Just the Best a Modern Society Can Do: The So-Called Meaning of Life

The other day a client asked me an interesting question. Of course, it's always fascinating to try and tackle the age-old, timeless, somewhat cliched "What is the meaning of life?" query. At my age I've acquired some tidbits of mundane wisdom and for some reason some people seem to consider me an amateur sage or guru of sorts. It's not a bad gig, doesn't pay anything. Maybe a measly tip here and there, but generally people hold you in high esteem. That ain't half bad.

The short answer is, There probably is none. Sure, that sounds terribly nihilistic, but I'm actually more of a casual Taoist with a healthy dusting of Gnostic thrown in there somewhere A better answer might be, It is what you make of it, kid. Of course, that sounds something that dad or grandpa might have said to you when you were a kid, complaining about how bad you hated school, church, chess club or vacation bible camp in the summertime. Probably a huge subtle truth drop regarding our Beast System reality there, and the old man didn't even know it. My best, purposely ambiguous Taoist answer was, When you can stop asking the question, you've arrived at your answer, Or else you just don't give a crap anymore, too old and tired to care about such philosophical drivel, harsh and depressing as that sounds. Probably would have been better to direct this inquiring mind to Tao Te Ching or the Tibetan Book of the Dead, along with some sagacious Alan Watts That would probably point them in a much better, more meaningful direction, which I'm sure I did, eventually, if I remembered to.

It later occurred to me that there may be multiple levels to the so-called meaning of life in our fabulous highly advanced modern-day society. Much like the ten to twelve never-static, ever-revolving levels of consciousness that make up both our everyday reality and the realms of the afterlife according to ancient tenets of Buddhism. The lowest of the low, most undesirable "hell" realm. The insatiable hungry ghost realm. The ever-familiar level of the angers. The level of the primitive, unfeeling animal. The drama-filled human realm. The jealous gods and upwards until one reaches the highest levels of the selfless bodhisattva and the totally enlightened Buddha. Even lower than Sesame Street, the lowest CNN/Fox News kindergarten level of meaning would have to be survival, pure and simple. This seems to be where the vast majority of our great advanced modern society is hopelessly stuck and continually de-evolving to for the most part, particularly in recent days. It's not like anybody around you has any answers. Ninety-eight percent of the population has never even thought to ponder such a meaningless nonsensical quest or question, ridiculous woo-woo notion, total waste of my precious reductionist materialist waste of time. Undoubtedly it has already been purged from the most elemental parts of their DNA, the ability to even contemplate let alone process such stuff.

It's not like you can just drive up to the creepy Illuminati phantom toll booth if one can even get that close and ask the question. The frightening shadow figure chain-smoking behind the dark glass will send you off to bring him back a Starbucks and a Wendy's Happy Meal, you clueless little Plebe, easily hypnotizing you like Dracula dispatching another helpless minion to go wax the Batmobile, forgive the ridiculous mixed metaphor. Probably another huge truth drop right there somewhere. You definitely need to turn off CNN and your TV; you aren't going to find any answers there on Hulu or Netflix either, Charlie Brown. The great Carl G. Jung would advise you to start analyzing your dreams, try decoding all those symbols and all the unholy subconscious rabbit holes that will send you down, but first you have to start remembering them, pal. Meditation can help, if you can shut down the monkey mind and last for longer than 5 minutes, which definitely takes a while. Weeks and weeks and many months of mindful diligent practice. But only a handful of freaks like me find that any fun or even tolerable. "The courage to remain in solitude in reflecting on the fundamental identity questions "what should I do with my life?", "what is the point of that?" leads to a quiet self-confidence and a sense of internal consistency which is an indicator of an individual path (Abraham Maslow, 2011), .

Meanwhile, people are looking everywhere, those who haven't yet given up hope, desperate to find some semblance of meaning to this absurd, ridiculous, psychotic mostly fake Mad Max Thrown in the Thunder Dome reality. Insipid politics, the insane Archonic energy-sucking tyranny of soulless technocrats infiltrating every aspect of society, debasing and destroying it all. It's an evil trifecta: corrupt government, corrupt media including Hollywood, corrupt tech. All controlled and coordinated by the deep state Illuminati intelligencia. It's anti-Constitution, anti-freedom, anti-human Anyone who believes there's a political solution to these problems is living in an old paradigm fantasy land. Good luck waking up. Suicides, domestic violence, mental illness everywhere is skyrocketing. In most cities, kids can't go to school, half the population is out of work, People, children most importantly, have no hope for the future. Well, that's just the way it is, the best our great super-advanced postmodern Forrest Gump society can do right now. Maybe things will pick up if good old Sleepy Joe becomes our fearless leader, Goddess forbid. Ignoramus creepy Candyland moon-eyed liberals, insane gun-crazed Republicans; then we have Jesus Christ Super-Trump, what can you say? In essence they're all the same, all equally clueless, egocentric moronic creatures. Just two sides of the same rotting corpse of the great American dream that never was. The big historic election is today. The results may not be known for weeks. Everywhere we hear the sound of fighting in the streets, Lord. Both candidates will declare glorious victory simultaneously. Just the best a highly advanced modern-day society can do, boy.

We understand the world through the concept of duality, the idea of opposites. The human being is at the same time an animal and a god (homodeus.) The animal responds to instinct, survival, the avoidance of pain, attainment of pleasure, the sex drive. The god portion is existential, seeking a higher vision, spirituality, the meaning of life, enlightenment. (At-one-ment.) Speaking of free will, perhaps these are the only two choices available to the human being. The materialist is unaware of their spiritual dimension or divine nature. Individuals possess different levels of self-awareness. Religion may work for some; others seek further answers. Are we physical bodies who have a soul, or a soul who periodically takes on physical form? Perhaps we came here to become more loving, sharing, giving people. Is there ever enough of anything? The law of scarcity creates competition: winners and losers. Winning creates an unconscious feeling of guilt or shame which creates the unconscious problem of punishment? Selfishness also generates a number of problems.

The spiritual nature operates out of the law of abundance.

If we think of ourselves as victims, we become helpless. Victimization or the perception of it is often the root of the problem. The original problem was not caused by the original event, but by their resentment against others or the individual himself/herself. The solution to this problem is forgiveness.

A person has to be aware of what or who to forgive.

Perhaps, this is the essence of the therapeutic process and the first step to finding some sense of meaning and finally answering that timeless question. To be continued . . .

. .

References

The Kybalion

Abraham M aslow.

Tao Te Ching, Lao Tzu.

Tibetan Book of the Dead

John Vervaeke. (2019) Awakening from the Crisis of Meaning

Alan Watts