Looking for Meaning
Many bright people live in a world devoid of meaning. By avoiding the devoid, they even get more and more in a strut. How to get out?
This is an important text to me…
and to you, dear reader, for one plain reason: without meaning, there is no meaning… of anything.
Meaning is related to depth.
Meaning is related to the subconceptual.
At the purely conceptual level
there is no meaning possible. If one says: the meaning of concept Y lies in concept X, what is then the meaning of concept X? One keeps looking for meaning as in a look-up table. That would be meaningful if one would, for instance, end up at concept A which would be truly meaningful.
But then I would ask: why?
– “Because I say it’s meaningful.”
Why do you?
There is no way
of getting beyond concepts in purely conceptual thinking. And ‘meaning’-as-a-concept is just not about the conceptual, at least not as I’m using this term and as you might have guessed.
This meaning is being lost in many scientific domains because that’s a world prone to concept-ualize everything.
Conceptualizing is OK where it’s OK.
Conceptualizing may have bad consequences where it’s not OK. [see: “Other Consequences”]
So, how to get out?
Perhaps by using scientist’s schemes: conceptualizing the subconceptual.
Well, I’m trying to do so as much as I can. Still, I encounter scientists who are ‘resistant’ to anything that could open their house of concepts. Outside of that house, they feel very uncomfortable to the point of – almost – losing rationality itself.
So, how does one find deeper meaning?
By finding it, of course. Which is: by experiencing it. Eventually, one is the other.
Experiencing is a here-and-now event. It’s about poetry, about art, being in nature, being in relationships, etc.
Hm. For instance, physicians see lots of patients but what many of them really see too much are diseases, prognoses, etc.
No depth. No warmth. No meaning in the job. Burnout.
Meditation
is according to me a nice way to reach deeper layers of meaning.
A lot of different stuff is being called ‘meditation’. One of them – my take on it – is centered on deeper contact with oneself. That’s also the goal of the 1000+ AURELIS health meditations.
It is my attempt to bring some meaning.
Related Posts
The Meaning of ‘Meaning’
What is the meaning of something? What is the meaning of life? What is the meaning of your life? These questions are familiar, almost worn — yet strangely inexhaustible. This blog turns to the question that hides behind them all: what is the meaning of meaning itself? Not to close it with a definition, but Read the full article…
Depth and Distillation
Compression of knowledge may lead to crystallization into surface-level concepts ― sometimes with a loss of depth. However, starting from broad mental-neuronal patterns, compression may lead to in-depth wisdom. I call the latter a process of Inner Distillation Poetry Excellent poetry is a quintessential form of Inner Distillation. Notoriously, the poet doesn’t consciously know how Read the full article…
‘Letting Go’ is not ‘Giving In’
At first glance, letting go and giving in may look alike. Both involve release, a softening of control. Yet inside, they are worlds apart. ‘Letting go’ is meant here as what comes from strength, from trust in truth. ‘Giving in’ arises from weakness, from fear or fatigue. One opens the way to freedom; the other Read the full article…