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Tag Archives: #meaning
Desire
When the facilitator at one of the support groups I attend mentioned a Buddhist recovery meditation program, I pushed back because I’ve always been a little wary of Buddhism. Follow my thinking. Buddhism’s Four Nobles Truths are (loosely): Life is full … Continue reading
Kind
Patton Oswalt’s new Netflix comedy special Annihilation dropped today. He talked about the ongoing argument he and his late wife would have: He’d muse that the universe may have some latticework of logic & meaning and she’d insist that it’s … Continue reading
Diplomacy
Usually, I’m extremely careful with my words choices and always strive to select le mot juste. However, I realize that I’ve been sloppy by throwing the word “depression” around. Let me clarify. Technically, “depression” is a flatness of affect where … Continue reading
Bootstrapping
The problem of meaning is one of bootstrapping. All belief systems — be they organized religions, the 12 Steps of A.A., or Scientology — leverage axioms which must be accepted on faith. (In Dianetics, the axioms are literally printed on … Continue reading
Patch
In looking into A.A. and reading their Big Book, I’m put off by the idea that substances are this external power which requires another external power (God as we understand him) to overcome. I’m told there are thousands of agnostics … Continue reading
Diligence
For almost all of the last fifteen years, I’ve been on antidepressants prescribed by my doctor. (Briefly Prozac at the start and then Wellbutrin.) Recently, I reviewed my prescription with a psychiatrist specializing in addiction medicine. After discussing how I’ve … Continue reading
Millstone
Both as a Christian and afterward, I have been guided by Matthew 18:6 (“If anyone causes one of these little ones—those who believe in me—to stumble, it would be better for them to have a large millstone hung around their … Continue reading
Games
In James Carse’s Finite and Infinite Games, he asserts that the goal of an infinite game is to keep playing the game.
Eschatology
Per usual, I’ve been thinking a lot about Norse eschatology. About hopelessness. About assured defeat. And then I think of what C.S. Lewis referred to (in Letters to Malcolm: Chiefly on Prayer) as “the Viking way”: “The Giants and Trolls … Continue reading
Ember
I was telling my therapist at Kaiser that I have this tiny ember of hope about life and I keep casting around looking for kindling, hoping that I can keep it burning and making it self-sustaining.
Dagobah
I think about this scene several times a day. I often feel like Luke does: “I don’t even know what we’re doing here! We’re wasting our time!” I’m reminded of the canard about depression being “anger turned inward.”
Apophenia
I have a nagging fear that any sense of meaning that any given human sees is, in fact, just an artifact of apophenia. Perhaps it’s time to reread Daniel Dennett‘s Breaking the Spell.
Sand
I find sand mandalas interesting as a meditation on beauty, transitoriness, and transitory beauty.
Approaches
I was mulling over the different approaches different people take to living, but slowly realized that most approaches can be used by both those who see meaning and those who don’t. Nihilism was the only approach that I could think … Continue reading
Meaning
I’ve been obsessing over the ambiguous meaning of the English word “meaning.” What does “meaning” mean? Intention? Significance? Importance? Consequence?