MetaJess

I could use rationalist probability, right wing economic theory, left wing empathy, bisexual non-dualism, all to help me achieve my goals. Watching others fall over themselves to refute one and champion another also became very funny, if frustrating.

But there was a new problem. What were my goals? How to choose what I cared about? What was the point of anything? There was an absence of meaning in my life. Luckily I didn’t have to wait long before I re-found @Meaningness , a blog about meaning and meaninglessness.

The blog clears up some confusions about how to find meaning and it's apparently perfect for people like me who are in this meta-state but floundering over what to care about, or even how. In particular that blog’s description of “stances” helped me a lot.

My personal golden bullets were realising the mistake of eternalist thinking, particularly around scientism and democracy.

I had believed two things: that one day science would eventually explain everything and that one day if we just tweaked it enough a version of democracy could work perfectly for all people. I now saw this was a mistake.

As a result, I experienced a lot of clarity, and relief. As @Meaningness says repeatedly, the unconfused stances are not exactly gut-punch satisfying the way the confused stances can feel at first but I agreed with him that what he was saying felt (lowercase t) true.

And leads to still further abilities to explore all systems, find their contradictions funny and eventually build and dissolve your own systems with ease. It also opens up new ideas. http://theoryengine.org/fluid-mode/another-opinion-u-turn/ …

I’ve been living very happily in meta for about three years now. It feels comfortable and calm (probably time to change!). It is fun, so many things are funny. Also relaxing. No need to hold so tight to the “right” system anymore. My friend @jonni calls this “the softening”.