Belly Button Lint

Feeling Lint-y?

Tag: purpose

  • Theme:

    If suffering cannot be eradicated…

    , , ,

    °

    1–2 minutes

    If suffering can never be eradicated, our purpose must account for suffering.
    Our purpose must make the pain worthwhile or meaningful. If not, life, suffering, and pain are all absurd.

    In a moment of clarity (seeing the absurd), we can see the religious/humanistic impulse to validate suffering is attractive (giving meaning to pain retroactively).

    The leap is to trade up: swap the obvious irrationality of suffering for a portentous, impossible dream. Upgrading absurdities maintains purpose by excluding logic and, in so doing, secures comfort.

  • Theme:

    Delusions are necessary

    , , ,

    °

    1–2 minutes

    To see clearly we should look to reality.

    Yet the insensate brutality of reality will destroy you.

    Maintaining delusions is what allows us to fully live: to thrive, rather than just survive, because to only survive is existentially meaningless.

  • Theme:

    Incurring dumbness

    , , ,

    °

    1–2 minutes

    I love the dumb feeling of fuzzy openness that slinks up the back of your skull after three drinks.

    The sunset is beyond profound, your troubles are pebbles, and the glee is a fist letting go of your heart.

    You have a glimpse that this single moment is what all life could be.

  • Theme:

    Optimization from fear

    , , ,

    °

    1–2 minutes

    What portion of our pursuits are motivated by anxiety and fear?
    Is our level of optimization equal to our stress?

    If this number is high we are operating from a place of fear rather than a) the curiosity of our potential or b) the drive toward thick and beneficial desires.

  • Theme:

    retail therapy

    , , ,

    °

    1–2 minutes

    When looking for productive boringness, shopping nicely fills the time.

    When disgruntled or overwhelmed, consumerism offers an escapist world of infinite (mostly meaningless) choices into which we can sink, feeling at once active and comforted to employ a well-honed skill.

  • Theme:

    Purpose vs. vitality

    , , ,

    °

    1–2 minutes

    Having a purpose in your life provides an orientation point, but people fundamentally want to feel alive. (That is to have your inner sensation and bodily sense engaged and aligned to experience rapture.)

    Feeling alive happens when we chase meaning or mystery. Any purpose will do; what we want is pursuit.

  • Theme:

    Prefering the maze of bureaucracy

    , , ,

    °

    1–2 minutes

    Do we have an innate fear of losing bureaucracy? We all claim to hate it, yet we are familiar with its convolutions.

    Within the maze’s twisted containment, we become familiar with navigating the petty and having our excessive efforts casually thwarted. Yet, we don’t escape and we cease looking for the exit.

    We prefer the dull corners rather than risk the jagged peaks.
    We prefer the buttressing security of a system, choosing the intimate pain of common convolutions over the chaotic brute force of reality.

  • Theme:

    Desire as economic model

    , , ,

    °

    1–2 minutes

    If desire produces more desire, then our desire is to chase desire itself. It’s all about the pursuit, with the goal itself being sort of made up along the way.

    If we speak of an economy modeled on how desire works, we chase money for money.
    Economic value is not in the commodity (object) we pursue but in the pursuit of more. The pursuit of excess.

  • Theme:

    “when you gotta go, you gotta go”

    , , ,

    °

    1–2 minutes

    An older man said this to me as we peed, side-by-side in the Home Depot bathroom. He then walked over to the sink, slicked back his white hair and mustache without washing his hands, hitched up his pants, and sauntered out.

    This type of interaction is worth consideration: the statement is unnecessary but not meaningless. It is not an apology for biological imperative, but a cool guy’s crass excuse as a means to put forward (and seek affirmation for) a way to move through the world.

    More problematic is posturing for a man who is peeing.

  • Theme:

    The paradox of purpose

    , , ,

    °

    1–2 minutes

    Everyone is supposed to find their purpose for happiness, fulfillment, or well-being.

    Most are Judeo-Christian ethics, which means our purpose aligns with societal influence: we want to be “good” people. Your purpose is commendable but is it yours?

    Give up on being a good person, and accept yourself as a person. By shedding as much of the societal pressure as possible and following your passions, you stand a chance to find your purpose.

    It is odd that you must give up trying and drift into your purpose: seeking it leads to mimicking other people’s purpose.