Posted inMeaning of life Personal/Stories

We are all living the dream life

A few days ago I was using one of the machines in my athletic club's circuit weight room, when I heard a guy at a nearby machine say, "Brian?" I said, yes, and the guy said “I’m Bob. Bob Jones.” [Not his real name, as I want to respect his privacy.] I hadn’t seen Bob for about 36 years or so. We used to play tennis together back when I was into the sport that I'd played since high school. Bob asked if I was still playing tennis. I said, no, not for many years. How about you? He said,…
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Posted inFree will Meaning of life

Forget God, forget prayer, forget magical thinking. There’s no path in life other than the steps already taken.

Back when I was a member of an Eastern guru-centered religion, Radha Soami Satsang Beas (RSSB), there was a lot of talk among RSSB initiates about being on the Path. That word, path, came with capital letters because this was a very special spiritual path, one that supposedly led from the illusion of this dark material world to the ultimate reality of God and heaven, a.k.a. Sat Purush and Sach Khand. Now, thankfully, I've grown out of that magical thinking. I'm happy seeing things as they are, not as how I fantasized them to be. I realize that the only…
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Posted inBooks Happiness Meaning of life

Top ten list for a psychologically rich life

In his book, Life in Three Dimensions, psychologist Shigehiro Oishi lays out in a convincing manner why the customary divisions of a good life into happiness and meaning fail to capture an important additional area: psychological richness. (See my first two posts about the book, here and here.) This notion of psychological richness resonates with me. Most of us, certainly me included, can recall experiences that didn't make us happy, nor were they meaningful, but they were interesting and important nonetheless. They added depth to our life, exposing us to a side of life that we hadn't been aware of…
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Posted inAwareness Meaning of life Spiritual practice/meditation

Forget what some “saint” says about life and make your own way

In my previous two posts, I've shared quotations from Robert Saltzman's book, The 21st Century Self: Belief, Illusion, and the Machinery of Meaning. In this post I'm going to shift gears slightly and share some quotes from Saltzman's first book, The Ten Thousand Things, which is in the form of questions and answers. I ordered this book after reading some Amazon comments on The 21st Century Self that suggested starting with The Ten Thousand Things as it was a better overall description of how Saltzman sees things.  I'm liking it, just as I like his most recent book. As noted before, Saltzman says things that…
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Posted inHappiness Meaning of life Neuroscience

Happiness and meaning can trap us. Psychological richness, not so much.

A few days ago I wrote my first post about Shigehiro Oishi's book, Life in Three Dimensions: How Curiosity, Exploration, and Experience Make a Fuller, Better Life. For a thoughtful review of the book by Sebastiano Mancin, click here. Here's a second post about Oishi's call for adding psychological richness to the commonly heard dimensions of a full life, happiness and meaning. He argues that while we all crave happiness, this longing can be a trap. The happiness trap has two faces. First, there is the pressure to be happy, which makes feeling sadness, anger, and anguish seem undesirable and…
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Posted inHappiness Meaning of life

In addition to happiness and meaning, there’s psychological richness

I got excited when I heard about Shigehiro Oishi's book, Life in Three Dimensions: How Curiosity, Exploration, and Experience Make a Fuller, Better Life. I can't remember how I learned about the book. I just recall ordering it from Amazon almost instantly. Though I just got the book, and have only been able to read a couple of chapters so far, my excitement at learning about a third dimension to life in addition to happiness and meaning seems to show that I'm prone to psychological richness.  This chart included in a Psychology Today article, "How to Live a Psychologically Rich…
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Posted inMeaning of life Morality

Two deeply flawed heads of state on a red carpet. Truly, life lacks inherent meaning.

Ladies and gentlemen of the Philosophical Jury. Regarding the question of whether there is meaning, morality, and justice inherent in life, I present into evidence this photograph of two men walking on a red carpet prior to their meeting yesterday in Anchorage, Alaska, where they discussed how to end the war in Ukraine. There are those who argue that life is fair, that we get what we deserve, that what goes around comes around. I beg to differ. For the man on the right is Vladimir Putin, Russia's dictator, though his official title is something less honest. Putin kills his…
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Posted inHappiness Meaning of life

Loneliness is both a problem and a benefit of sorts

Is loneliness a good or bad thing? This isn't an easy question to answer, especially after I read a provocative article by Paul Bloom in The New Yorker, "A.I. Is About to Solve Loneliness. That's a Problem."Download A.I. Is About to Solve Loneliness. That’s a Problem | The New Yorker  Most of us are afraid of being lonely. I certainly am. At my age (76) there no longer are the automatic ways of meeting people that younger folks have: school and work. And the older one becomes, the fewer friends and family are in their life, because so many have…
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Posted inMeaning of life Neuroscience

Our “self” is a shifting structure of social relationships and interactions

As I make my way through Selfless: The Social Creation of "You" by Brian Lowery, a social psychologist and Stanford professor, a book I wrote about recently, I'm impressed with the insights Lowery shares about who we really are -- in contrast to who we wrongly believe we are. He doesn't mince words, as shown in this excerpt. You know who you are deep down, in your heart of hearts. You know that you mean well, that you only do the wrong thing when you must or when the situation requires it. If you hit someone it was to defend…
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Posted inMeaning of life Taoism/Tai Chi

Do we really need life to have meaning? Here’s an argument for why we don’t.

It's a delight when I write a post on some subject and get a comment that makes me think, "Wow, good points; I've never thought of that before." This happened with my previous post, What's been most meaningful for me usually wasn't very pleasurable. I've always assumed that meaning is something that is universally valued by people. After all, we hear "That meant a lot to me" and "Doing _______ was one of the most meaningful experiences I've ever had." But I admit that I've never given much thought to what meaning really means. It's just been a word that…
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Posted inMeaning of life

What’s been most meaningful for me usually wasn’t very pleasurable

Not surprisingly, the older I get, the more often I'm confronted with deaths of friends and relatives. That comes with the aging territory at some point, a point I've definitely reached at age 76.  Recently a neighbor died who was a few years younger than me. His wife shared an obituary of sorts on Facebook, describing her husband's life -- his interests, hobbies, jobs, and such. I pay more attention to these life summaries than I used to, since I've been doing some pondering of what I'd like said about me after I die. Since I've been an avid writer…
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Posted inMeaning of life Reality

This is a great scene in Netflix’s The Four Seasons about emotions and reality

Sometimes I get more meaning and wisdom from a short television scene than from a long book. That was the case last night when my wife and I finished watching The Four Seasons on Netflix, a streaming series (not to be confused with the 1981 romantic comedy with the same name). I can't avoid giving away an important happening in the final episode, so consider this a spoiler alert. It really isn't necessary to understand what The Four Seasons is all about to appreciate the dialogue in a scene that I thought was really well written and thought-provoking. But here's…
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Posted inMeaning of life

If an experience promises to transform us, it’s difficult to decide about it

Should you become a vampire if the opportunity presented itself? More realistically, should you have a child? If you're deaf from birth, should you get a cochlear implant?  These questions, among others, are raised by philosopher L.A. Paul in her book, Transformative Experience. It's a fascinating look at something I'd never thought much about before: if an experience promises to transform us, it's difficult to decide whether to have the experience. I'll add a question that came to mind as I read the book. Should you join a religion or other form of spirituality that claims to be able to…
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Posted inMeaning of life Radha Soami Satsang Beas

The sad state of RSSB gurus, and advice on seeking spirituality without them

Today M K Sharma left this comment on my previous post, "Jasdeep Singh Gill, successor to RSSB guru, has disturbing tie to Ranbaxy." Sharma made some points that I'd thought of, yet wasn't able to grasp as clearly. GSD refers to Gurinder Singh Dhillon, the guru of Radha Soami Satsang Beas (RSSB) who appointed Gill as his guru-in-waiting. What a saga unfolding before our eyes! The new Baba, now revealed as the cousin of the old Baba, GSD, is knee-deep in the same deceitful schemes, and it seems the corruption runs through the entire family. It’s almost like GSD found…
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Posted inMeaning of life

“When does it get better? It doesn’t” Great line in Pachinko series.

Some streaming shows are easily forgettable for me. I enjoy watching an episode, but then it's out of my mind, pretty much. There's nothing truly meaningful that sticks with me. Pachinko, on Apple TV, isn't like that. My wife and I find the series deeply meaningful. It's a tale of a Korean immigrant family that spans four generations. The depth of feeling in almost every scene is amazing. Strong emotions seemingly would be difficult to take when they're so ubiquitous. Actually, I'm finding that the opposite is the case. The emotions displayed by the talented cast, who don't even appear…
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Posted inFree will Meaning of life Reality

What if reality was much better than it seems to be? (Good news, it is!)

I've had a "what if?" blog post on my mind for quite a while. Might as well try to get it off my mind and into written form, though if this was easy for me to do, I'd have done it sooner. Anyway, here goes... Most of us, me certainly included, are looking for ways to make reality more pleasant. This quest goes in many different directions: family life, career, health, friendships, religion, hobbies, athletic pursuits, spirituality, art, romance, and all the other areas where we wish there wasn't such a large gap between what is and what we'd like…
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Posted inMeaning of life Religions Spiritual practice/meditation

If you become a religion of one, your worship will be effortless

Whenever I'm reading a spiritual or philosophical book and am generally enjoying its message, then come across a passage that I heartily disagree with, I remind myself of one of my early blog posts from 2005, "Become a religion of one."  (I'll copy it in below, I like it so much.) For the way I've come to view spirituality is as an intensely independent pursuit. After all, our search for meaning and purpose in life necessarily is personal, not collective. There's zero chance that any other person in the world is going to have exactly the same goals, values, and…
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Posted inMeaning of life Radha Soami Satsang Beas

I bow at the feet of pain and disability endurers

There's a lot to admire about people. Since everybody is different, a truism that holds even for identical twins, each individual has some unique qualities that merit admiration. (To those who consider that some people have nothing to be admired about them, here's an adage that a friend of mine liked to say: "No one's life ever is completely wasted; they can always serve as a horrible example for others.") I find that a good gauge of what I find admirable is emotion. When I'm deeply moved by something a person has done, and I feel tears coming to my…
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Posted inBuddhism Free will Meaning of life

Fluke: great book about chance, chaos, and how everything matters

I'd vowed not to buy any more books from Amazon until I'd finished reading the ones I'd already started. But then a review in New Scientist changed my mind. Which I'm glad it did. Because Fluke, by Brian Klaas, is a highly provocative book about how chance and chaos govern life to a much greater extent than we normally consider -- since most of us consider that we're able to steer our way through the twists and turns of life through reason, intuition, and our own good sense when it comes to decisions. I've only read the Introduction and the…
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Posted inBooks Buddhism Meaning of life

Beautiful: how Joan Tollifson sees life, and us.

Having received Joan Tollifson's book, Nothing to Grasp, I wanted to share these passages from her opening chapter, "Life." The more I learn about how Toliffson views things, the more I like her perspective. How do we make sense of all this? What's it all about? Is there any way out of our suffering or the world suffering, or any way to live through it without falling into destructive mind-states like despair, anger, hatred, and self-pity? Like many others, I looked in different directions for answers to these questions. I tried alcohol and drugs, psychotherapy, political activism, meditation, satsang and…
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