

The Meanings of Life - benbreen
http://aeon.co/magazine/psychology/do-you-want-a-meaningful-life-or-a-happy-one/

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wkug
Really awesome to see more research like this. I actually took the same
approach in my master's thesis several years ago, and collected 1000+
responses from across the country on sources of meaning in life. I then used
natural language processing and machine learning methods like topic modeling
to compute a map on the meaning of life, and presented a poster at the World
Congress on Positive Psychology:
[https://i.imgur.com/AFDCYuJ.jpg?1](https://i.imgur.com/AFDCYuJ.jpg?1) If
anyone is interested, the website is still online here, but a little neglected
(I'm building a new one right now):
[https://www.whatkeepsusgoing.com](https://www.whatkeepsusgoing.com) The SSL
certification is outdated, but it's secure, I promise. :) Answering the
questions unlocks a bunch of interactive tools to explore the data yourself.

------
bahmboo
"But what is happiness? It's a moment before you need more happiness." \- Don
Draper

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Dewie3
Careful! You might use up all the spare happiness. :-)

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Dewie3
If you want to be happy[1] you might want to eliminate the idea of meaning
from your life.

Any kind of _meaning_ , as in the idea that there is some goal to work towards
-- not just a _sense_ or _feeling_ of such -- will eventually and probably
often get in the way of a conflicting want[2], namely to be happy. Say you
like to play some game. You do it for intrinsic reasons, because you like
doing it while you are doing it. Then you ask the person who taught you this
game "What is the meaning of this game? What am I supposed to accomplish?" If
the person says "There is no purpose to this game", then you are free. You are
free to enjoy the game for itself, because there is no place to go, be or
become. But if that person says "Oh, it's very important! You are supposed to
learn about things which will be vital for you at some later point!", then
that game has _meaning_ _Meaning_ which will conflict from enjoying the game
and the moment for itself, instead introducing competing concerns like "am I
playing this game well enough? How can I get better? Am I progressing at a
fast enough pace?" Do note though that _wanting_ to become better and play
well is not in conflict with happiness, or delicious nihilism. It just gets in
the way when you start to compromise your happiness in favour of becoming
_better_ at the game, or something else.

True freedom is when nothing you can do or make has any meaning. The only
impact it has is the joy it brings you in the given moment, which is
immediately _there_ and doesn't require any justification for its existence or
relevance. It's just there.

I hope to be able to eliminate the idea of _meaning_ from my life.

[1] Experience a lot of good feelings on a regular basis. And it doesn't have
to be the overjoyous, jovial kind.

[2] "Meaning" is just a sense of purpose which is tied to doing something
which you predict will bring you happiness in the future. But since it is
about happiness in the future, it is not _happiness_ per se.

~~~
tobylane
I do the same thing, but focus on the intrinsic. The other part of that is
internal validation.

