Trauma and mysticism

[Dreamweaver]

"Life has no meaning a priori… It is up to you to give it a meaning, and value is nothing but the meaning that you choose."

Jean-Paul Sartre


Ahhhh - but what of the dreams that come true, the visitations from beings who know me better than I, guides who ask me what I want to know, the experience of the energy of Spirit, the existence of synchronicities and symbols pointing to something much bigger and greater than me?

[Dreamweaver]

I have often yelled at God - something to the effect of "what in the hell do you think you're doing? I have gotten the sense that, after many years, that I am now qualified to do something real - something very meaningful to me - and that is to transmute and requalify. Because I have been wounded just right to have been inspired and spurred on - energized by injustice.

Maybe it is up to us to determine the meaning and to do with it what we will.

[Dreamweaver]

So - BW, what are you doing?

[ButterflyWoman]

Ahhhh - but what of the dreams that come true, the visitations from beings who know me better than I, guides who ask me what I want to know, the experience of the energy of Spirit, the existence of synchronicities and symbols pointing to something much bigger and greater than me?

There is no conflict. The meaning of those experiences is still whatever you give it. No more, no less. If you find meaning in it, then it's meaningful. If you don't assign meaning, then it isn't. It's as simple as that.

Maybe it is up to us to determine the meaning and to do with it what we will.

Exactly. That's exactly it.

So - BW, what are you doing?

Adding back progams on my computer after reinstalling my operating system, having gotten malware on it. Quite tedious, I must say. And meaningless.

What are you doing?

[Dreamweaver]

Well today, in the immediate future I will love and take care of my husband and child. I will love and take care of myself too. Upcoming, I will facilitate some therapeutic recovery groups and see some people in 1x1 therapy. I might get to prevent someone from taking their own life or giving up on their hopes and dreams, or be present with someone in their grief. It'll be meaningful.

Here's to living a meaningful life

[ButterflyWoman]

Here's to living a meaningful life

Indeed. I'm starting to see that by being aware of the inherent meaningless in everything (i.e., there is no intrinsic value or correctness or meaning in anything; everything is just zeroes and ones, so to speak), then when you do choose to assign meaning to something, it makes it that much better. And the stuf you choose to allow to remain meaningless is a lot less taxing. Not sure I'm articulating that well. It's one of those weird, esoteric things that I can see/experience very clearly but which is very difficult to put into terms that make any sense unless it's already been experienced (like so many things, really).

[Dreamweaver]

So here are some deep existential thoughts from some of my favorite psychologists and philosophers... Victor Frankle notably survived the Holocaust and wrote Man's Search for Meaning. Enjoy



http://www.existential-therapy.com/e...al_quotes.html

http://www.goodreads.com/author/quot...iktor_E_Frankl

http://www.goodreads.com/author/quotes/313093.Rollo_May

[ButterflyWoman]

Wow, good stuff.

I used to take great umbrage with my husband (this was decades ago, mind you) because he was so post-modern and so existentialist. Used to frustrate me to no end, beause I clung to my experience of "truth" and "value" and "morality" and all that sort of stuff. He hasn't pointed this out to me, of course, but it's kind of funny that my own experience of reality has gone past and through all of that and right into existentialism. I certainly never intended or planned it this way. It's just that as the layers fall apart, well, they fall apart... Ah, the bottomless rabbit hole....

[Dreamweaver]

"It’s no use going back to yesterday, because I was a different person then."

Lewis Carroll,♥Alice in Wonderland (Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, #1)

[CFTraveler]

Wow, good stuff.

I used to take great umbrage with my husband (this was decades ago, mind you) because he was so post-modern and so existentialist. Used to frustrate me to no end, beause I clung to my experience of "truth" and "value" and "morality" and all that sort of stuff. He hasn't pointed this out to me, of course, but it's kind of funny that my own experience of reality has gone past and through all of that and right into existentialism. I certainly never intended or planned it this way. It's just that as the layers fall apart, well, they fall apart... Ah, the bottomless rabbit hole....

I wonder if that's a product of age and experience- although I think I always tended to think that way, more or less.