Hello There: Day 37

[B] It's alive! (37,686 / 1,000,000)

Meaning is the goal, isn’t it? Aren’t we all waiting for the lightbulb to go off in our head? Aren’t we waiting for that one specific piece of information which will fit into our head just so, and allow us to understand what everything is all about? Are you waiting for me to stop asking vague questions and get on with my point? Fine.

My first point is that the quest to find “meaning” is a byproduct of thinking, not the purpose of it. The vast majority of matter is perfectly content with being whipped around space and time by seemingly arbitrary forces and phenomena. It’s only us, stuff-that-thinks, who care why one thing happens and another thing doesn’t. Or why something happens one certain way, but not another. Why can’t I un-bake a cake?

My second point is that I’m only the trillionth person to come to that conclusion, and only the billionth person to proclaim it as a new and revelatory idea. Original thought is oft-pursued but rarely caught. Luckily, originality bears no significance to existence either way. See, the lucky thing about the saying “there’s nothing new under the sun”, is that it has a fraternal twin saying which goes “everything is new to someone”. If all it took was one person to point something out once, then our species would have had our shit together a long time ago.

So, if you’ve recently discovered something new like, say, the power of compound interest, don’t fret that there’s already whole libraries worth of information about investing - share your discovery. There will always be someone who hasn’t yet stumbled upon your realization; you may end up helping someone.

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Hey readers, long time, no see! It’s been a while since I’ve posted anything on here, but I’ve continued to get support from friends, family, and strangers on the internet. So, I wanted to say thank you! I am still fully committed to reaching my million words on this blog, and you, the person reading this, are responsible for my determinedness.

I started writing on Substack as a way of forcing myself to keep writing. We all know how life loves to get in the way of us living the way we want. I knew that if I left this challenge to myself, I could rationalize quitting quicker than I can sneeze. But even as I let this blog slip by untouched for weeks (months? jeez), I continued to get readers and subscribers. As someone who struggles with “why-the-fuck-would-anyone-want-to-read-what-I-have-to-say-itis”, you guys have helped me force myself to keep writing - even if I cringe through my editorial process every time. Really, I cannot thank y’all enough.

I really love writing, it’s quite annoying. In the quest for meaning, just find whatever annoys you the most. Really. If you have a passion that you just can’t eject from your thoughts, there’s your meaning. If after you finish a meal, you can’t remember what you just ate because you were thinking about that one thing, then that thing is your thing. Don’t misunderstand me, just because your mind is caught in the web of something, doesn’t mean you will achieve anything related to that something. Achievement is unrelated to meaning.

So take some advice from me: fuggetaboutit. If you have something to say, say it. Someone will have said it already, but who cares? It’ll be new to someone. Also, “all advice is autobiographical”¹. When you say something to someone, you are confessing your lived experience around that something. But I’ll say it again, who cares?

Whew, I feel like a rookie again. Stringing together a thousand words in a coherent way is tough work for someone who’s brain works like a meth lab run by Santa’s elves. I remember back in the early days of this blog (what, like nine posts ago?), I would regurgitate my thoughts onto the page in a semi-unfiltered way. Then, when I would run out of steam, I would casually and innocently pad the rest of the thousand words with an unrelated signoff.

I’m glad those dark days are behind me now, and I don’t have to rely on such underhanded tactics to achieve an arbitrary goal set by myself. And with that, I would like to bid my readers adieu, farewell, and sayonara. You can look forward to more stream of consciousness monologues and short stories with no resolution.

Remember: don’t let the fact that LeBron James can dunk from the free throw line prevent you from shooting hoops with your buddies on the weekend. As always…

Totally nailed it,

Michael

1. Credit to author Austin Kleon