To Live Meaninglessly May Be The Only Hope for Mankind

“Let’s face the truth. Life has no meaning. Each of us has meaning and we bring it to life. It is a waste to be asking the question when you are the answer, says Joseph Campbell. I think we should stop asking ourselves existential questions. In order to escape the brain’s complexity, let’s start asking ourselves these simple questions instead: What meaning do I give to my life? What is the purpose of my life? What is most important to me in my life? What are my deepest values and beliefs? Adding purpose and values is the only way to live a meaningful life.” Read more: http://www.exposingthetruth.co/what-is-the-meaning-of-life/#ixzz2czGwh87Q

This author appears to conclusively answer the ultimate question and claims that the answer is the “truth” that we must “face.” Yet, the author then goes about negating that very truth she claims we must “face” by suggesting we should construct our own relative meanings by “adding purpose and value.”

Wait. What?

How is that “facing truth”? Is it not realistic to state that, if life has NO meaning, then to live as though it does is to live a lie? If this is true then everything that egocentrica mammalians do, other than eat shit, sleep, fuck and die is absolutely meaningless and fictional.

If the truth is that life is meaningless, who are we to alter that fact? If life is meaningless, and this has certainly been the conclusion from centuries of eastern and western philosophy (so it’s easy to see why this author claims it as truth), then why are we not living in complete accord with that truth?

Should we not be living as meaningless a life as possible if, in fact, the truth is that life is absolutely meaningless? Why attach relative meanings to an absolute meaninglessness if they are false?

Could it be that centuries of “bringing meaning to life” has resulted in the current state of affairs in which it has become abundantly apparent that we are progressively hurtling toward our own inevitable doom through a confusing confluence of conflicting meanings all crashing headlong into one another? For a belief to be meaningful it must be defended, else why adhere to it and live by it as meaningful. For every belief defended there is the opposite belief also defended and this creates all manner of havoc.

For instance, we have accused Syria of gassing their own people and thus we find it meaningful to drop bombs and kill people to punish them for killing people, because we believe there is clearly a meaningful difference between killing a thousand people with gas or killing a thousand people with bombs.

It appears that if only life could be absent meaning, we’d all be alot happier.

Possibly, what humanity requires is a little bit of nihilistic meaninglessness, because all our meanings are slowly killing us.

If the truth is that life is meaningless, then who are we to oppose or negate that truth by conjuring up fictionally symbolic meanings that really do nothing to alter the truth whatsoever? Should we not pray to the meaningless and practice rituals that have no purpose?

Note that the author claims that life’s meaninglessness is the truth that we must face. Yet, how does one face that truth and learn from it (enlightenment?), if we’re all running around defending fictional meanings that do nothing to debunk the stark truth that it’s all meaningless? If the truth is that life is meaningless, why pretend it isn’t? Is the way to a meaningful life pretending it’s not meaningless, when in fact that is the truth?

Why would anyone want to live in ways that oppose truth?

However, this raises a question:

Is it even possible to live a meaningless life?

If your life is meaningless, why would you want to live it at all? Are egocentrica mammalians the only species with an innate need to seek out patterns, superimpose meaning upon them and then live as if that were true?

Nature is completely indifferent to your meanings and does whatever it does regardless of what it means to you. It follows a causal order or WILL that can and will easily crush your meaningful fictions like a handful of grapes. No matter how many fictions egocentrics superimpose upon nature, nature is meaningless and exists as such. Nature does not care what you find ugly or beautiful. It is not even aware of your sense of right or wrong and it apparently does not have the slightest inclination to conform to what you consider good or bad etc, etc. Nature kills, but never murders. Although you’re all jiggy with how ‘awesome’ you are, nature couldn’t give two farts in the wind about your self-esteem, your values and morals or protecting your precious “lifestyle.” To nature, you are as meaningless as a baby antelope being ripped to shreds by a pack of hyenas.

So now that we know for certain that life is meaningless (as the above author correctly informs) shouldn’t we find a way to live in conformance with that truth? If it’s all meaningless, then all meanings are equally sheit no matter who believes in them or doesn’t. Hence, if life is meaningless, then there is absolutely no purpose to it, making each and everything you do in your busy day as purposeless as anything else anyone else does. Whether you sit on your butt all day and watch soaps or volunteer to feed the homeless, both are equally of no purpose, simply because life is meaningless. Your life is as meaningless as your death, so why are you struggling to do important things with your life? Or maybe death is more meaningful than life…

Nevertheless, because egocentric mammalia has no free-will, he cannot shake free of his need to make meaningful stories as the universe has so endowed him. Thus, he cannot live a meaningless life and any attempt to do so would be packed with meaning, thereby, negating the purpose of meaninglessness which, obviously, must have no purpose in order to conform to meaninglessness. Hence, to avoid the excruciatingly painful vacuum of empty nothingness (imagine living a life for which the only purpose of that life was to eat, shit, sleep, fuck and die) egocentrica mammalians have spent thousands of years constructing fictions for which to fill that void, regardless of the truth.

And not one of their fictions has ever altered the truth even one tiny bit...

Artwork by Greg Simkins

Freedom from 'Self' is a Brain Process...

You have no soul, no spirit and consciousness is entirely brain centered and produced.

I recognize that for some that fact may suck, but this allows you to be one with the universe that gave you that existence (as a brain controlled organism), which also allowed the environment you exist in and, when you understand this “spiritual” fact fully, you will be free from suffering through your short monotonous existence that is as meaningless as the dust bunnies under your couch.

It is true, however, that this fact contradicts your need to construct all types of stories to make your monotonous existing more bearable but that, paradoxically, only creates more complexity and confusion resulting in your continued suffering. You’re not surrendering to some nebulous conceptualization of kumbaya spiritual “energy,” some magically mysterious ether mist or a dogmatic, all powerful “god” entity/being/thingy, but simply to the physical organ that allows you the power to conceptualize anything at all, because it grants you the power to “think” and BE conscious in the first place. The universe that gave you existence, gave you that, so why seek to negate the fact through some confabulation of truth?

You did not choose to be brain-centered with an intellect amazingly adept at constructing fictional stories for which to conjure up meaning out of nothing. The universe gave you this capacity and the universe can take it away. You have no free-will and, hence, you have no autonomous ‘self’ for which to claim such freedom and act as if that claim were true. It’s that simple!

This is the “surrender-to-oneness” that many authentic guru’s claim to have realized, but that most of us will completely fail to understand by sitting in the lotus for 50 years “meditating.” Any so-called “spiritual teacher” who claims meditation as a way to enlightenment is either totally ignorant, mentally ill (most clearly demonstrate bipolar symptoms) or need to sell books to pay their alimony and child support.

Nevertheless, meditation is a good exercise to test your complete lack of free-will in relation to “thoughts” in your brain that are aligned with your genetic and socio-cultural programming. Sit back and try not to think and watch how fooking impossible that is. In fact, not only is it impossible to stop thinking but in the process of trying not to think, all manner of thoughts consistently pop up out of thin air, completely outside any capacity to control. One thought will then lead to another, thereby, influencing the next until finally the thought; “I must not think” (obviously influenced by the “thought” that you’re not supposed to be “thinking” while meditating or else how will you achieve your socially conditioned “enlightenment”?) will ultimately engage the whole process to begin again, resulting in the same programmed thought patterns spewing out, helter skelter, all over your brain circuitry.

Hence, you have no free-will to stop thought, control thought and all thinking is either influenced by current environmental factors or programmed brain circuitry that simply fires up without any decision on your part, because it is either wired up that way or provoked by external factors outside your control. When sheit happens out of the blue, you react based on the tangled up sheit in your skull and you had nothing to do with the formation of either. That sheit just started happening the moment you were born. This is your freedom.

Essentially you live your “life” like you drive your car. Until the texting idiot behind slams into you, the last thought in your head had nothing to do with driving. You’re completely programmed to drive a car with robotic precision and you needn’t give it a thought, until the external environment influences you to direct conscious attention on a specific external event. Hence, while you are driving, thoughts anarchically bounce around your cranium having absolutely nothing to do with driving, with most influenced by some previous or future event or simply influencing one another. You have absolutely no free-will to think whatever you want and most thinking just occurs outside any conscious awareness until the environment outside your head demands your attention.

Is it any wonder egocentrics become alcoholic and drug addicts? It seems to provide freedom from the uncontrollable. You literally hate your brain...

Sometimes I like to think (though I know better) that I have volitionally chosen in this moment to think specific thoughts about writing this blog post even though, through careful analysis, I can see how my decision to write in this moment was influenced by myriad of factors outside my control. Each sentence written influences another electro-chemical “thought” impulse that joins up with new electro-chemically induced “ideas” that then lead to even more.

How did I even come to the realization that free-will is an illusion when, for decades I believed “I-me” made choices completely free of any influence? I have no clear idea, just a broad recollection of past events that caused my circuits to generate impulses that directed me to this very exclamation point…right….here…!

What is “thinking” if not electrochemical synaptical impulses processed within the language centers of the brain? All sensation runs through language centers to facilitate conceptual understandings we abstractly refer to as “intellect,” but that are nothing more than neuro-circuits conditioned from birth to provide quick neuro-linguistically programmed scripts learned through years of socio-cultural conditioning.

So relax….why feel guilty about what you were “thinking” if you have no free-will to choose specific thoughts anyway? Your perverse fantasies of Miley Cyrus were formulated through many years of neuro-synaptic impulses passed on through millions of miles of circuitry linking up to other impulses that you consider, at times, “perverse” (itself a circuit all its own).

What is an “experience,” if not simply an electro-chemical impulse generated exclusively by the brain being influenced by sensation? You may look to an external world to generate sensational experiences, but it all comes down to brain circuitry. Bungee jumping certainly seems to require specific materials and settings external to the brain, but it will be the brain that provides the experience and nothing else, because your entire life is experienced neuro-chemically.

Your “happiness” consists of just the right levels of serotonin, dopamine, catecholamine’s, endorphins, etc, etc. If it’s all in your brain, then clearly you must be dreaming…

Choices are certainly made as a means of generating certain experiences, but you interpret some choices as good, while others are bad. Where’d you learn that sheit?? You have no free-will in this simply because the neuro-circuit programming has constructed conditional filters through sensations are sifted, processed and evaluated to provide an “experience.” Yet, the experiences will happen whether you evaluate them or not, but your evaluative function will ‘know’ the experience and rate it as a means to promote future acceptance or rejection which directs future seeking or avoidance. This is referred to as excitatory or inhibitory processing.

In fact, you most likely can recall times when you had no idea why you did what you did and this emphasizes the spontaneity of neuro-circuited “thought” impulses and why you are ALWAYS spontaneously in the moment. Without the brain you could have no sensation at all and the brain can even give you sensation were no such external impulse exists.

Hence, because the “I-me” identity neuro-circuit exists in your skull and nowhere else, you generate a delusional experience of volitional choice, simply because you identify the cranium encased fatty material as “me.” You act and then claim the act as exclusively owned by “me” and not another. But you will never say, “my brain did this,” even though, clearly, that is exactly what occurred, since the action whether spontaneous or deliberated on, was prompted by specific neuro-circuitry in a specifically located cranium. The “I-me” delusion is based solely on location and not agency. Everywhere you take your head is where you will find your ‘self.’ You can’t take your head anywhere and not be your ‘self.’ Because you are in a specific skull, you will always find yourself there, no matter where you go, until the brain shuts off and then you will not be anywhere, because you will not exist as “me.”

“I-me” could never find my “self” in your skull, simply because that happens to be where “you” are and it’s a natural law that only one brain be attributed to one head. Even though two heads are possible, there can only be one brain per head. No matter how many appendages and limbs exist on a specific organism, there can only be one brain to control it all.

You don’t have some nebulous, mysterious mind, you have a brain and that organ is firing off billions of electro-chemical impulses every second and the energy generated from that is called “consciousness” and you are simply not in control of that process.

Egocentricity wants to glorify itself by being more than a brain housed in calcium. It desires grandiosity through a self somehow not engaged with the brain at all. A self completely free of electro-chemical impulses and this is how it can destroy everything around it with impunity.

Many claim the argument of free-will is ridiculous and matters not in the least. Yet, it is more than simply whether or not you have free-will and more about whether you even have a ‘self.’ If we claim the self is contingent on free-will, then clearly if free-will is an illusion, so must the self be a brain generated mirage.

The question of the 21st century revolves around the fact that an “I-me” does not even exist and never has and this has deep spiritual significance. If you want absolute freedom then you must exit the prison of ‘self’ and this can occur simply by recognizing each and every impulse of the self is nothing more than brain activity.

Do what you do, until something else comes upon you, because you simply are not in charge of anything.