{"id":47396,"date":"2022-07-10T09:49:09","date_gmt":"2022-07-10T09:49:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/marnix.nl\/homepage\/welkom\/?p=47396"},"modified":"2022-07-10T11:20:10","modified_gmt":"2022-07-10T11:20:10","slug":"a-million-meanings-of-life","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/marnix.nl\/homepage\/welkom\/2022\/07\/10\/a-million-meanings-of-life\/","title":{"rendered":"A million meanings of life."},"content":{"rendered":"\n

We are so very well-equipped when it comes to adding color to life.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

One of the more interesting things is our inclination to find reasons.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We are meaning-making, meaning-seeking entities.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We want to understand things.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We want to find our vocation, our divine goal.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We want to be able to predict and control events.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We want to know why stuff happens so we can either be content with it or hate it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So much of what we go through is caused by this specific tendency to figure stuff out and look behind the scenes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s SO important and deeply ingrained, that the idea of a life without meaning sounds incredibly sad and empty and horrible.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But \u2018meaning\u2019 doesn\u2019t have to be a thing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Or a goal.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Or something we have to fulfill.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It can be a feeling, a feeling that drives enthusiasm and curiosity, with or without specific wishes for a specific outcome.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Like most feelings or things we \u2018just\u2019 know, it\u2019s really hard to describe this.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What comes fairly close would be something like \u2018living life just for the sake of living\u2019, but that doesn\u2019t really cover it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In my 54 years as Marnix I\u2019ve spent many, many hours reflecting on the meaning of life.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It has felt meaningless and useless.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And it has also felt extremely invigorating and exciting, with or without a well-defined idea of what the meaning would be.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s still there, I can almost smell it, but it seems to have new appearances and expressions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s there, mostly as a sense of being in the right place<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s there when fantasies about the future arise and I see myself traveling the world, coaching the shit out of amazing people.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I can\u2019t describe what it stands for, or what it entails, but this abstract feeling of a more general, more universal meaning, feels absolutely wonderful.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It doesn\u2019t matter if it\u2019s true, let alone if it’s The Truth.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That kind of meaning just seems way too ambitious.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I\u2019m more than content with just the feeling.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n\n\n\n

—<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n\n\n\n

(Photo by @nate_dumlao, for Unsplash)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

We are so very well-equipped when it comes to adding color to life. One of the more interesting things is our inclination to find reasons. We are meaning-making, meaning-seeking entities. We want to understand things. We want to find our vocation, our divine goal. We want to be able to predict and control events. We […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":47397,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"off","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":""},"categories":[102,97,117,100,105,116,113,107,103],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/marnix.nl\/homepage\/welkom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47396"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/marnix.nl\/homepage\/welkom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/marnix.nl\/homepage\/welkom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marnix.nl\/homepage\/welkom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marnix.nl\/homepage\/welkom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=47396"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/marnix.nl\/homepage\/welkom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47396\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":47400,"href":"https:\/\/marnix.nl\/homepage\/welkom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47396\/revisions\/47400"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marnix.nl\/homepage\/welkom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/47397"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/marnix.nl\/homepage\/welkom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=47396"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marnix.nl\/homepage\/welkom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=47396"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marnix.nl\/homepage\/welkom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=47396"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}