Your subconscious is telling you that some of your ideas about the world are not really as tidy as you would like, hence you need to trim them more neatly.
Conspiracy theories are often pretty ragged, with lots of loose ends - maybe you subscribe to some ideas along those lines...?
A lot of us do live a life without believing it has any particular meaning, outside of our own experiences. We just go with the flow. If there is some over-arching pattern to it all, we reckon we'll we'll understand it sometime, in this life or the next. Certainty now would be arrogance.almond13 said:"I often wonder how it is possible to live a life without meaning on a planet without meaning and to consider myself to be an accident of directionless nature on course for oblivion in the heat death of the universe."
For me, I need to blend my previous scientific training (physics) with my educative style (old private school with too much classics...thank you God) and my new academic knowledge of Psychology. So, while I like the old school science and manners etc, I do not believe that anything new is...er...by being new, wrong etc etc. So, in many respects, we are probably on a similar wavelength.
Not for me. Meaning is a human construct. If I don't insist (as so many do) that the universe (this book, that experience) has One True Meaning and that if I uncover it I will somehow understand and be happy, but rather accept that the infinite universe is too big to fit inside my finite brain, I am free to go bungee-jumping through a joyfully huge world seeing bits of it with wonderful clarity, unfogged by my ego. When I need a meaning, I can make it.This is a sad admission
I often wonder how it is possible to live a life without meaning on a planet without meaning and to consider myself to be an accident of directionless nature on course for oblivion in the heat death of the universe.”
Amen!I often wonder how it is possible to go through life insisting that somehow, somewhere, for somebody in charge, everything makes sense - that the baby born with an STD or addicted to heroin, the democracy subverted by those who are sworn to uphold it, the giant wave washing away thousands of innocent and guilty lives from birds to murderers, the hoards of poor beaten down by the elements and society in turn, the adolescent living in a childlike haze after a traffic accident and the family suddenly caring for her like a baby again in the same year that she was supposed to head out bravely into the world, the fundamentalist parent driving the homosexual child he loves to suicide - that all this is all part of some grand meaningful humanocentric plan and that this is better than the alternative. If it's all a random interaction of physics, free will, biology, chemistry, and contingency, I can bear all of it and uncover the shining moments of joy embedded in my life, accidental and sweet and glorious, and find meaning where I need it.
I often wonder how it is possible to go through life insisting that somehow, somewhere, for somebody in charge, everything makes sense.
"It is a puzzling thing. The truth knocks on the door and you say, 'Go
away, I'm looking for the truth.' and so it goes away. Puzzling."
- R. Pirsig
Thanks for the link Lizard23, These are fascinating and I’ll read them all when time allows. I know what you mean about the search engine – I thought it was my own incompetence.It was a good thread.
/edit/ Wow, it only fucking found it!
That’s pretty close and I didn’t realise that it was common.I think I know what you mean, Almond. I had a similar sensation as a kid - that everything had a shiny hard 'skin' like the glaze on ceramics. Perhaps it's a kid thing!
fnordish said:this has been bothering me a lot over the years. does anyone else's brain manufacture entire sets of memories for their dreams? ...
zizzerzazzer said:... I also have these dreams where I'm not exactly lucid, as Im not aware i'm dreaming. But I feel like I'm awake and everything I think of happens. But I don't have any power over what happens. It's like I forsee everything a split second before it manifests. ...
almond13 said:... my brain would do the weirdest things at times, when I was most tired. Driving home one morning I suddenly became aware of the complete mass of the earth; would you believe. It was in front of me – not like space – and I could see it all at once, impossible to describe, but awesome. Something of the big/small I suppose. I was not driving BTW. :shock:
fnordish said:this has been bothering me a lot over the years. does anyone else's brain manufacture entire sets of memories for their dreams?...
H_James said:that's what i'm sayin', BRF, I posted the link near the top of the first page.