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

by Robert Pantano

The conscious mind cannot square the circle of the approaching abyss; it cannot make sense of the idea that this is its only serving of forever.

We create and engage in symbolic constructs, cultural activities, and beliefs in an attempt to deny our cosmic insignificance and convince ourselves that we matter.

Every method attempts to eternalize the self either by a literal eternal afterlife or by the displacement of the self through an eternalized legacy and significance in the world that will endure beyond one’s physical existence.

You are driving blind through the most impossibly complex, strange maze that you know ends in a head-on collision with a wall.

“If we acknowledge that a physical theory of mind must account for the subjective character of experience, we must admit that no presently available conception gives us a clue how this could be done. The problem is unique.”

So in this way, by seeing that nothingness is the fundamental reality, and you see it’s your reality, then how can anything contaminate you? All the idea of you being scared and put out and worried and so on is just nothing. It’s a dream. Because you’re really nothing. But this is the most incredible nothing. So, cheer up! You see?

If we are to be fully human and fully alive and aware, it seems that we must be willing to suffer for our pleasures. Without such willingness, there can be no growth in the intensity of consciousness . . . to strive for pleasure to the exclusion of pain is, in effect, to strive for the loss of consciousness.

There is a struggle we each carry with us into all stages, all places, and all conditions of life. Inside us, there is a baseline of emotional and sensory experience that we ceaselessly return to, referred to in psychology as hedonic adaption or the hedonic treadmill.

If you worship money and things. If they are where you tap real meaning in life, then you will never have enough . . . Worship your own body, and beauty, and sexual allure, and you will always feel ugly . . . Worship power and you will end up feeling week and afraid . . . Worship your intellect. Being seen as smart. You will end up feeling stupid. A fraud. Always on the verge of being found out.

Of course, he would later commit suicide, so...

Madness is perhaps one of the few words that accurately summarizes humankind so succinctly, simultaneously touching opposite ends of it—the good and the bad, the noble and the absurd.

The fact that such a world, such a life, expects us to be sane is perhaps one of the most obvious examples of its own madness.

Be silent and listen: have you recognized your madness and do you admit it? Have you noticed that all your foundations are completely mired in madness? . . . You wanted to accept everything. So accept madness too. Let the light of your madness shine, and it will suddenly dawn on you. Madness is not to be despised and not to be feared, but instead you should give it life . . . Be glad that you can recognize it, for you will thus avoid becoming its victim. Madness is a special form of the spirit and clings to all teachings and philosophies, but even more to daily life, since life itself is full of craziness and at bottom utterly illogical. Man strives toward reason only so that he can make rules for himself. Life itself has no rules. That is its mystery and its unknown law. What you call knowledge is an attempt to impose something comprehensible on life.