Discussing the Value of Existence and Life Experience - Minority#
#Omnivore
Matrix Homepage Recommendation
Matrix is a writing community of Minority, where we advocate sharing genuine product experiences and practical insights. We periodically select the highest quality articles from Matrix to showcase the most authentic experiences and viewpoints from users.
The articles represent the personal views of the authors, and Minority only makes slight modifications to the titles and formatting.
The question of life perspective is a battlefield where everyone opposes everyone else. This article will briefly discuss my current views, approaching it from two questions:
- What is the meaning of life?
- How can we better experience life?
What is the meaning of life?#
The Disillusionment of Existence and Value#
First, here is my answer to the first question: Life is meaningless.
We are randomly thrown into a chaotic world, seemingly possessing absolute freedom and infinite possibilities, but the journey of life is extremely short, and possibilities are very limited. We come and go by chance, and there is no rule guiding us on what we "must" do during this process. In other words, our entire existence is purposeless.
Even though life has no purpose, we must bravely navigate this meaningless existence, carrying this unanchored soul. This journey has no destination, but in the vast ocean, we continuously set our own navigational markers. This anchoring is the "navigation rules" we establish for ourselves, and we reach these markers through this set of rules, seeking that so-called "sense of meaning."
Existence precedes essence; we exist first, then seek meaning and assign significance to existence. The journey has no endpoint; it is we who anchor ourselves with markers, giving meaning to this journey. Through this anchoring behavior, we seek meaning in this endless ocean voyage, assigning significance to our own existence. After all, what determines us is not "the journey itself" but the "meaning we assign to the journey."
However, this subsequently assigned "sense of meaning" carries two hidden dangers.
First, it determines the inherent and relative nature of value. Everything we do is merely following the course we set for ourselves; this anchoring is always a self-delusion, relying on our immediate and tangible feedback. In our eyes, this course exists and holds value. Perhaps you can reach a consensus on values with some people, but values vary from person to person, and your actions cannot fully gain the recognition of others. Fortunately, our actions do not need to seek others' approval; as long as we find it meaningful ourselves, that is enough.
Secondly, this anchoring can easily lose feedback, leading to a sense of disillusionment. For example, a workaholic may anchor their "sense of meaning" in work, but if their hard work does not yield the expected performance feedback or recognition from their boss, they may experience self-doubt or inferiority, losing their passion for life and feeling disillusioned.
Conversely, in "Soul," the protagonist Joe Gardner spends his life pursuing his jazz dream, and after many twists and turns, he finally gets the chance to perform with a famous musician, and the performance is a great success. However, after the show, he suddenly feels a sense of loss; he has achieved what he wanted through a lifetime of effort, only to find that apart from the brief excitement, there is nothing different, and he has lost his goal for tomorrow. "So, what now?" — he murmurs.
Or, in the fast-paced urban life, we are always in a hurry, surrounded by many urgent tasks waiting to be done, each task appearing to be of P0 priority. In our efforts, we often find ourselves exhausted, feeling overwhelmed, and the more we strive to do our best in everything, the less complete we feel, turning life into hollow fragments. The absurdity of it all makes us realize that our form of existence is incomplete.
The Present and Life Experience#
Before addressing the above issues, we need to clarify an existential proposition — a person is an individual "existence" at different moments; a person becomes a person because they exist. In other words, as Adler said: "Life is a series of moments, and the most important is the here and now."
I have always firmly believed that there is only one "reality" — I am alive at this moment; I exist, breathe, and feel the surrounding world — this is the only reality. Some say that the highest value is to contribute to the progress of humanity, while others say the greatest meaning is to contribute light and warmth to the goal of world peace. Regardless of the distant ideals that ordinary people cannot see, even if they exist, so what? The universe has existed for billions of years, while human history is only a few thousand years; the Earth is but a drop of water in the ocean, and human history is like a mayfly. From the cosmic perspective, everything is meaningless.
Yet, despite this, we still exist. Isn't that a great miracle? The only certain existence is the present; the only important thing is now, the feelings of this moment. A person must first exist before discussing anything about life. Understanding this, we need to focus on every step we take, finding solid and powerful support and joy, experiencing the scenery, setbacks, and hardships of the journey.
The "experience" mentioned in the aesthetics of life is the key to combining a person's inner consciousness with external facts, the individual with society. Life is composed of fragmented experiences, interspersed with suffering, choices, regrets, loneliness, hope, and happiness, among many other inner consciousnesses.
We stroll through the torrent of time, discovering life, experiencing the world, embracing beauty, using our minds in a refreshing experimental way, stirring our emotions, appreciating, learning, deepening our lives, and experiencing as rich a world as possible.
At that time, we will gradually understand that the meaning of life is not assigned by so-called "major life events," but is realized in the transient trivialities of life. For example, the nurse brought a blanket when I was sick in the hospital waiting for a nucleic acid test result; later, I encountered a stray cat begging for food at my doorstep; today, my neighbor brought me milk tea to thank me for helping with a delivery; just now, I opened a music app and heard "Wandering Through the Torrent of Time," looking forward to the grand finale of "Loki" next Wednesday.
These are my present, my life, my meaning.
How can we better experience life?#
The previous section discussed the absurdity of meaningless existence and the solution of assigning meaning to life through experiencing the present. Now, I will answer the second question: how can we better experience life? Here are several practical formulas I have summarized that have proven effective:
- The courage to embrace the ordinary
- Broaden your perspective and overlook life
- Embrace diversity and accumulate sweetness
- Seek connection and maintain kindness
- Knowledge, sensitivity, and imagination
- Live seriously and positively
The courage to embrace the ordinary#
In "The Courage to Be Disliked," there is a point about "the courage to embrace the ordinary," which requires us to accept our ordinary selves. Ordinary means common; we are just one among many, having arrived here by chance. However, being ordinary does not mean being incapable; we have no need to flaunt our superiority.
Today's society is one that sells anxiety, with countless articles and courses creating anxiety because everyone wants to become the best version of themselves. But when anxiety becomes prevalent, people's hearts become restless, forgetting that everyone is an ordinary yet special person, capable of striving and working hard, continuously pursuing and challenging themselves, but not forgetting the courage to embrace the ordinary.
As the saying goes: "Achievement is not defined by external standards; it depends on whether one lives according to their own will." (Pixar designer, Yu Qian).
Broaden your perspective and overlook life#
"Overlooking" is a unique way of thinking possessed by the protagonist in "Summer Reincarnation." When feeling lost, another perspective of oneself appears in the mind to objectively analyze the situation. This way of thinking is essentially about broadening one's perspective and practicing "self-detachment," avoiding getting trapped in self-immersion and becoming obsessed.
The absurdity felt by the workaholic or Joe Gardner in "Soul" stems from suddenly losing the immediate feedback of their anchor point; the root cause is that the anchor point from which their "sense of meaning" derives is too singular, and their pursuit of "meaning" is overly obsessive. If one broadens their perspective, even if they are dissatisfied with their job, they can easily switch jobs and try again; or, stepping back to think, work is not everything in life, and there are many other meaningful things waiting for us to do. There is no need to be obsessed; no rule requires you to be the best.
Broadening your perspective and overlooking life is a remedy for the sense of absurdity.
Embrace diversity and accumulate sweetness#
The previous section mentioned that the sense of disillusionment with value arises from the overly singular definition of anchor points and the obsessive pursuit of meaning. However, we can diversify our lives, seeking out things that interest us, so that even if we lose feedback from one anchor point, we can continue to supplement our "sense of meaning" from another.
The character designer of "Soul," Yu Qian, said in an interview: "A person's life is an experience; experiencing as many things as possible in the same amount of time is certainly worthwhile."
If we compare our life's fragments to the memory orbs in "Inside Out," we will find that those memory orbs never store a single emotion but are a mix of colorful and rich emotions. In such a rich life experience, we will experience diverse meanings.
Moreover, accumulating the sweetness discovered by chance in life is also a key part of life experience, and the secret to accumulating sweetness is to embrace diversity.
As mentioned earlier, value is a relative concept, so we should not anchor meaning based on value orientation (especially practical value orientation) but recognize the complex diversity of this real world. Simply doing what you think is "valuable" is very one-sided and regrettable because it will cause you to miss out on many rounded, sharp, niche, and simple beauties in life. Lowering the demands of value can actually help us discover "sweetness" in life.
Therefore, by lowering the priority of value in our hearts, we can better accumulate sweetness, as we become more inclusive and thus happier, while also allowing us to experience life more objectively and continuously improve.
In this world, where there are authorities, there will be blind followers; many people exalt niche beauty, and some will think they are just showing off. These are merely different people, different times, different places, and different emotional ways of observing the world. And as long as we can see the essence of things and accumulate sweetness from various perspectives in the process, what method we choose to observe is of little consequence.
Seek connection and maintain kindness#
The life experiences we desire are not merely ephemeral joys; the meaning we assign to life should not be hollow and void but should have tangible things as a foundation. If you are now told that you are part of the "brain in a vat" experiment, where all your friends, family, and the surrounding world are merely your illusions, then all your sense of achievement and joy will be devoured by loneliness.
Therefore, when we assign meaning to existence, we must seek connections with tangible things — that is, connections and interactions with the external world, with others, and even with our future selves.
In positive psychology, giving and sharing are very important sources of happiness. Whether it is giving gifts to others, affirming and thanking someone, helping someone with a small favor, or sharing your life and joy with others... all of these can build a bridge of kindness between you and the external world. Being a kind person, doing meaningful things for yourself, for others, and for the world, establishes connections with yourself, with others, and with the world, leading to happiness, satisfaction, and joy; this is always a strategy that cannot go wrong.
Thus, to experience a happy life, it often does not depend on what you have but on what you can give and how many bridges of kindness you can build.
Knowledge, sensitivity, and imagination#
Life experience is based on our perception of the world. I believe the three most important elements for enhancing perceptual ability come from "The Moon and Sixpence," which mentions "knowledge," "sensitivity," and "imagination."
Knowledge#
Knowledge determines the scope (content) of our perception of the world.
Learning and progress are a major task throughout life; acquiring knowledge enhances our cognitive abilities, allowing us to re-understand and comprehend things we could not fully grasp before, or even things we could not understand at all. Missing out on life experiences due to limitations in knowledge is ultimately regrettable.
Therefore, knowledge determines the scope of our perception of the world. The deeper and broader the knowledge we possess, the more profound and simpler our understanding of the world becomes.
Sensitivity#
Sensitivity determines the boundaries (contours) of our perception of the world.
As mentioned earlier, our only real existence is "I am alive," and to make this existence fulfilling and meaningful, we need to assign it meaning ourselves. So how do we assign it? The key lies in experiencing life and feeling it.
Our life experiences are composed of fragmented experiences, and what we call feeling is a reflection of those experiences; sensitivity is the range of our reflection or projection onto the world.
The experiences of the world are complex and vast; the so-called projection ability is the range circumscribed by our perspective as the center and the projection radius. This is the world we can perceive.
Cultivating knowledge allows us to perceive things accurately, see their essence, and assign them value; while cultivating sensitivity enriches our perception. Expanding the boundaries of perception enables us to experience more, deeper, or even things that previously seemed "inconceivable." Improving one's perspective is not about experience; the higher the perspective, the farther the boundaries of the world we can experience.
The value of our existence is to determine this center, and the meaning of living is to expand this boundary.
Imagination#
Imagination determines the radiance (extension) of our perception of the world.
Uta Hagen, in "Respect for Acting," said: "Talent is a highly sensitive heart, easily wounded, a finely tuned intuitive instrument (strong sight, hearing, touch, taste), a lively imagination, an understanding of reality, a strong desire to convey rich experiences and feelings, and the impulse to make everything about oneself heard and seen." The scriptural bible "Story" emphasizes that a playwright must possess "perceptiveness" and "extraordinary imagination."
Recently, I came across an interesting comic — "Life Montage," where the author illustrates her imaginative world from her perspective and shares it with us in the experiential world.
To those who cannot hear music, dancers appear to be mad. Yet dancers are aware of the rhythm of the world; they understand that the only way to combat the absurdity and emptiness of life is to turn life itself into an interesting adventure.
Imagination can provide us with another world that cannot be experienced in the experiential world; it determines the radiance of our perception of the world and can expand the extension of the world.
Live seriously and positively#
Finally, and most importantly, we need to have a positive attitude towards life — to live seriously.
I recently bought a comic book — "The Crocodile Who Will Die in 100 Days." The author decided on the first page that the crocodile protagonist will die in 100 days; we, the readers, know this, but the crocodile in the book does not. The author draws a picture for each of the crocodile's remaining days, depicting its daily life, which is extremely ordinary.
Perhaps everyone is like the crocodile, eventually leaving after some 100 days, arriving and departing by chance. It seems absurd and uncontrollable, but if we realize that life has an endpoint, people will strive harder to steer their lives in a positive direction. When we know that everyone has an end, we should live each day seriously.
I particularly enjoy a peaceful life because it allows me to focus and engage more seriously. I was once anxious and restless while preparing for graduate school entrance exams, as I had to study while doing an educational internship. But one day, after teaching elementary school students, I sat under a tree in the playground, listening to the reading in the classroom while reading "Zhuangzi." Suddenly, I felt a sense of happiness. The tranquil atmosphere of reading and the mysterious realm of nature made me forget the chaotic and noisy life. At that moment, I realized that life has such a complete and beautiful realm. To this day, I still cherish that time of preparation.
I once saw a saying on the window of a Xixifu bookstore: "Life is a pure flame, and we exist relying on the invisible sun within ourselves," but I prefer the latter part, "Life is a series of joyful moments; we do not merely exist to survive." Everyone is trapped in loneliness, yet they act freely, with the wind blowing, unrestrained and carefree. I think, as long as one sees through the world's embellishments, the world will belong to you.
As long as we live seriously, that is enough. I wish you, in front of the screen, can also live this life with hope and seriousness.
> Follow Minority's WeChat Official Account to unlock a new reading experience 📰
> Practical and useful genuine software, presented to you by Minority 🚀