Thinking about meaning and usefulness lately.
re: meaning
Lately I’m realising I do like assigning meaning to things. (I mean, I’ve always known this but it’s only lately I’m realising how automatic, strong and frequent this process is for me.) Obviously, this contradicts a little bit with mindfulness, and I’m still not sure how much I must allow myself to extract meaning out of events. Sometimes I think that we do have roles to play in this world, because otherwise there isn’t a point.
Or if life or sentience is even, simply put, a random occurrence, even then, if assigning meaning to it makes it easier for me— then why not?
I suppose it is only the “attachment” to the meaning (whatever that is for you) that might make it a problem. I guess, if we can practice connected detachment, then meaning can probably serve as a good guiding star.
What is the problem, then? I suppose the problem is it’s hard to keep a check on how far you can constantly get lost in the narrative. If you don’t keep your meaning-assigning-parts in check, or if you don’t regularly question them, or put them through scrutiny filters, you might end up away from awareness.
Okay, where is all this coming from?
I was having a discussion with some people and someone claimed that “life shouldn’t be too serious” and I think I got somewhat triggered by that statement. I went on a bit of speech on how “life is serious, actually” and how there’s wars happening and how people aren’t being nice and kind to each other and all of that is serious. But now that I recognise that maybe that’s not what that person was claiming at all, I suppose, I need to apologise to them. (Oops)
But I do feel strongly about how humanity needs to be better. I don’t know what this is exactly but I clearly need to explore this more, otherwise I might get keep getting triggered every time someone says anything along the lines of “life isn’t that serious”.
Of course, I recently came across this which I’m planning to read soon because it might be helpful for me. And something I read probably from the same essay was that the trick is to “not take your self too seriously but it’s okay to take your work seriously” and that does resonate with me a lot. I’ve now accepted that my work isn’t about me necessarily but I am the vessel that’s doing the work and for me to do it well it makes sense that I would take it seriously. Even if I’m having fun, I tend to be serious about having fun, if that makes any sense at all. And maybe another thing to remember is that people just function differently, maybe “taking things lightly” allows some people to live an easier life— and that’s okay— but for them to generalise this for everyone is what I don’t necessarily like.
So, I suppose part of the problem is just accepting that I am a serious person and I do take “life” and the world and many things that we have in front of us seriously. Whatever that means, really.
I’ll talk about usefulness another time, I don’t feel like getting into it at the moment.
Happy last day of 2023, I hope you don’t resist whatever comes your way 🙂
untitled atm 