Finding Meaning

In some corners of the Internet there’s a fascination with traditionalism, and criticism of the ways the openness and optionality of modernity have left people feeling lost. I’ve always felt like, look, I could never be a traditionalist, because I don’t want to give birth to five kids without anesthesia and spend half of my day cleaning up around t... See more

every human being is a storyteller, that stories are how we seek to understand the meaning of our lives

It is necessary to share meaning. A society is a link of relationships among people and institutions, so that we can live together. But it only works if we have a culture — which implies that we share meaning; i.e., significance, purpose, and value. Otherwise it falls apart. Our society is incoherent, and doesn’t do that very well; it hasn’t for a

... See more

It is often only in the interludes that we come to realise just how much our busy lives are an active conspiracy against the very things that supposedly give our existence a deeper sense of meaning and purpose.

Life-long learning, aided by the giants who have come before, is a (spiritual) practice. Nutritionists advocate for healthy eating and exercise but there is no real regimen for the soul. Yoga and Soulcycle emphasize transcendence through corporeality, but nobody has managed to scale Logos, to create the equivalent for the thoughtful word. Nike star... See more

This disconnect between culturally mandated politics and the actual demonstrated preferences of most Americans has created an enormous reserve of unmet needs—and a generational opportunity. Build new things! Create great art! Understand and accept that sensory information is the brain’s food, and that Silicon Valley is systematically starving us of... See more

these quilts are ways of creating my own legacy because I don’t have one that’s been handed down to me. I don’t have one that is available to me because of my queerness and my otherness, so the study of quilts for me is almost like a re-parenting type of shit, a way of creating my own story, my own legacy by looking at the idea that legacy doesn’t ... See more

All these people you’ve known and loved – “they suffered and struggled so much, and then life is over,” said Scorsese. “You get to the point of saying, ‘Well, what does it all mean?’ It doesn’t matter what it means. You have to live it. And if you choose not to live it, you choose not to live it; that’s up to you. But you are existing and you live ... See more

But if the deep roots of boredom are in a lack of meaning, rather than a shortage of stimuli, and if there is a subtle, multilayered process by which information can give rise to meaning, then the constant flow of information to which we are becoming habituated cannot deliver on such a promise. At best, it allows us to distract ourselves with the p... See more