Meaning - Thread

[YIDIRYIDIR]

Meaning is such an important and core concept, i'm surprised there isn't a thread about it. 

Use this thread to share your insights around meaning. what is meaning? how meaning works....

Here is an important insight and lesson about meaning i learned: 

Meaning is best realized through action and and direct experience. By thinking about stuff, you can make anything meaningful or meaningless depending on how conscious you are, and how aware of the gap between the map and territory. Many people fall into the intellectualizing trap, where they think about everything, philosophize about everything, live in their head and end up being nihilistic. Master switching from thinking to doing and you'll have a meaningful life. 

[YIDIRYIDIR]

this blog post is perfect for this thread: 

https://www.actualized.org/insights/work-is-not-happiness

[YIDIRYIDIR]

11 hours ago, YIDIRYIDIR said:

Meaning is best realized through action and and direct experience. By thinking about stuff, you can make anything meaningful or meaningless depending on how conscious you are, and how aware of the gap between the map and territory. Many people fall into the intellectualizing trap, where they think about everything, philosophize about everything, live in their head and end up being nihilistic. Master switching from thinking to doing and you'll have a meaningful life. 

I would add to this "being"

Not just that meaning comes out of actions, but also being. being ≠ thinking.

Maybe somebody could articulate this better than me.

Edited July 21 by YIDIRYIDIR

[gettoefl]

Anything has two meanings. What I give and what I get. What I give is what books tell me. What I get is when I let the thing itself reveal its meaning. Meditation is the method for getting.

[Yimpa]

5 hours ago, YIDIRYIDIR said:

this blog post is perfect for this thread: 

https://www.actualized.org/insights/work-is-not-happiness

Here is my résumé:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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[YIDIRYIDIR]

A common myth about meaning is that it has to be dramatic. A why. A mission you'd die for. A story with stakes "this is my whole life." "this is what i live for"

That version of meaning is really just ego doing what it does best: building narrative, because narrative is how the ego survives across time.

But meaning isn't a story. It's not something you have, it's something that happens, in the present moment, in the act itself.

You can do something for years, love it completely, and then circumstances shift and you simply stop, no grief, no crisis, because nothing was ever lost. The doing was the meaning. When it ends, you find the next present-moment engagement.

The suffering from losing that only shows up when identity gets involved, when the ego has fused "this activity" with "who I am," so that stopping feels like a small death.

Then you fight to resurrect something that's already run its course.

Or that thing might stop being meaningful because you grew or changed, and you read that as a verdict on existence itself, nihilism, depression, when really it's just: the ego lost its story, and it's mistaking that for losing meaning.

Meaning was never in the story. It was in the moment you were actually in it.

[Mellowmarsh]

Meaning is whatever imagination means. 

[Rishabh R]

@YIDIRYIDIR Great post . I never thought about meaning and I rarely or almost never felt a lack of meaning . What I painfully realized that during negative circumstances if I don't take action or execute them nothing will change. Circumstances rarely change themselves .

[YIDIRYIDIR]

16 hours ago, YIDIRYIDIR said:

A common myth about meaning is that it has to be dramatic. A why. A mission you'd die for. A story with stakes "this is my whole life." "this is what i live for"

That version of meaning is really just ego doing what it does best: building narrative, because narrative is how the ego survives across time.

But meaning isn't a story. It's not something you have, it's something that happens, in the present moment, in the act itself.

You can do something for years, love it completely, and then circumstances shift and you simply stop, no grief, no crisis, because nothing was ever lost. The doing was the meaning. When it ends, you find the next present-moment engagement.

The suffering from losing that only shows up when identity gets involved, when the ego has fused "this activity" with "who I am," so that stopping feels like a small death.

Then you fight to resurrect something that's already run its course.

Or that thing might stop being meaningful because you grew or changed, and you read that as a verdict on existence itself, nihilism, depression, when really it's just: the ego lost its story, and it's mistaking that for losing meaning.

Meaning was never in the story. It was in the moment you were actually in it.

Also, the story is a construction, it's unnecessary. that doesn't mean it can't be used with awareness for more meaning. because we all grow in stages and we can't just throw away stories.