Meaningness

It’s been a few weeks since I’ve posted.  It’s funny how easy it is to commit to weekly blogging, but then it never feels convenient to write.  I also haven’t been as disciplined as I would like to have cool accomplishments to discuss, but as usual I’m working on it 🙂

I’ve been reading more which is really good for me.  One of the books I’m reading at the moment is called “The Great Challenge: Exploring the World Within” by Osho.  I saw a weird hippie commune video with him on Youtube today, realizing I know almost nothing about him personally, but his books are gold.  So many unique ideas that really make sense to me.  Not every single one, but a lot of it.

The book is conducted in a Q&A format.  Paraphrasing (the question and answer) someone asks: “What’s the meaning of life?”.  Osho responds that it’s an “unsolvable mystery.  If it was solvable, we would know the answer.  There are many contradictions, and life itself is it’s own point.”  He then goes on to say basically to treat life like play, it’s a game, and in many ways a joke.  Having a humorous and joyful outlook is the only way to really win the game/live life.

I’m sure people can get into long disagreements about this, but for me it rings true.  Life for me is “meaningness” (borrowing a word from a cool online book that I read parts of a while ago): both meaningless but also beautiful, like art.  Natural disasters, sickness, etc. come randomly and there is no meaning behind it, but there is undeniably beauty in the world that we can almost all agree on.  Love, nature, great food, truthful conversations, meaningful work, art, etc. can create a universal feeling that we know is important and good, even if it’s hard to explain logically.

Part of the reason the Osho book got to me is that I’ve been caught in a game that I didn’t want to play.  My deep-seated desire for a while now has been to write things.  It could be books, this blog, short stories, etc., but it’s been a strong feeling of mine that I need to create.  I’ve been on many spurts in the past, and it’s one of the few things that consistently gives me the feeling that I’ve had a successful day.  I don’t even need to create much, just 30-60 minutes perhaps, but for some reason that has been a challenge for me.

Instead of writing I spend my time on other things, often with the excuse that I need to focus on more practical matters that could also lead to income like machine learning, crypto, general business, etc.  My plan was that I would make money doing something I found interesting, and eventually start using my free time to get my writing done.  Until I found that thing I needed to focus on that, and ignore the writing.  Very recently I realized that I could spend my entire waking day studying Machine Learning, let alone working a job, and still “be behind”.  The same goes for the crypto world.  My resolution now is to elevate my daily writing as if it’s as important as my other “work”, similar to my habit of working out.

I know I can’t do as many things as I would like to do (some of the things I fantasize about doing all day are: re-starting my math education and becoming great, learning Physics, sailing, computer science PhD, crypto development, learning Spanish and Chinese, and many more for better or worse), but I will have regrets if I keep procrastinating on this one.  It’s something I have to see through, and I hope to update you with some of my work on here.  I’ll still keep my head in technology and improve my skills in that arena daily, but I’m willing to slow my learning curve a little to get my artistic satisfaction.

On another note I booked a one-way ticket to Puerto Rico at the end of the month to re-start nomading again with my girlfriend, so hopefully some fun stuff to write about in the near future!

Some of these revelations came on a camping trip at Anthony Chabot in the Bay Area, which is where I took this picture.