Meursault wrote:
Invader wrote:
I realised years ago that this equates to nothing but mental masturbation, indulging in ideas and interests which bring pleasure but no practical use. And like the more worthwhile opposite of masturbation, SEX, interests which involve other people are almost always more practically useful and beneficial for yourself than those you partake in alone.
I don't think you're being lewd at all, it's the pitch-perfect metaphor. Not solitude in and of itself, but solitary thinking can cross the threshold into self-indulgence, where you essentially keep doing it because it feels good, albeit with decreasing returns.
Speaking for myself, when I was young I seemed to enjoy this kind of solitude as self-gratification. But in college I began to see this for what it truly was and tried to socialize every chance I got. Big mistake - slow descent into neural meltdown began, even as (or perhaps because) I got decent at it.
Ever since I've been in no man's land, where I'm either going through the motions of meaningful solitude, or going through the motions of meaningful outreach - without encountering anything meaningful anywhere. Anyone else find themselves in this position?
Meaning is subjective but it generally requires an object, too, in order for there to be something in which meaning has been invested. Ultimately the meaning of existence and your position in this external world will only have meaning when you assign that meaning to it, and settle upon a satisfying purpose which involves both yourself and the world around you.
Without talking in circles, I think the answer probably lies in a "happy medium", somewhere inbetween the pointless self-indulgence and the aimless random socialization, or more precisely, rather than it laying inbetween these two things, the answer would be a synthesis of them both, in which one validates and gives meaning to the other so that the sum or completed whole becomes greater than its individually useless constituent parts.
That probably sounds really vague but it's difficult to say in simple terms. Being more specific would involve stepping into the realm of subjectivity, and everyone's subjective apprehension of "meaning" can be different to some degree, so that would probably result in even greater confusion. Animal drives may be a more common denominator to aid here. Some would find meaning in breeding and passing their genes on into infinity, allowing their organic body to live forever, whereas some would find meaning in gradually coming to control more and more of the universe over time as though it were part of their own body, these are both things which organisms do and they derive great satisfaction from doing so, which is why they enjoy mating and eating, but either of these ways of interacting with the world only gain meaning when the organism bears in mind a long term purpose for these actions.
Often people lose sight of "meaning" when they think nothing they do matters, that there is no "long term" because they'll die, or that their wants are simply unattainable. Things matter because they bring personal satisfaction, that is what qualifies importance to a creature. Reproduction guarantees the "long term", as future generations may not retain the transient and unnecessary consciousnesses of their past ancestors but they are still essentially the exact same organism and body, containing the very same life, and they do retain that organism's deeper and less transient consciousness, an inherited animal mind which remembers all the most basic important things which matter, like eating and reproduction - they are essentially the same being in a new body, after shedding their old one like a snake does its skin, simply waiting for a new pattern to develop on the surface, as a new superficial and transient identity once again covers up the eternal and more simple animal mind, the real one.
Anyway, this organism will go on living forever and perceiving meaning in the things that it gains satisfaction from doing, to further its life and existence, because it's better to be alive with the potential to do as you please, than dead as dirt without a trace of that potential. That's what gives life itself meaning, and it works as a base to build more complex meanings on top of, just as the immortal base animal mind present in all newborn creatures serves as a base to build elaborate individual consciousnesses on top of in each generation, with their most useful ideas being preserved and passed on to subsequent generations.
The last of those 3 causes of lost meaning, "seeing things as unattainable", can be addressed by the part about "being alive with potential versus being dead as dirt without a trace of it". Even the smallest and most absurdly unthinkable chance at doing what a creature wants, regardless of how much that creature is being held back, is better than being dirt, and there is meaning in trying to succeed regardless of the odds, simply because of that. I said something in another thread recently, to the effect of "If you were tired of running through a burning building and just lay down to die because you didn't know where the exit was, you'd be an idiot, and it would have made more sense to keep running through the flames looking for it until your body was all burned up and fell apart, because there's no way you could possibly know that you
weren't going to find the way out by some random ridiculous accident" - So there will always be meaning in living creatures striving toward the unnatainable, that itself gives meaning to blind and irrational persistence. A fox will chew off its own leg to escape a trap and have a chance at getting what it wants out of further life, but so often humans will simply dig their own grave beside the trap because they overthink the importance of their limbs, and grow overly attached to things that aren't even limbs at all. I have ranted long enough so I won't go into the overattachment which many human organisms have to their individual personalities and interests, that transient consciousness or "personality", and how while they're thoughtlessly indulging in that, they forget all about that intransient immortal little animal mind which will be passed on regardless and is ultimately more important, as it is what they really are.
Err crazy rant over... I... I swear.
Ahem... It's possible you just haven't decided what could be meaningful yet, or found anything satisfying enough. Finding a way to break through these difficulties, though, and whatever they stand in the way of, would appear to have meaning or be potentially satisfying enough to persist in the attempts to break through. Lethargy can sometimes mask what would otherwise be readily apparent significance.
20 Sep 2010, 12:50 am
