Say It Again but Slower Parks Say It Again but Slower

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A song I like to mind to reminds me in its lyrics that in 5 billion years the Andromeda milky way volition smash into our own.

I've seen on a TV show that in ane.75 billion years, our sun will be as well weak to sustain life on globe, and iii-v billion years later on it will become a scarlet behemothic, expanding to the orbit of the earth and devouring the planet.

A science magazine I savor tells me that either there is enough dark matter for the universe to collapse dorsum into an infinitely dense pea, or that there isn't and the universe will expand infinitely and somewhen become completely dark and devoid of all forms of free energy.

Does whatever of that audio very meaningful to you?

It doesn't to me. Nor to my children. My 14-year-old started request me nearly things like this when he was freakin' ix. Welcome to the modern world.

How to Deal With Meaninglessness

What practice y'all practise with such noesis? Mental logic seemingly demands that we argue our way out of meaninglessness in order to find meaning, but that'south a trap.

"Cognitive fusion" is the process of allowing exact/symbolic noesis to dominate over the residual of our psychology at the expense of other useful forms of input. The problem-solving mind hides cognitive fusion from view considering that is its modus operandi. What the mind "knows" it knows literally. And staying inside literal knowing is only another proper name for the domination of verbal knowledge over the whole of who we are.

You tin't argue your way out of fusion, considering that very argument is an instance of fusion. Trying to do it will but produce con–fusion.

There is a counterintuitive way forward, however. Information technology is based on methods I teach in my new book, A Liberated Mind: How to Pivot Toward What Matters.

Information technology starts with turning toward meaninglessness, so we tin confront information technology head-on.

When nosotros glimpse thoughts of meaninglessness and run from them, we give them extraordinary power over our lives. In effect, our own avoidant actions define thoughts of meaninglessness equally of import in the commencement identify. Our own avoidance has transformed a idea into a thing that can run or fifty-fifty ruin our lives.

Instead, we need to inhale meaninglessness. Nosotros need to eat it whole–every bit information technology is (or even more precisely, equally the whole of us experiences information technology to be), not as what it says information technology is.

You lot can exercise that without hiding facts from view; you lot can do that without denial. In fact, in the modern globe of science and technology that is the only way to do it.

In order to create modern minds for the modern world, we need to take that core idea and bring it into the lite of consciousness, so we tin can look at it.

Life is meaningless.

Say it out loud, with spaces betwixt the words. Life ... is ... meaningless.

Be conscientious—past asking you to look at information technology (not from it!), your heed volition claim I'1000 trying to convince you of something. Bull. I'1000 doing no such thing. I'm asking you to look at your own thoughts. I'yard asking you to look at your ain thoughts as thoughts.

All human beings have these thoughts and usually it leads to subtle and not-then-subtle attempts to mentally run away, not knowing that every stride feeds the scary monster you're running from.

Instead, let's permit this idea to exist a thought.

Life is meaningless.

Say the thought slowly over again, merely this fourth dimension extend each word, the slower the amend. Liiiiiiiiifffffeeee ……. iiiiiissssss ……. mmmeeeeaaaaannnninnnngggglllleeeeessssss.

Say it again, even slower. Now practice it again.

Now sing it to the tune of Happy Birthday. Actually do it. I'thou serious. Endeavor it. Take your time (all stanzas!). Try it once more.

Now say the give-and-take "meaningless" apace out loud for 30 seconds fitting virtually 30 to forty statements of that give-and-take into the time menses.

Now say it in the voice of your favorite cartoon grapheme several times.

Now say information technology in the voice of your least favorite politician several times.

Whatever of the other archetype Act defusion methods can be used. At that place are hundreds but I draw a bunch of them on my website.

As you brainstorm to see this thought equally a idea, a possibility begins to open up. I can point to that possibility with this question: If information technology were upwardly to yous (and it is), what intrinsic qualities would you cull to put into your actions over the adjacent day … and is it really true that this thought is preventing you from doing exactly that, at present?

A thought? Really?

Chosen meaning sits initially unseen only on the other side of fused meaninglessness. When you lot permit go of that useless fusion with meaninglessness, it is like turning a light on. The experience of meaning all of a sudden is everywhere. Y'all see it. You feel it. You know it.

When we choose to love, those nosotros dearest thing to us. When we cull to show compassion toward others, their well-being becomes important. When we choose to care, life has a purpose.

Called values are mental Kryptonite to meaninglessness.

How do you cull your values?

I cover that in my new book too … but I'll too address that in my next postal service.

A hint: It takes a bound. A leap of self-fidelity.

mcwhirterwassiriour.blogspot.com

Source: https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/get-out-your-mind/201911/when-life-seems-pointless

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