.

And finally, there are nondirective meditations. Like TM, NSR or CMR. In these meditations there is no effort… just a going inside, but without any effort. The point is simply to put the body in a state that will dissolve stress. We know these meditations have a VERY different effect than mindfulness or open monitoring. For example, instead of diminshing the sense of self, they strengthen the sense of self. Instead of shutting down the Default Mode Network of your brain, they turn it on. During these meditations you can have thoughts and you’re not trying to pay attention to anything. That’s why they are effortless.

I suggest you give this latter class a try. If you don’t want to pay $1,000 to learn TM (imo it’s worth it), then start with CMR which is free and see what effect it has on you. Then you can switch to TM later. You can get access to it here, the founder Gavin Hoole is an ex-TM practitioner, and he has passed away. Both CMR and TM take no more than 20min in the morning and 20min in the evening. I personally just do 20min in the morning usually.

 

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[MJ DeMarco]

Another way of thinking that helps me is to fast forward to the moments before your death.

In those last hours, will I be happy with the life I led with zero regret? Have I done all I could with certain things that I may not have control over? Can I be at peace with the decisions I made? Thus far I'm 2/3rds through my life and right now, I can say I have.

So sometimes, I think about this simple question, and it helps me live the life today.

I also sometimes ask myself, "If I decided to be born (say if "life" was a simulation) would I be disappointed I didn't take advantage of my time here?" What if life was just a game? And most people just decide, "Meh, I don't want to play".

Bottomline is, no one knows what's in the afterlife, if our consciousness lives on, or if we're just some quark energy field floating out in the cosmos. Whatever the answer, the gift I have right now, is this life. And I'm gonna make the most of it, and be damn happy along the way.

 

[DougRMR]

And what is a therapist supposed to tell me? "Come on man, life has purpose" (while it has none)?

Says you? You seem to be very sure.

Gonna give you some tough love here, man: you sound a bit arrogant. How do you know so surely it has no purpose? Actually, the better question is: WHY do you think it has no purpose? That question alone will probably dig up certain paradigms you have. I was extremely nihilistic, bitter and skeptical like you wouldn't believe (not saying you are any of these things necessarily, but just letting you know where I came from) but I realized that life has many meanings, on many levels. And they're all logically correct. I'm not a millionaire but I've had some very profound experiences with inner work and spirituality in my life. So I'll try and give you some of my 2 cents.

The meaning of your individual experience is to realize that all life on Earth is One and you should seek harmony between our fellow humans. That's factually correct or else everything turns into chaos.

The meaning of your journey is to grow, learn and squeeze the shit out of life. (Try to) Enjoy every second. Otherwise, what's the point of a journey in the first place if it's not to get from one point to the other?

The meaning of human life is to procreate and find community. That's literally what your genes are meant to do and what they try to do until you die. This is biologically and empirically true. it's also the reason why we hang out in the Fastlane Forum in the first place

The meaning of existence is existence itself. It's right in the definition. It's like asking what the point of swimming is. You could say swimming's used to get you from point A to point B, sure, but so does existence get us from point A (0 years old) to point B (our deathbed).

And then the final one for me was realizing that there is a God (or the Universe or Consciousness or whatever you wanna call it). Again, I was an extremely edgy atheist and skeptical of everything. But at one point I feel that you as a human just know. The smartest minds in the world almost always reached that same conclusion, that there is something out there that is conscious. Everything in the Universe is a reaction from something. NOBODY knows what consciousness is exactly, nor its purpose (similar to the big bang). So consciousness HAS to come from something that is conscious/intelligent itself.

And then on a practical level, God or belief in a higher power (whatever you think it is) is a biological necessity for conscious humans. If you're philosophical and skeptical by nature (like I am), ironically the more you need an anchor to a higher power because logic doesn't have the answer to everything nor does it ever give an answer to what "meaning" is. Mother Earth, the Universe, your mind, whatever... Just choose something to submit to. Humans for thousands of years have done it, not because they were stupid but because instinctually they needed to believe in something. So do you, I and everyone else (unless you're an android or something). There's no shame in that and it doesn't knock off any IQ points to believe in something as long as you're not a zealot fundamentalist.

And to take the most fatalistic scenario: even if/when the universe explodes, the journey is still to just exist and learn.

Hope this at least gives you something to think about, man. I feel you 100% because I've been there.

 

[biophase]

So today I woke up with no plans. No particular meaning for the day. But I ended up mountain biking, getting coffee, walking the dog, having dinner with friends. It was a great day. Nothing specifically accomplished in the whole meaning of life realm.

What was awesome is that we crossed paths with plenty of other people hiking and biking, most were aged 60+ easily. They were out having a great time. We all agreed on what a beautiful day it was. That’s what day to day life is all about. Having a bunch of single great days.

We saw a dog running down the trail with a stick in its mouth. I don’t know why but that made us all very happy. Just a dog running on a trail as happy as can be with no worries in the world.

 

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[NeoDialectic]

There has been alot of good advice in this thread, and I won't waste my time repeating it. This is written on my phone, right before bed after a long day of traveling so It may be a bit disorganized. But I will add a few things that I seemed to be sorely missing and I felt compelled to get out there.

1. The body of research agrees with your point of view that disposition is on average genetic. However, I fully agree with @Andy Black that it is technically a choice and who said you have to be average...we can also ask what makes someone more or less likely to make that choice? But there's enough philosophy jargon in this thread, so I won't add more by going down the Determinism black hole.... ill just say that I agree that everyone can make the choice to look at things positively but the way to end up doing that may require different paths for different people. There are people that are naturally excitable and then there are people that can also get excited but need to work for it. A parallel metaphor. Ive got friends that love to eat chicken and broccoli. They won the "healthy eating" genetic lottery. Nothing is stopping me from eating it, so it's still a choice. But that choice will always be harder for me. That doesn't mean I won't do it though or that I should blame things on luck. When looking for advice on how to get myself to eat healthy, I think it's prudent to ask the person that eats it but didn't naturally have an affinity to it.

2. Your answers to everyone's advice seem to have a few common themes. One of the big themes can be diluted to "yea I KNOW that thinking like X or pretending Y would fix this. I'm not a idiot..but since i know this, I can't just pretend my way into it. You can't fool myself!" . I'm a big believer in the "you can't fool yourself" mantra. I say it all the time to @fastlane_dad during our discussions. But hold onto your seat, because over the years I've learned to do just that when its important enough!

3. How? I literally treat it like a puzzle of "how do I fool myself" and go from there. You can't Nihilism your way out of basic human biology. You can sing the songs of "nothing matters in the end" all day, but then eventually you're opening your fridge looking for food. What a hypocrit!!

4. Generally, the way I fool myself is by aiming at something that I think may fulfill me or make me happy or excited and then starting to do it. (Fulfilment and happiness are different things but in many ways these tools can be used for either). If that doesn't work, change gears and try something else. I do this despite knowing that ultimately I'll be 6ft under. Not because I think I'll make a difference 1 million years from now. But because I know I'm human and being human I have certain buttons. My job is to find them and push them. Why? What a silly question! Feeling excited feels better than not feeling excited. Why does there need to be more than that.

5. If you are having trouble finding an aim or "truth" to go towards, I default to things that withstand the tests of time. No single person can ever know anything approximating truth or what is right....but I do believe in there being a certain value to a type of darwinian truth. If people have been doing it for EONS and it's been passed down in folklore the entire time, there is likely SOME truth in it. Having kids, helping others, socializing, being honest, sense of community, etc... Again, here I am back to fooling myself. I dont have to believe in these things having some magical properties. They may be arbitrary, but so is me eating or not (in the grand scheme of things). I do it all the same as it doesn't end up FEELING arbitrary to me whether I eat or not. You don't have to do these things.....it may be arbitrary afterall...but ignore them completely at your own peril! I treat them like strong suggestions that I should have evidence against doing, versus ordinarily needing evidence for doing something.

6. Not everyone will respond to all these common things. If you are sure ones not right for you try a different one.

7. Something that fascinated me is when someone is unhappy but is so sure of everything and has all the answers. Satisfaction can probably be summed up by something like "reality meeting expectation". If the end result is not to satisfaction, youre wrong or don't know something. Maybe you'll say it's a definitions game. But why choose definitions that are less helpful? Your job is to figure out what youre wrong about. It's tough to do when you already got all the answers. (The flip side of the coin is the very happy and fulfilled simpleton. I wouldn't dare rag on him. He's literally got it all figured out.)

Now tying things back to my first bullet point and the answer to your original question. I am also a much more neutral person. There aren't alot of things that excite me. But I also rarely feel depressed or sad or anxious or any negative feelings either. You win some, you lose some.

Since i am naturally "excitement poor", I've learned that when something does excite me or i want to do something, I run with it. As @biophase said, once I've got my most important ducks in a row, success could now be in video games or hanging a shelf. Asking what the purpose is, seems like a dumb question when the answer was already in the proposition. Because I wanted to. (This is of course answering the question of short term satisfaction like happiness...fulfillment takes work and long term thought. Optimal would be balancing the two or working them in harmony. Otherwise we would all just do cocaine all day! So its give/take. Im focusing on excitement in this post as thats what you asked about)

As a side note.......Kids have changed my daily disposition a bit, for better or worse. They have added alot of frustration but also excitement. I legitimately get excited when my son/daughter gets excited about something. It's dumb and not something I could have philosophied myself into or predicted. In fact, i just wouldnt get that till i got it. However I pulled a bullet point #5 and now I'm a few years into this ultimate trick. What a fool I made of myself! As I said, I can't explain it, but here I am feeling excited about someone else's excitement all the same.

 

[LiveEntrepreneur]

No, I haven't for a very long time. I used to when I had more energy but if you spend years not having achieved anything you tend to not be excited about anything to be honest. There are days that I've felt good if I made progress but it doesn't last long. For me to be excited, it would have to be because there is something that I want to do. There's nothing atm that I'm doing that I want to do.

 

[Andy Black]

There has been alot of good advice in this thread, and I won't waste my time repeating it. This is written on my phone, right before bed after a long day of traveling so It may be a bit disorganized. But I will add a few things that I seemed to be sorely missing and I felt compelled to get out there.

1. The body of research agrees with your point of view that disposition is on average genetic. However, I fully agree with @Andy Black that it is technically a choice and who said you have to be average...we can also ask what makes someone more or less likely to make that choice? But there's enough philosophy jargon in this thread, so I won't add more by going down the Determinism black hole.... ill just say that I agree that everyone can make the choice to look at things positively but the way to end up doing that may require different paths for different people. There are people that are naturally excitable and then there are people that can also get excited but need to work for it. A parallel metaphor. Ive got friends that love to eat chicken and broccoli. They won the "healthy eating" genetic lottery. Nothing is stopping me from eating it, so it's still a choice. But that choice will always be harder for me. That doesn't mean I won't do it though or that I should blame things on luck. When looking for advice on how to get myself to eat healthy, I think it's prudent to ask the person that eats it but didn't naturally have an affinity to it.

2. Your answers to everyone's advice seem to have a few common themes. One of the big themes can be diluted to "yea I KNOW that thinking like X or pretending Y would fix this. I'm not a idiot..but since i know this, I can't just pretend my way into it. You can't fool myself!" . I'm a big believer in the "you can't fool yourself" mantra. I say it all the time to @fastlane_dad during our discussions. But hold onto your seat, because over the years I've learned to do just that when its important enough!

3. How? I literally treat it like a puzzle of "how do I fool myself" and go from there. You can't Nihilism your way out of basic human biology. You can sing the songs of "nothing matters in the end" all day, but then eventually you're opening your fridge looking for food. What a hypocrit!!

4. Generally, the way I fool myself is by aiming at something that I think may fulfill me or make me happy or excited and then starting to do it. (Fulfilment and happiness are different things but in many ways these tools can be used for either). If that doesn't work, change gears and try something else. I do this despite knowing that ultimately I'll be 6ft under. Not because I think I'll make a difference 1 million years from now. But because I know I'm human and being human I have certain buttons. My job is to find them and push them. Why? What a silly question! Feeling excited feels better than not feeling excited. Why does there need to be more than that.

5. If you are having trouble finding an aim or "truth" to go towards, I default to things that withstand the tests of time. No single person can ever know anything approximating truth or what is right....but I do believe in there being a certain value to a type of darwinian truth. If people have been doing it for EONS and it's been passed down in folklore the entire time, there is likely SOME truth in it. Having kids, helping others, socializing, being honest, sense of community, etc... Again, here I am back to fooling myself. I dont have to believe in these things having some magical properties. They may be arbitrary, but so is me eating or not (in the grand scheme of things). I do it all the same as it doesn't end up FEELING arbitrary to me whether I eat or not. You don't have to do these things.....it may be arbitrary afterall...but ignore them completely at your own peril! I treat them like strong suggestions that I should have evidence against doing, versus ordinarily needing evidence for doing something.

6. Not everyone will respond to all these common things. If you are sure ones not right for you try a different one.

7. Something that fascinated me is when someone is unhappy but is so sure of everything and has all the answers. Satisfaction can probably be summed up by something like "reality meeting expectation". If the end result is not to satisfaction, youre wrong or don't know something. Maybe you'll say it's a definitions game. But why choose definitions that are less helpful? Your job is to figure out what youre wrong about. It's tough to do when you already got all the answers. (The flip side of the coin is the very happy and fulfilled simpleton. I wouldn't dare rag on him. He's literally got it all figured out.)

Now tying things back to my first bullet point and the answer to your original question. I am also a much more neutral person. There aren't alot of things that excite me. But I also rarely feel depressed or sad or anxious or any negative feelings either. You win some, you lose some.

Since i am naturally "excitement poor", I've learned that when something does excite me or i want to do something, I run with it. As @biophase said, once I've got my most important ducks in a row, success could now be in video games or hanging a shelf. Asking what the purpose is, seems like a dumb question when the answer was already in the proposition. Because I wanted to. (This is of course answering the question of short term satisfaction like happiness...fulfillment takes work and long term thought. Optimal would be balancing the two or working them in harmony. Otherwise we would all just do cocaine all day! So its give/take. Im focusing on excitement in this post as thats what you asked about)

As a side note.......Kids have changed my daily disposition a bit, for better or worse. They have added alot of frustration but also excitement. I legitimately get excited when my son/daughter gets excited about something. It's dumb and not something I could have philosophied myself into or predicted. In fact, i just wouldnt get that till i got it. However I pulled a bullet point #5 and now I'm a few years into this ultimate trick. What a fool I made of myself! As I said, I can't explain it, but here I am feeling excited about someone else's excitement all the same.

I’m “excitement poor”. I even think excitement is something to be wary of.

I imagine a professional poker player seeing the fish (newbie/mark/eejit) call his All-In preflop when he’s got pocket Aces. Excitement can be followed by disappointment and “going on tilt” if the fish beats his pocket Aces with his pocket Jacks.

The professional poker player wasn’t excited preflop, and if he loses he just makes a mental note that the fish over-rates pocket Jacks.



I also know to hack my brain.

“This is boring” has my shoulders slumping and zoning out. Game over for that lecture.

“How can I make this more interesting?” has me sitting forward attentive. My brain has been challenged and is now firing on all cylinders.

Know yourself, understand the power (and stupidity) of your own brain and figure out what *you* need to do to live the life you want.

 

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[Deleted88861]

Hmm, yeah there are a lot of bollocks out there when it comes to meditation/mindfulness. If you are given shitty ideas and guidance then it's understandable that you look at it that way, lol. There certainly is a hell of a lot of cheesy and cringe meditation people trying to teach it in weird ways. I personally would recommend OSHO (there are many of his videos on YouTube that explain his idea of meditation) as his stuff helped me a lot, especially when I have the attention span of a frog (or less)... They have a good app as well, though I don't really use it much for now. Meditation without the cheese is the best kind

Sorry, I think I accidentally replied to the wrong comment... Lol, still getting the hang of this

 

[Black_Dragon43]

I’m “excitement poor”. I even think excitement is something to be wary of.

I imagine a professional poker player seeing the fish (newbie/mark/eejit) call his All-In preflop when he’s got pocket Aces. Excitement can be followed by disappointment and “going on tilt” if the fish beats his pocket Aces with his pocket Jacks.

The professional poker player wasn’t excited preflop, and if he loses he just makes a mental note that the fish over-rates pocket Jacks.

100% agreed. Which is why I've always found it creepy how self-help gurus want you to get all riled up and excited, when none of the pros ever do that. If you attend a Tony Robbins event, everyone is jumping up and down and very excited. To me, someone is doing that because deep inside they really do lack belief in themselves... if they were really confident, why would they need to be jumping up and down? They'd just be confident. So to me it's sort of like trying to fake your way to real confidence. That's all well and good in the short term, it may actually get you to do the thing you feared, but if in doing it you fail, which may happen, then your confidence will be destroyed, and you'll be in a worse off state than otherwise.

I think the most important factor to success is mental clarity. If you have a clear mind, then you have discernment. If you have discernment, then you can make correct decisions more often than not. If you make correct decisions more often than not, then you will achieve your goals.

 

[NeoDialectic]

I’m “excitement poor”. I even think excitement is something to be wary of.

I imagine a professional poker player seeing the fish (newbie/mark/eejit) call his All-In preflop when he’s got pocket Aces. Excitement can be followed by disappointment and “going on tilt” if the fish beats his pocket Aces with his pocket Jacks.

The professional poker player wasn’t excited preflop, and if he loses he just makes a mental note that the fish over-rates pocket Jacks.



I also know to hack my brain.

“This is boring” has my shoulders slumping and zoning out. Game over for that lecture.

“How can I make this more interesting?” has me sitting forward attentive. My brain has been challenged and is now firing on all cylinders.

Know yourself, understand the power (and stupidity) of your own brain and figure out what *you* need to do to live the life you want.

Sounds exactly like the type of "fooling yourself" that I was talking about in my post. Love it!

 

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[biophase]

I’m “excitement poor”. I even think excitement is something to be wary of.

Me too! I never get very excited about one thing but I also never get depressed or upset at other things. I feel like I’m just cruising in neutral all the time.

@MTF, If you have changed people’s lives and they tell you so, does that still make you think that what you did was meaningless? I’m curious on your perspective of this.

 

[CareCPA]

It probably is depression. And I don't see a therapist being able to address it. It's a philosophical problem. I don't trust doctors, let alone therapists who are incentivized to come up with random mental illnesses to keep you hooked on their "therapy." And what is a therapist supposed to tell me? "Come on man, life has purpose" (while it has none)?

As for drugs, I wouldn't touch that shit with a ten-foot pole. Maybe they help suicidal people but I'm not suicidal (I'm too scared of death).

How do you know it's philosophical?

I mean this completely seriously.

I was trying to do some research on studies showing the cause(s) of depression. It looks like it was thought to be a chemical imbalance, but that was never able to be confirmed. In fact, subsequent studies alluded to that particular chemical not being the issue.

So if we have not found a root cause, how do we know the solution? Are there recent studies on any of this? Or is it just your "feeling" that it is a philosophical problem?
Apparently I'm in a research-oriented mood today...

On a related note, I don't understand why so many people treat mental health differently than physical health. If I had a cold, I would be able to handle that on my own. If I had a broken bone, I would go to a professional.

Same on the mental health side. If I was feeling down for a couple days, I would probably find something to lift my spirits. If I had been coming back to the same (deep?) depression for years, I would search out some professional help. But so many people think "I just need to be happier" - that's not really a solution. If it were that easy, wouldn't we all be happy all of the time?

Yes, mental health medicine may be over-prescribed. Heck, it may also be under-prescribed - I'm not the expert here. But either way I think there are legitimate uses for it, even if just to get people back to a baseline to then be able to regulate themselves and wean back off the medicine.

 

[Jerma]

How do you know it's philosophical?

I mean this completely seriously.

I was trying to do some research on studies showing the cause(s) of depression. It looks like it was thought to be a chemical imbalance, but that was never able to be confirmed. In fact, subsequent studies alluded to that particular chemical not being the issue.

So if we have not found a root cause, how do we know the solution? Are there recent studies on any of this? Or is it just your "feeling" that it is a philosophical problem?
Apparently I'm in a research-oriented mood today...

On a related note, I don't understand why so many people treat mental health differently than physical health. If I had a cold, I would be able to handle that on my own. If I had a broken bone, I would go to a professional.

Same on the mental health side. If I was feeling down for a couple days, I would probably find something to lift my spirits. If I had been coming back to the same (deep?) depression for years, I would search out some professional help. But so many people think "I just need to be happier" - that's not really a solution. If it were that easy, wouldn't we all be happy all of the time?

Yes, mental health medicine may be over-prescribed. Heck, it may also be under-prescribed - I'm not the expert here. But either way I think there are legitimate uses for it, even if just to get people back to a baseline to then be able to regulate themselves and wean back off the medicine.

I agree with your point that you can't know until you rule it out, but I agree with MTF more here.

The problem is that therapy focuses on psychopathology and bringing people to a functional level (from negative to zero), but they don't know much about human flourishing (from zero to 100). There's a movement in psychology to counter that called "positive psychology," but that's not what they are trained in.

It's like going to the doctor because you want your body to be more flexible; the doctor isn't going to be very helpful. Hell, he will probably be in worse physical shape than you!

I suspect classical therapy won't help here for the same reason. The problem seems more existential than functional. So maybe someone more familiar with human flourishing, spirituality and philosophy could help better. I don't know how to find those, but I'm sure they are out there.

 

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[MTF]

@MTF, If you have changed people’s lives and they tell you so, does that still make you think that what you did was meaningless? I’m curious on your perspective of this.

Maybe this will make me sound like an ungrateful F*ck but when I receive such emails I'm like "thank you, I appreciate it" and that's it. I forget about it a second later. I get no "omg that's so awesome" feelings. I never understood how people get off so much on these thank-you emails. I feel more meaning when I make a sale.

And frankly, I often don't even believe these emails and consider them exaggerations. That may speak about my self-esteem and not the person emailing me, though.

Apart from that, I get a way more rewarding feeling when I motivate a friend in person during a workout and he pushes his limits. Online is too abstract for me even though I spend so much time online. Yet, I wouldn't want to have an offline business as I value my location independence too much and travel too often.

 

[MTF]

How do you know it's philosophical?

I mean this completely seriously.

I was trying to do some research on studies showing the cause(s) of depression. It looks like it was thought to be a chemical imbalance, but that was never able to be confirmed. In fact, subsequent studies alluded to that particular chemical not being the issue.

So if we have not found a root cause, how do we know the solution? Are there recent studies on any of this? Or is it just your "feeling" that it is a philosophical problem?

I guess my thoughts may be caused by some chemical imbalance. But in my mind, it's clear that I feel like this because of what I think about. Otherwise I would feel shitty all the time, regardless of what I would be doing. And yet I can function well if I don't think about it (for example, during a workout).

Granted, it's also often being said that being depressed doesn't necessarily mean staying in bed all day long and looking like shit. Many people look happy on the outside while they're dead inside.

On a related note, I don't understand why so many people treat mental health differently than physical health. If I had a cold, I would be able to handle that on my own. If I had a broken bone, I would go to a professional.

Same on the mental health side. If I was feeling down for a couple days, I would probably find something to lift my spirits. If I had been coming back to the same (deep?) depression for years, I would search out some professional help.

Can't speak for everyone. For me: I wouldn't be able to trust a so-called "professional" to mess with my brain. Also, psychology isn't physics. You can have a session with a PT who will help you with back pain regardless of whether you have the same views on life or not.

But if you have a mental problem, a psychotherapist may have completely different beliefs than you on what constitutes a happy, healthy mind. For example, I'm often extreme in life. And that makes me feel good to occasionally do something extremely hard. If I were given advice to "tone it down" (because the therapist would be a vanilla dude who never pushes himself hard) it would be shitty advice that would make my life worse.

I agree with your point that you can't know until you rule it out, but I agree with MTF more here.

The problem is that therapy focuses on psychopathology and bringing people to a functional level (from negative to zero), but they don't know much about human flourishing (from zero to 100). There's a movement in psychology to counter that called "positive psychology," but that's not what they are trained in.

It's like going to the doctor because you want your body to be more flexible; the doctor isn't going to be very helpful. Hell, he will probably be in worse physical shape than you!

I suspect classical therapy won't help here for the same reason. The problem seems more existential than functional. So maybe someone more familiar with human flourishing, spirituality and philosophy could help better. I don't know how to find those, but I'm sure they are out there.

That's a good explanation and better than what I was able to write.