What do you keep living for? Is there a specific person, goal, or idea that you work for? Is there no meaning to life in your opinion?
Context: I’ve been reading Camus and Sartre, and thinking about how their ideas interact with hard determinism.
Yeah I think I’m in the same boat as you here to be honest, as I can still acknowledge that a negative emotional impact on those I care about also negatively impacts my emotions, so that provides me with some grounding in the topic. Loose grounding though, especially if you take the idea that there is no meaning to its limits.
Do you have memories as a kid where it was pure fun and no expectations? I honestly think that there are 4 types of personalities that people lean towards:
Dogs, dog owners, dog guardians and cats
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The dogs just want to have fun, work hard for their owners and play in the back yard.
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The dog and cat owners can be cruel, great, fun, abusive, etc., but always have rules that the dog is constantly trying to guess what they are. The cat doesn’t care.
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The dog and cat guardians are gudes to everyone around them
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The cats are what everyone knows about cats.
The dogs and the dog/cat guardians look for meaning in their life.
That’s fair.
I’m of the worldview that while technically there is no “meaning,” doesn’t mean there’s no effect (even if it’s infinitesimal). Just because there’s no purpose in pushing a ball across a table, it still moves when you touch it.
It also places, in philosophical framing, that humans are the creators and arbiters of the concept of our own “meaning.” The fact that we ask of it, and in some cases find there is no such thing from external forces, suggests that it comes from us. However you go from there is the beauty of the notion.
Bit of a side tangent lol but thank you for sharing and engaging :) /gen
