The Art of Living a Meaningless Existence: Ideas from Philosophy That Change the Way You Think

by Robert Pantano

Although we both agree we see blue, we cannot know if we are actually having the same mental experience, or qualia, of what we are calling blue.

the disconnect between our perception and what is really outside of our mind is known as the egocentric predicament.

trying to understand what is experienced in other people’s minds, which is the concept kn...

even though there can be derivative truths concluded from sufficiently shared subjective experiences, about which one can be right (i.e., that the pillow is blue), in the very same sentiment at the very same time, the same someone can be fundamentally wrong.

what have we all agreed is true simply and only because we all agree that it’s true? What

There is no way out of the mind, and thus, there is no way into the world as it actually is. And moreover, it would seem that if we could understand and explain what all the physical stuff of the material world is and how it came to be, we still wouldn’t necessarily be any better off knowing what it means.

As a consciousness in the form that we are born into, we are all put up against the imperative of our mind’s desire for absolute truth, while simultaneously living in a world that prohibits us from obtaining it.

more often we are wronged by the world in ways that no amount of angered force will help correct or solve.

Human existence is so unbelievably absurd and chaotic and strange, it is a wonder that it works in our favor at all any of the time.

We can tend to resist and reject any sort of softer acceptance and sadness in response to this, and instead, many of us can become callused over with a sort of brute and frequent anger. This has its place and purpose, but at a certain point, like a callus on the hand, we can become numb and unfeeling, making us less able to properly know and deal with the true conditions of our circumstances.

theory in psychology known as appraisal theory, initially developed by psychologist Magda Arnold, suggests that our emotional responses are in large part created by our conscious evaluations of events—how we view, interpret, and label stimuli rather than the stimuli themselves.

The emotional responses will be completely different while the stimulus remains exactly the same.

David Foster Wallace: Learning how to think really means learning how to exercise some control over how and what you think. It means being conscious and aware enough to choose what you pay attention to and to choose how you construct meaning from experience. Because if you cannot or will not exercise this kind of choice . . . you will be totally hosed.

“It doesn’t hurt me unless I interpret it’s happening as harmful to me. I can choose not to,” wrote Marcus Aurelius.

when we think we are at the center of all things and all events in the world that happen to us happen at us, when we neglect to consider that suffering and ignorance are fundamental to all people, anger can and likely will eat us alive.

But it is to say that often anger comes from a place that isn’t angry about the thing we seem to be angry about, that anger is often a liability and not an asset, and that we aren’t locked in to falling victim to it by always letting ourselves think that we have personally been made victims by the world.

We are all so worried about ourselves that we leave almost no time or mental space to worry about others in anything like the same way in which we are concerned. And so, likewise, most of the time, when we do or don’t do something in a social moment or in life in general, and we are concerned that others will perceive us negatively, most people are in fact so busy concerning themselves with when they messed up or how they look to ever notice us, let alone care.