I do love your suggestions on ways to practice experiencing the presence. I remember looking into campfires when young and being absolutely absorbed. And sunlight on a large body of water. My fav.
I used to think there was inherent meaning. Well that’s what I was taught as a kid. Asan adult I’ve come to feel that there is not, and recently have been learning to be ok with that. But I do love the idea of making meaning. I don’t know that I would say, the meaning of life is to make meaning, but that’s kind of where my head is right now.
I would agree with you, Brian, even though I don’t address it in this essay; making meaning in our own life, finding a reason to go on day after day, is important. I think that once one gains clarity by seeing through the conditioning and unquestioned tenets one has accepted as fact, this is the next step, and that clarity is going to help us get there. Because I think as humans, we ARE driven by purposeful action. I would not be writing these words if I wasn’t driven by the desire to share my thoughts on all this!
Thank you for reading and commenting, Brian. Keep in touch!
Many of the examples you listed at the end would be fantastic writing prompts. I especially loved the one about watching a match burn without thinking about the physics behind why or how it burns. Just noticing the shape of the flame, the colors, etc. THAT is how powerful writing happens--through observation!
I am the kind of person who needs to have some purpose in my life. It's not enough for me to awaken every day and be totally content with the fact that I don't know why I'm here or what I'm meant to do. I mean, I don't FULLY understand this, and the older I get, the less I realize I know much of anything at all. But what I'm saying is that there needs to be some drive inside my heart--a passion, a zeal, if you will--that motivates me to show up and do what I do every day, for my family or friends, in my neighborhood and community, here on Substack. Otherwise, I would despair. Easily. I know this, because I've come very close to it before and I do not want to go there again.
At the same time, I don't have to believe I have answers or solutions to everything. Some things can be explained--like maybe the physics behind why and how a match burns. Okay, that's pretty clear. But the existential and philosophical questions that have driven much of my thinking over the course of twenty-plus years do not have clearcut answers. And I have learned (am learning) to yield to the unknown and uncertainty and rest in that. To be content with the not knowing. And to dwell in the midst of Mystery, which actually leaves me with a more profound sense of wonder at everything surrounding me every day.
I totally get it, and agree, Jeannie. There’s a big difference between “my purpose in life,” and “THE purpose of life.” I think, in this essay, I only deal with the problems of that second thing, and gaining clarity by realizing which parts of one’s thinking have been conditioned and accepted without our conscious consideration. Gaining that kind of clarity, I think, by seeing through our conditioning and illusions, is what puts us in position to find out what really drives us in life. I would not be writing these words if I felt that my life was without purpose.
Perhaps that’s a good subject for another essay: making meaning.
I can see that I probably should have at least made mention of this in my essay, because in the beginning I say that I DIDN’T want to make my own meaning when I was young, and then I don’t mention it again. Oops!
Nice delineation of the concept of truth and meaning. I have to mention, b/c it crossed my mind while perusing this, the part in Monty Python's Meaning of Life where an announcer sits down, and for 20 seconds rattles off a little spiel about the meaning of life, a subject the rest of the movie tries to poke fun at, successfully, I might add. In laughter too, it's not known, but less not known, in laughter. Thank you, Don.
Don, I love how your ideas about the meaning of life have evolved over the years. That shows us already that whatever we think is true probably isn't. I'm intrigued by the exercise you share in three to break down the limited ways we see reality. Thought-provoking as always.
Awesome, thanks, Cyndi! I actually do that match flame thing a lot, an idea I first got from Thich Nhat Hanh. His meditation was to see all other things in the match (or in the flower or the cloud…) but I have found that it’s a great practice to try to just see what I see purely in the moment.
I just did the one where you look at your husband and it was so cool. Because he looked different, as if I never seen him before. And then I remembered that on this day in 2011 we met each other in the big earthquake in Japan. It reminds me of the Buddhist saying, "Everything is fresh and new."
I feel a deep sense of purpose that I did not create. It is always present to me and drives many of my activities. To say that there is no purpose and that one has to create it contradicts my experience. Certainly, I cannot identify the source of this meaningful purpose. And equally certainly, its expression varies with each individual.
The idea that it is an illusion, so we must each create our own meaning, is something that was a huge part of Existentialism in the early 20th century, starting with Nietzsche. Yet, the notion that there is no external meaning or purpose is nihilism and leaves me cold.
I don't know that you are wrong, of course. Throughout the centuries, thinkers have grappled with the question of meaning. However, I cannot shake off the experience of the desire being already part of me, and that I did not create that desire. So it seems that it came from outside of me.
I appreciate your honesty here, Eric, and the last position I would ever want to take is one of trying to push my view onto another. I think you understand that that is not my intention at all. In fact, it is the opposite of my intention; I believe that any human who would pursue truth, must face themselves and the world directly, without the influence of another’s opinion, belief, or stance.
And I know that that’s what you do. And when you come up against an unknown, or an idea that doesn’t sound right to you, you stand back with patience and hold out for more information. Am I right? 🙂
My question for anyone struggling with this is, "Did I create the desire for purpose and/or meaning?" In other words, did I not have that desire and then create it?
I love that you think about these things. Them's is hard thinkin's! 😊
Thanks so much for this essay. Sometimes, things just hit our hearts. I relate to that feeling where, a bit younger, I was so enthusiastic about knowing the truth and the purpose of life, and I used to think I had come up to it, and it was just a matter of updating it as years passed. How wrong I was. Even today, when my fears drag me, I go back to my old ways and behave like a kid throwing tantrums when things don't go as I expect --feeling the world is being unfair to me, how dare it? But probably it's just me that I am disguising my ignorance with a fabricated certainty.
I really hope to be more in the present, as you say, to just experience the present, just experience being alive, without judgments, without trying to match reality with our beliefs.
More proof that "when we change the way we look at things, the things we're looking at change." (Max Planck, 1918 Nobel Prize in Physics.) You also call to mind the 90/10 percent relationship, life being 10% inspiration and 90% perspiration. Whether or not true, I am grateful to have had plenty of both and glad to include you in the 10%.
Love your suggestions for how to see with the eyes rather than the brain! Our experience of the world gets veiled by prior knowledge but I love those moments when it gets defamiliarised and you feel a sense of wonder at how strange and mysterious it really is. (This is all very Proustian, actually - makes me want to dust off my academic hat and start writing some essays based on my academic research, which touched on this stuff from a different angle!)
I believe the meaning of life is simply to be alive. If meaning exists at all, then I don’t think it’s possible for us to miss it—because how could we exist outside of what is? By its very nature, meaning should be inseparable from existence itself. In that case, there’s no need to search for it or achieve it—living is enough. I enjoy your explorations!:)
Absolutely perfectly said, Davor! I’ve always said, truth is truth, whatever it is and regardless of what we think it is. Does the tree question its purpose? Then why should we?
I’m writing another essay expanding these ideas because a lot of people wrote back that you make your own meaning, and there is truth in that on one level.
All of this speaks to alignment. And maybe the alignment is slightly different every day and we just accept the new alignment as needed. I really enjoyed the tone and peacefulness of all this. 😊
I particularly loved your line: "We look at the world with ten percent eyes and ninety percent brain." That’s such a vivid image! It’s like we’re watching a movie of our own memories, rather than the actual scene unfolding in front of us. I remember once trying to draw a tree. I thought I knew what a tree looked like, but when I really looked, I was shocked by how much I was missing. The bark, the way the light hit the leaves, the intricate patterns—it was all so much richer than my mental image. It made me realize how much of the world we filter out through our preconceived notions. It’s a humbling thought, isn’t it? How much beauty and complexity are we overlooking every day because we think we already know what we’re seeing?
Yes, Alexander, I completely agree. There is so much we don’t see because there doesn’t seem to be a need to see it. Drawing is a great practice for learning just how much difference there is between our mental images and the actual. (Here’s a fun question: how low do you think a shopping bag hangs when you carry it by the handle? How would you draw that? For some reason I once noticed that I would tend to draw it very high up, near the waist, but it actually hangs within inches of the ground! 😀)
Oh Wow! What an interesting question and image to ponder. You are so right. And I didn’t go there immediately! Drawing is such a great practice, I’m just dratfully awfully at it. HA
From your comment on my post, I see we were writing on the same topic this week!
"But that does not mean we can’t apply ourselves to clearing away the illusions we have operated under for most of our lives (that happiness can at last be found, that there is a higher and more beautiful spiritual realm waiting for us, that we “deserve” respect, that there is such a thing as a human right, that we are Christians, Buddhists, Americans, Europeans, smart, successful, praiseworthy…)."
Your appreciation of looking up through the branches reminds me of the Republic of Tea's Sky Between the Branches. This is one of my favorite ways of appreciating trees, too.
Thanks, Elizabeth. Yes, our cravings sure don’t give us a rest, do they? If not answers then we want satisfaction, stimulation, distraction, a good restaurant, a good coffee shop, a good book, a compliment, and someone to share it all with. Oh well, I guess we’re human haha!
Brilliant. I love this so much, Don. It takes such effort to not have effort at all; what I mean is what you pointed out. What we see, what we think we see is viewed from the context of what we know already. But how different our perspective is when we just see the world for what it is now, without our interpretation. I love the analogy of looking for a needle in a haystack or looking for truth in the light when we are in the light already. So hard to just be isn't it?
Don, everyday is a story in itself. I’ve never been so in tune with just being present because of the range of emotions we’re going through right now. Thanks for being here, friend.
I do love your suggestions on ways to practice experiencing the presence. I remember looking into campfires when young and being absolutely absorbed. And sunlight on a large body of water. My fav.
I used to think there was inherent meaning. Well that’s what I was taught as a kid. Asan adult I’ve come to feel that there is not, and recently have been learning to be ok with that. But I do love the idea of making meaning. I don’t know that I would say, the meaning of life is to make meaning, but that’s kind of where my head is right now.
I would agree with you, Brian, even though I don’t address it in this essay; making meaning in our own life, finding a reason to go on day after day, is important. I think that once one gains clarity by seeing through the conditioning and unquestioned tenets one has accepted as fact, this is the next step, and that clarity is going to help us get there. Because I think as humans, we ARE driven by purposeful action. I would not be writing these words if I wasn’t driven by the desire to share my thoughts on all this!
Thank you for reading and commenting, Brian. Keep in touch!
I think your closing line takes us deep into the heart of the matter, Brian. Create your own meaning—or someone else will create it for you.
Don,
Many of the examples you listed at the end would be fantastic writing prompts. I especially loved the one about watching a match burn without thinking about the physics behind why or how it burns. Just noticing the shape of the flame, the colors, etc. THAT is how powerful writing happens--through observation!
I am the kind of person who needs to have some purpose in my life. It's not enough for me to awaken every day and be totally content with the fact that I don't know why I'm here or what I'm meant to do. I mean, I don't FULLY understand this, and the older I get, the less I realize I know much of anything at all. But what I'm saying is that there needs to be some drive inside my heart--a passion, a zeal, if you will--that motivates me to show up and do what I do every day, for my family or friends, in my neighborhood and community, here on Substack. Otherwise, I would despair. Easily. I know this, because I've come very close to it before and I do not want to go there again.
At the same time, I don't have to believe I have answers or solutions to everything. Some things can be explained--like maybe the physics behind why and how a match burns. Okay, that's pretty clear. But the existential and philosophical questions that have driven much of my thinking over the course of twenty-plus years do not have clearcut answers. And I have learned (am learning) to yield to the unknown and uncertainty and rest in that. To be content with the not knowing. And to dwell in the midst of Mystery, which actually leaves me with a more profound sense of wonder at everything surrounding me every day.
I totally get it, and agree, Jeannie. There’s a big difference between “my purpose in life,” and “THE purpose of life.” I think, in this essay, I only deal with the problems of that second thing, and gaining clarity by realizing which parts of one’s thinking have been conditioned and accepted without our conscious consideration. Gaining that kind of clarity, I think, by seeing through our conditioning and illusions, is what puts us in position to find out what really drives us in life. I would not be writing these words if I felt that my life was without purpose.
Perhaps that’s a good subject for another essay: making meaning.
I can see that I probably should have at least made mention of this in my essay, because in the beginning I say that I DIDN’T want to make my own meaning when I was young, and then I don’t mention it again. Oops!
Oh, yes, an essay on “making meaning” would be a great follow-up to this, Don!
Agreed! I would love to read that! 🩵
Nice delineation of the concept of truth and meaning. I have to mention, b/c it crossed my mind while perusing this, the part in Monty Python's Meaning of Life where an announcer sits down, and for 20 seconds rattles off a little spiel about the meaning of life, a subject the rest of the movie tries to poke fun at, successfully, I might add. In laughter too, it's not known, but less not known, in laughter. Thank you, Don.
I’ll have to go and check that out, thanks, Marc! (I’ve seen the film but not for 30 years or so).
Don, I love how your ideas about the meaning of life have evolved over the years. That shows us already that whatever we think is true probably isn't. I'm intrigued by the exercise you share in three to break down the limited ways we see reality. Thought-provoking as always.
Thank you, Sandra. I’m truly grateful for your kind comments. Aloha! 💚
Thank you for all the perspective changing suggestions. Feels refreshing just to read about them. Now I will try them out!
Awesome, thanks, Cyndi! I actually do that match flame thing a lot, an idea I first got from Thich Nhat Hanh. His meditation was to see all other things in the match (or in the flower or the cloud…) but I have found that it’s a great practice to try to just see what I see purely in the moment.
I just did the one where you look at your husband and it was so cool. Because he looked different, as if I never seen him before. And then I remembered that on this day in 2011 we met each other in the big earthquake in Japan. It reminds me of the Buddhist saying, "Everything is fresh and new."
That's so wonderful, Cyndi!! ❤️❤️ That's probably the best one of the bunch, which is why I put it last, to leave it as a last impression! 😊
I don't know how to respond to this essay, Don.
I feel a deep sense of purpose that I did not create. It is always present to me and drives many of my activities. To say that there is no purpose and that one has to create it contradicts my experience. Certainly, I cannot identify the source of this meaningful purpose. And equally certainly, its expression varies with each individual.
The idea that it is an illusion, so we must each create our own meaning, is something that was a huge part of Existentialism in the early 20th century, starting with Nietzsche. Yet, the notion that there is no external meaning or purpose is nihilism and leaves me cold.
I don't know that you are wrong, of course. Throughout the centuries, thinkers have grappled with the question of meaning. However, I cannot shake off the experience of the desire being already part of me, and that I did not create that desire. So it seems that it came from outside of me.
As for where, that is another question.
I appreciate your honesty here, Eric, and the last position I would ever want to take is one of trying to push my view onto another. I think you understand that that is not my intention at all. In fact, it is the opposite of my intention; I believe that any human who would pursue truth, must face themselves and the world directly, without the influence of another’s opinion, belief, or stance.
And I know that that’s what you do. And when you come up against an unknown, or an idea that doesn’t sound right to you, you stand back with patience and hold out for more information. Am I right? 🙂
I appreciate and respect you, Eric!
Yes, you are right about my approach.
My question for anyone struggling with this is, "Did I create the desire for purpose and/or meaning?" In other words, did I not have that desire and then create it?
I love that you think about these things. Them's is hard thinkin's! 😊
Thanks so much for this essay. Sometimes, things just hit our hearts. I relate to that feeling where, a bit younger, I was so enthusiastic about knowing the truth and the purpose of life, and I used to think I had come up to it, and it was just a matter of updating it as years passed. How wrong I was. Even today, when my fears drag me, I go back to my old ways and behave like a kid throwing tantrums when things don't go as I expect --feeling the world is being unfair to me, how dare it? But probably it's just me that I am disguising my ignorance with a fabricated certainty.
I really hope to be more in the present, as you say, to just experience the present, just experience being alive, without judgments, without trying to match reality with our beliefs.
Thank you so much, Luis. I’m right here with you!! 🙏💚
More proof that "when we change the way we look at things, the things we're looking at change." (Max Planck, 1918 Nobel Prize in Physics.) You also call to mind the 90/10 percent relationship, life being 10% inspiration and 90% perspiration. Whether or not true, I am grateful to have had plenty of both and glad to include you in the 10%.
Love your suggestions for how to see with the eyes rather than the brain! Our experience of the world gets veiled by prior knowledge but I love those moments when it gets defamiliarised and you feel a sense of wonder at how strange and mysterious it really is. (This is all very Proustian, actually - makes me want to dust off my academic hat and start writing some essays based on my academic research, which touched on this stuff from a different angle!)
I would enjoy reading your essay on that. I’ve never read Proust, though I have wanted to. Thanks for your comment, Kate. How’s the bookstore?
I needed this gentle reminder today. Bowing deeply.
Thank you so much, I’m pleased! 🙏💚 controlled by
I believe the meaning of life is simply to be alive. If meaning exists at all, then I don’t think it’s possible for us to miss it—because how could we exist outside of what is? By its very nature, meaning should be inseparable from existence itself. In that case, there’s no need to search for it or achieve it—living is enough. I enjoy your explorations!:)
Absolutely perfectly said, Davor! I’ve always said, truth is truth, whatever it is and regardless of what we think it is. Does the tree question its purpose? Then why should we?
I’m writing another essay expanding these ideas because a lot of people wrote back that you make your own meaning, and there is truth in that on one level.
Thanks Don. I see meaning as something subjective as well, and that is where it stops. Go on with the essay.
All of this speaks to alignment. And maybe the alignment is slightly different every day and we just accept the new alignment as needed. I really enjoyed the tone and peacefulness of all this. 😊
Thanks, Leo, I really appreciate that! 🙏💚
I particularly loved your line: "We look at the world with ten percent eyes and ninety percent brain." That’s such a vivid image! It’s like we’re watching a movie of our own memories, rather than the actual scene unfolding in front of us. I remember once trying to draw a tree. I thought I knew what a tree looked like, but when I really looked, I was shocked by how much I was missing. The bark, the way the light hit the leaves, the intricate patterns—it was all so much richer than my mental image. It made me realize how much of the world we filter out through our preconceived notions. It’s a humbling thought, isn’t it? How much beauty and complexity are we overlooking every day because we think we already know what we’re seeing?
Yes, Alexander, I completely agree. There is so much we don’t see because there doesn’t seem to be a need to see it. Drawing is a great practice for learning just how much difference there is between our mental images and the actual. (Here’s a fun question: how low do you think a shopping bag hangs when you carry it by the handle? How would you draw that? For some reason I once noticed that I would tend to draw it very high up, near the waist, but it actually hangs within inches of the ground! 😀)
Oh Wow! What an interesting question and image to ponder. You are so right. And I didn’t go there immediately! Drawing is such a great practice, I’m just dratfully awfully at it. HA
From your comment on my post, I see we were writing on the same topic this week!
"But that does not mean we can’t apply ourselves to clearing away the illusions we have operated under for most of our lives (that happiness can at last be found, that there is a higher and more beautiful spiritual realm waiting for us, that we “deserve” respect, that there is such a thing as a human right, that we are Christians, Buddhists, Americans, Europeans, smart, successful, praiseworthy…)."
Your appreciation of looking up through the branches reminds me of the Republic of Tea's Sky Between the Branches. This is one of my favorite ways of appreciating trees, too.
Yes, we were writing about the same thing! Perhaps we always are. 🙏😊
I had to look up that tea. Great name!
Thanks, Ryan! Have a wonderful day.
It all makes so much sense, Don. Or doesn't. And that's okay!
"Is there anything wrong with accepting that we simply cannot know why we’re here?"
If only we weren't so hardwired to want answers, eh? Thanks, Don.
Thanks, Elizabeth. Yes, our cravings sure don’t give us a rest, do they? If not answers then we want satisfaction, stimulation, distraction, a good restaurant, a good coffee shop, a good book, a compliment, and someone to share it all with. Oh well, I guess we’re human haha!
Brilliant. I love this so much, Don. It takes such effort to not have effort at all; what I mean is what you pointed out. What we see, what we think we see is viewed from the context of what we know already. But how different our perspective is when we just see the world for what it is now, without our interpretation. I love the analogy of looking for a needle in a haystack or looking for truth in the light when we are in the light already. So hard to just be isn't it?
Thanks, Steve, I really appreciate your thoughts and perspective. I hope you and Andrea are doing okay! 🙏💚
Don, everyday is a story in itself. I’ve never been so in tune with just being present because of the range of emotions we’re going through right now. Thanks for being here, friend.