EPTLeaning into pain is the most influential piece of advice I've taken away from the blogs of Aaron Swartz ( http://www.aaronsw.com/weblog/dalio ) . This language invites us to think of ourselves as applying a slow but constant pressure onto challenges faced in the real world. The metaphor is a hot stove:
![[image loading]](http://yankees.lhblogs.com/files/2008/11/300_10762.jpg)
If you had to have your hand on the stove for an hour in total, how would you attempt this? Reason and logic conclude the safest and most likely successful way is to constantly take your hand on and off, until the time is up. Opposed to leaving it on for extended periods of time, which could leave permanent scars or deformation.
You can relate your own real world examples if you wish. In my case, a lot of it is studying for university. Studying consistently and in small bursts is much better than a cram sesh!
Now, problems arise when time is running out, and you have neither started nudging at the right time, and do not wish to withstand the pain of leaving your hand on the stove. What does it mean, in this example, to let time run up with the requirement unfulfilled?
Thinking that the house will burn down is the most extreme example, but I think the most apt. You will feel no pain from touching the stove, but your immediate environment will have shifted dramatically. You did not feel the pain of studying over a long period of time, nor did you feel the pain of a cram sesh, but now you are out of uni altogether.
But subjectively, what does this mean? This is a horrible case if you planned on finishing university, but what was the point of going into university in the first place? To get a nice paying job of course. Why is that? So you can have nice things of course, and attract a nice female of course. Why is that? Because you want to have a family. Why is that? Umm...because I like....families?
I find that for most people, asking the question 'why' over and over again will, at the end expose something we are incapable of explaining. In my own case, I've attempted to explain the core of my desires: Genes.
Genes propagate themselves into the future by replication. How do they do this? They have designed us to feel love with a suitable partner, and to feel grief/sadness at the loss of loved ones as a reminder never to let it happen again. This was at the core of my life goals, but just stating it this bluntly has all put it into perspective.
Leaning into pain works for study, for gym, for life. Attempting to work this way will gradually get you out of your comfort zone. Pain is the only form of effective progress known to mankind. But a more fundamental question that has to be addressed is: Why are you putting your hand on the stove in the first place? Why do you want to progress at all, and in which direction? I think if you don't have a foundation set, your life could start crumbling on top of you.
I hope all of you start to find the meaning of your life at its very core. Here is my attempt:
I think knowledge is wonderful. I think it illuminates the world for us Homo Sapiens, and understanding our reality is a wonderful experience. Also, I think we can trick our Genes: they have the overarching goal of propagating themselves, but I think that I can outsmart them.
I may have plans for specific jobs/holidays/activities/blablabla that arise later. But I know, if I dig deep down and keep asking why, I will run into the meaning of my own life:
Never stop learning, and wear condoms
RIP Firehands Genes
EDIT: Furthermore, I've realized through meditation, that consciousness is a mirror. It reflects whatever it sees, but it never changes.
I think my mirror can be made up of my core meanings: realization of my genes to propagate, and a thirst for knowledge I know I want even when it doesn't feel like it sometimes. To stop feeling what this mirror reflects is the ultimate goal, and meditation is a way of coming back to it and realizing your self core.
![[image loading]](http://st.houzz.com/simgs/eed1750302424c0c_4-9508/traditional-mirrors.jpg)
You can't be what you see in the mirror, simply by noticing it, and by the fact that it is constantly changing. How could the reflections ever be who you really are?
EDIT2: I will also add to the consciousness mirror, this deep need for recognition. I feel like I do most things for people to look, including this post, and it's a subconscious need that I have to recognize and live with.
So to sum up, the core of my being is: knowledge/information input & propagation, realization of gene propagation needs, and realization of recognition needs.
This recognition need may be tied in with the gene propagation need. If someone is well known, they are more likely to have many followers and people who appreciate them, including females. This would work well for leaders of tribes on the Savannah.
+ Show Spoiler +
PS: I just casually realized the ultimate meaning of life: information propagation. Less capable individuals (who I call bookers) will use religious texts to understand necessity for replication and need to be good to one another. Their adam and eve is the height of their comprehension of the origin of life. Realistically, rational people realize that the true origin of life was a self replicating piece of 'information' (some chemical compound), and must acknowledge bookies will have to settle for an adam/eve representation to grasp this origin (the taking of the rib represents the replication of a molecule)
. Whether you use the adam/eve thought, or the true and objective realization, you have to realize the first little shit of information in a filthy cesspool at the origin of life replicated. That is all you have to realize. Through 4 billion years it has turned into this. The propagation of information, therefore knowledge, is the core meaning of life. There is an objective meaning to life, and I have found it finally!!!!! wow. Spoilering this so no one reads it and bursts my bubble, as this is a view I want to hold for the rest of my life
INFORMATION, KNOWLEDGE. THANK YOU , YOU FUCKING LITTLE SHIT OF REPLICATING CHEMICAL COMPOUND U LITTLE FUCKING SHIT, I FUCKING LOVE YOU. YOU ARE OUR HERO.
https://www.ml.cmu.edu/research/dap-papers/mcglohonkdd.pdf
http://www.mpi-sws.org/~gummadi/papers/www09-cha.pdf
thank you for this guy for letting me understand what life is and its purpose, but also don't thank you because you've made me unable to seriously communicate with 98% of the population who are ...w/e.
<3 u homo intend
. Whether you use the adam/eve thought, or the true and objective realization, you have to realize the first little shit of information in a filthy cesspool at the origin of life replicated. That is all you have to realize. Through 4 billion years it has turned into this. The propagation of information, therefore knowledge, is the core meaning of life. There is an objective meaning to life, and I have found it finally!!!!! wow. Spoilering this so no one reads it and bursts my bubble, as this is a view I want to hold for the rest of my life
INFORMATION, KNOWLEDGE. THANK YOU , YOU FUCKING LITTLE SHIT OF REPLICATING CHEMICAL COMPOUND U LITTLE FUCKING SHIT, I FUCKING LOVE YOU. YOU ARE OUR HERO.
https://www.ml.cmu.edu/research/dap-papers/mcglohonkdd.pdf
http://www.mpi-sws.org/~gummadi/papers/www09-cha.pdf
thank you for this guy for letting me understand what life is and its purpose, but also don't thank you because you've made me unable to seriously communicate with 98% of the population who are ...w/e.
<3 u homo intend
