I have a hole that needs digging and then filling back in. you interested?

Just imagine Sisyphus cumming or whatever the saying is

One of the many problems with “stewing in ennui” types like Camus is that they represent finding meaning in life as a matter of internal psychology, not just something rational but something that is rationalized. For many people, it is engagement with the world that acts as a precondition to experiencing meaning, rather than an experience of meaning somehow preceding anything meaningful. My suggestion to you based on what you say is to go do stuff with people.

The implied meaning of “life is meaningless” is “there is no grand universe-encompassing [Christian] narrative to ascribe to”. Because the literal interpretation isn’t true. We’re making meaning right now. Every social interaction or relation is a meaning-making machine.

I think the problem for those of us that struggle with this is the way our society instills in us the idea of a grand externality or objectivity, usually through religion but not necessarily. So we may try to step beyond our religion or whatever grand narrative, but the architecture of our mind is still organized around it, like there’s just a void where there used to be meaning. Our consciousness is still oriented around a false expectation of some universal truth.

But this form of pure objectivity doesn’t exist.

The way I usually see people approach existentialism is a pendulum swing into pure subjectivity, a retraction into the self, “you create your own meaning”. But this isn’t any more true than a grand objectivity (and can be more harmful).

What we have is a network of overlapping subjectivities. The making of meaning is a dynamic process that takes place in each intersubjective space, so meaning exists locally to wherever it is produced. There’s meaning between you and a friend, a shared understanding of certain aspects of the world. There’s meaning within your culture or at your job or among people with similar interests.

Importantly, there’s meaning between you and the media you consume, between you and the larger cultural narrative, which is dominated by bourgeois subjectivity (often disguised as universal objectivity). This is another way we might feel alienated from meaning, because the dominant social meaning is discordant with the meaning we’re producing locally. As a class without consciousness, without organs, we struggle to create meaning that aligns with our reality.

Scratch too deep at reasons for being and you’ll wear a hole through to nihilism, why not live for people? for humanity and human potential? Why strain your ears for a response from a universe that can’t answer?

It’s tough to passively live in an absurdist mentality. Especially with the heavy indoctrination into the abrahamic value structure embedded in most world cultures. It’s something to keep reminding yourself of. That being said, you’re allowed to give yourself a purpose that means something to you. It doesn’t have to just be “everything is meaningless”, it can instead be “everything is meaningless so I might as well make it better.”

To say the same thing a different way. Nihilism says “nothing matters so why do anything”, which is a very easy passive emotion to sink into. Absurdism says “nothing matters so why not do everything”, which requires actively choosing to do something. The latter option sounds a bit more fun to me, even if it takes a little effort.

Its easy to look at your achievements and see that they are pointless and meaningless and see some sarcastic humor in that. Laughing at suffering is the hard part. So start with something small. Think of a time when you didn’t factor in a simple detail and it made everything go horribly wrong. Now imagine that you are someone else watching you make this obvious mistake and how funny it is.

“nothing matters” is scope error. fortunately (or unfortunately depending on your perspective) we are weird creatures with desires and dreams and hopes and ways to suffer and things we like. we dont need some sort of god or higher purpose to justify our existence, just what we personally care about

it’s not about forcing yourself to be happy and make others happy. that’s an obligation, a stated goal ascribed to you despite your wishes. living without “meaning”, or more accurately objective meaning, is the opposite. it’s about doing what you want. not in a sociopathic, solipsistic way, where you dismiss others and any concept of morality out of hand. but almost as play. not that you don’t take anything seriously, mind you, but almost in that you are pursuing your whims as if you were playing a game of Minecraft. Everyone agrees destroying people’s stuff in that game is a dick move, right? And people work together to do random shit in that game all the time. We’re basically (or trying to be) playing Minecraft but the stakes are waaaaaay higher and we’re also witness to an unbelievable amount of suffering caused by structures of capital which supress all of our natural urges unless they can be fully subsumed towards profit.

and this doesn’t even mean that we can’t live without a “higher calling” or “noble purpose”, just that those are goals we become attached to and find worth and joy in naturally, not things we have prescribed to us as a required thing.

we are under no obligation to rationalize our desires and wishes, except when they come into direct conflict with other’s, or when other’s suffering and pain would be a direct result. and i honestly think this is true even if there was a god. Who is a god to prescribe the purpose of our existence to us? Is it just because God is more powerful than us and made us? Powerful people who make things are wrong all the time about those things. Is it because God is meant to be always right? According to whom? In whose interest? For what goals? Unless this God has all goals, that could ever be possible, simultaneously. Which is an absurd and incomprehensible concept. This God would still have no authority over what our goals are, merely the ability to suggest (though in a God’s case, very strongly, but still). Just like everyone else.

So what difference even is it for the world to have a meaning made by God or somebody or to have none at all? You’d have to subjectively accept that God’s goals as being your own, just like you have to for basically everything.

So the only conclusion I can make is that the lack of a God or a lack of truth or meaning means we are free, not doomed. If there is no god, then that God cannot coerce us to follow their arbitrary goals. And if there is no divine, objective meaning we must ALL follow or be punished, than what we want can be our priority. We can make our whole, all-encompassing, undeniably real and objectively true meaning(s) anything our whims pull us towards. Not in a “living in the moment” milquetoast way (i am not attacking mindfulness btw, just the idea that it’s the only respite from meaninglessness or whatever), but in a genuine, powerful, driving and future-acknowledging way that we are supposed to exclusively reserve for “true meaning”. And nobody can take that away from you, because nihilism doesn’t, nor christianity, nor capitalism, nor any philosophical concept known to man, have anything that can debunk or disprove that. We, you, everyone has genuinely good reasons and drives to want the things we want, to have the meanings we find meaning in. To deny that is a fundamental denial of reality, a fundamental denial of one’s very self, not in an enlightened way but in a sad way caused by domination, driven by the constant overshadowing influence of a dead God and a very much alive and very malicious Capital which urges us to justify our every actions and wish. But we don’t have to. We can tell it to fuck off and then we can continue drawing pictures of garfield making out with sans (and then fighting for communism because adobe just sent all of your garfield pictures to some ai chatbot to regurgitate and fuck us all over with infinite slop).

concerning meaning, I ascribe to the “the things you want to do and find meaningful are meaningful” side of things

if meaning was a fundamental part of existence it would be a detectable natural constant

the concept of meaning only came in relatively recently, much more recently than life on Earth

humans invented meaning, so it’s our responsibility to ascribe it

meaning is real and you have absolute personal authority over what is meaningful (you are more powerful than creation itself in this respect)

Play the first 3 mgs games, and happiness is a silly goal. Philosophy has made literally zero people happy. No one is happy. But existentialism means literally just fill that meaninglessness with absolutely whatever the fuck you want. Let that liberate you, it means there’s no such thing as a wasted day because it’s a day you were there for.

Life-hack: Whenever the ennui comes knocking, just start speculating about alien life intelligent or otherwise, you’ll either scare or awe yourself out of that depressive feeling, at least that’s what I do

Nothing in nature has any intrinsic value, that doesnt mean you cant create one for yourself

The next step is to forge your own meaning. It doesn’t stop at “there is no meaning”. Once you see the void you can also see that there is space to build and no zoning code to stop you. You can, must in fact, decide why you choose to live, why you choose to act and how you justify your actions. You are the ultimate and only authority.

That’s really hard. We’re used to always being able to lean on something outside ourselves for purpose and guidance. And, to some extent, you still can. Back when you believed in external, inate authorities you were choosing what you believed. Those powers, whatever they were, were never real. You were to some extent projecting your own beliefs, desires, and ideals on to those things; church, state, god, whatever.

Find those childlike beliefs and clean the ichor of false gods off of them. Look at them from every angle. Decide which ones to keep, which ones to discard, and what you need to build from scratch. Whatever you come up with, polish it until it shines. Like a blade.

Another suggestion; check out Buddhism. The Buddhists figured out the same premise from a different angle thousands of years ago. The more grounded, secular forms of buddhism have a lot to say about confronting the void of meaning and carrying on in the aftermath.

I think you’re supposed to try existentialism first, then jump to absurdism.

Anyway try reading the Principia Discordia. I don’t know if it hits as hard when you’re not a fourteen year old atheist stuck in the religious south, but maybe.

“Does life have meaning?” is a meaningless question and the answer to that meaningless question is a meaningless answer. How so? Let me ask a set of questions:

• What is the consequence of life having meaning?

• What is the consequence of life not having meaning?

• What is the meaningful difference between the two answers?

Personally, my answer to all three is “nothing.”

I’m just so desperate to have a purpose and meaning in my life, but at the same time I can’t sincerely believe in any religion or afterlife. I try to “live in the moment” and “be happy and make others happy”, but it just isn’t enough. I need something more.

Your duty in life is to make the world a better life. It’s to leave the world in a better state than when you entered it. You don’t have to be the architect of some world-historic event like a socialist revolution. It can be much simpler things like feeding ducks at a nearby park or buying groceries for your aging grandparents or refusing to vote guilty in a jury. Your duty to leave the world in a better state when you leave the world can be fulfilled through individual acts as well as fulfilled through being part of an organization, be it a church, club, mutual aid network, or revolutionary party.

Don’t be suckered into pondering on the alleged meaning or meaningless of life. There’s much work to be done to make the world a better place, to right what is currently wrong, to beautify what is currently ugly, to feed what is currently starving, and so on.