We are now officially a majority non religious country

[Shaker]

Now you see those are *exactly* the ones where I find meaning. I think life has no meaning except what we choose to bring to it, and life is made meaningful to me by exactly the kinds of things you describe - smelling the honeysuckle, watching the buzzards, eating good bread. If noticing these things is my life's purpose then I'm fine with it.

Exactly what I was thinking - it's the moments that make the meaning, to me, amongst other things. But others' mileage may vary, of course.

[Rhiannon]

Exactly what I was thinking - it's the moments that make the meaning, to me, amongst other things. But others' mileage may vary, of course.

Yes, there are other things in which I find meaning - relationships, family - but they can't be summoned up to order. The moments can be made all the sweeter because of who you are with but you have to be equally able to accept them and embrace them in solitude.

[wigginhall]

They also refer to ones 'life' as something quite abstract, almost as if it existed separate from its moments. For instance, 'Do you believe in a purpose to your individual life?' doesn't make much sense when you're eating a juicy pear or listening to a blackcap - at least it doesn't to me. In fact, all the questions seem entirely irrelevant to me.

Very good points.  It is too abstract for me as well.   I don't think that life exists in that abstract sense.   OK, we can take the juicy pear and the blackcap singing  and say these are examples of life, but they're not really.  You can never find that thing life.   

I expect you know the old Buddhist Q and A: 'tell me the meaning of Bodhidharma coming from the West'.   'The log in the log-room'.   

[Bramble]

I know the koan but the classical response is usually 'the cypress tree in the courtyard', isn't it? Maybe it says something undesirable about me but your version sounds a touch lavatorial - and maybe therefore an improvement on the original!

[Rhiannon]

I don't know. The pear, the blackcap, this discussion, are to me examples of connection. That connection wont last because it's just in the moment. I guess my purpose is either to be alive to the moment, or to be dead to it. Are both 'life'? I don't know.

[Bramble]

Now you see those are *exactly* the ones where I find meaning. I think life has no meaning except what we choose to bring to it, and life is made meaningful to me by exactly the kinds of things you describe - smelling the honeysuckle, watching the buzzards, eating good bread. If noticing these things is my life's purpose then I'm fine with it.

I can't quite get away from the sense that meaning in this context implies that life (or its moments) point to something lying beyond themselves, like words and their referents, and I can't see them in this way. The very idea of meaning arises together with the idea of meaninglessness and they seem equally to collapse when one just pays attention. The preoccupation with finding meaning would again seem to be a casualty of excessive abstraction. Where exactly is this 'life' and how could it be meaningful or meaningless?

[Rhiannon]

I can't quite get away from the sense that meaning in this context implies that life (or its moments) point to something lying beyond themselves, like words and their referents, and I can't see them in this way. The very idea of meaning arises together with the idea of meaninglessness and they seem equally to collapse when one just pays attention. The preoccupation with finding meaning would again seem to be a casualty of excessive abstraction. Where exactly is this 'life' and how could it be meaningful or meaningless?

Sriram may intend something of the kind. I don't. We are born, we exist, we die. It's up to me to give the 'exist' bit meaning, otherwise I'd sleepwalk through life. But I don't sit and watch the branches of the birch tree and look for the meaning. They are the meaning. In that moment.

[Sriram]

I can't quite get away from the sense that meaning in this context implies that life (or its moments) point to something lying beyond themselves, like words and their referents, and I can't see them in this way. The very idea of meaning arises together with the idea of meaninglessness and they seem equally to collapse when one just pays attention. The preoccupation with finding meaning would again seem to be a casualty of excessive abstraction. Where exactly is this 'life' and how could it be meaningful or meaningless?

Remember Plato's analogy of the cave and shadows? 

Meaning is about seeing beyond the obvious and the mundane. Finding meaning in the mundane is a different level of thinking.

I understand that many people are unable to see how Life can have a meaning or purpose beyond the here and now.  But there are many more who cannot understand how Life cannot have a meaning beyond the mundane. So I guess its something about differences in basic personalities.

Religion is just one way in which this quest for meaning is expressed and fulfilled. There are secular ways of doing it.

[Rhiannon]

Trying to find meaning beyond the here and now is livjng in a dream, a fantasy, because the here and now is all there is. That's not to say that the sensory world is where it begins and ends. A price we pay for being human creatures is that we have complex needs - for security, for fulfilment, for acceptance and for love. But as I've said before these can't be summoned up to order, and while it's possible to take steps towards them in varying ways, some of it can be down to nothing more than luck. Managing to be ok when our needs aren't met is a challenge and that is where focussing on the moment can get you through, and provide the meaning.

[Bramble]

Meaning is about seeing beyond the obvious and the mundane.

'The World is Not Enough' - it will be our epitaph.

[wigginhall]

Meaning and purpose feel like ash in my mouth now.   They are too abstract, and are bandied about in a way that renders meaning meaningless.   

[Bramble]

Yes, and they seem to me more like a symptom of alienation than its remedy.

[wigginhall]

Yes, and they seem to me more like a symptom of alienation than its remedy.

Exactly.   Every abstraction like this takes me away from life, towards mind-fucking. 

[Rhiannon]

But circumstances mean I have purpose. I have kids to raise on my own. I have a partner. I have people, animals and things that I love. I realise that none of these things are permanent. But they answer something within me that expresses myself through them. Or something.

[wigginhall]

But circumstances mean I have purpose. I have kids to raise on my own. I have a partner. I have people, animals and things that I love. I realise that none of these things are permanent. But they answer something within me that expresses myself through them. Or something.

Well, sure, I am writing this post, so you could say that I have a purpose.   But I don't see what is added by giving it that name.  I am writing this post, and I enjoy it.   Purpose is like another layer of nonsense. 

[Bramble]

Exactly.   Every abstraction like this takes me away from life, towards mind-fucking.

I can't help thinking there must have been a time when humans felt they belonged to the world in some immersive way that rendered concepts like 'meaning' irrelevant. Mind-fucking seems now to be the way we live, ever more wrapped up within ourselves and our mental projections. Perhaps some future species will write our biography - 'they wanked themselves into extinction.'

[Rhiannon]

Well, sure, I am writing this post, so you could say that I have a purpose.   But I don't see what is added by giving it that name.  I am writing this post, and I enjoy it.   Purpose is like another layer of nonsense.

I guess it depends on what we mean by it. 'Purpose' to me is 'stuff to do'. The problem comes when people think that there is a 'life's purpose'  to discover if only they had the right teacher/path/self help book. Actually when I look back on it the times when I searched for a deeper kind of 'purpose' were those when I wouldn't face up to how deeply unhappy I was and that I needed not to find something, but to end something.

[Bramble]

Well, sure, I am writing this post, so you could say that I have a purpose.   But I don't see what is added by giving it that name.  I am writing this post, and I enjoy it.   Purpose is like another layer of nonsense.

Isn't the idea of ‘purpose’ in life a primary source of alienation? It obliges us to match our life against some idealised narrative and the comparison cannot but create stress.

[wigginhall]

I can't help thinking there must have been a time when humans felt they belonged to the world in some immersive way that rendered concepts like 'meaning' irrelevant. Mind-fucking seems now to be the way we live, ever more wrapped up within ourselves and our mental projections. Perhaps some future species will write our biography - 'they wanked themselves into extinction.'

One of the problems is that abstraction is also very powerful; it enables us to produce descriptions of nature which are generalized, but can be used in local situations.   For example, if you want to build a bridge, you will use certain formulae which have been shown to work.   But we seem to have let this overpower everything.   I can't see a solution, but in fact, 'solution' is another piece of mind-fucking.   We don't need a solution, we can just live. 

[wigginhall]

I guess it depends on what we mean by it. 'Purpose' to me is 'stuff to do'. The problem comes when people think that there is a 'life's purpose'  to discover if only they had the right teacher/path/self help book. Actually when I look back on it the times when I searched for a deeper kind of 'purpose' were those when I wouldn't face up to how deeply unhappy I was and that I needed not to find something, but to end something.

Yes, I am very suspicious now of teachings about purpose and meaning.   Just check your wallet, as they will probably want payment.   Good points about feeling unhappy.   One of my tutors used to say that Sartre was so depressed, he had to write a ton of abstract stuff in order to numb himself.   Bit cynical. 

[Bramble]

This talk of purpose reminds me of a poem by Ikkuyu, which has the wonderful line, 'If you don't know where you are going, any road is the right one.'

[Rhiannon]

This talk of purpose reminds me of a poem by Ikkuyu, which has the wonderful line, 'If you don't know where you are going, any road is the right one.'

Nice. 

[Shaker]

I like 

[wigginhall]

This talk of purpose reminds me of a poem by Ikkuyu, which has the wonderful line, 'If you don't know where you are going, any road is the right one.'

That's how my life has gone.   Well,  up to the age of 40, I just did what seemed the correct thing - career, marriage, mortgage.   Then it all fell apart, and I started just doing whatever turned up, without any plan.   This has the great virtue of working, whereas the plan was killing me. 

[Rhiannon]

That's how my life has gone.   Well,  up to the age of 40, I just did what seemed the correct thing - career, marriage, mortgage.   Then it all fell apart, and I started just doing whatever turned up, without any plan.   This has the great virtue of working, whereas the plan was killing me.

Yeah, forty something is when it happened to me too. Oh my god the relief of letting it all collapse. God alone knows where I'm going now but that isn't the point, is it?