TUESDAY, 12 JULY 2022
Scott Adams in Episode 1800 of his YouTube Livestream (54:42): You find meaning in your life when what you do most closely aligns with your biological design. (Not a direct quote because I wanted to make it a little clearer.)
One example is someone whose body and brain are best suited to raising children. If this person tries to find meaning in something else, the experience will be less positive than if they are involved in the process of raising a child.
Adams sees himself as a “Tribal Elder” for the international community of people who regularly tune in to his livestreams, and who read what he writes. So, if he is talking about how he sees things – right or wrong, smart or ignorant on a particular subject, or if he is giving advice on how to overcome certain obstacles, he is doing what he sees as most suitable for his biological design. Like most people, he also wanted to procreate at one time, but in the end the need weighed less on him than the motivation to be an Elder. Other people are more suited to fight physically for other people’s lives – people who serve in fire brigades are one example.
I didn’t have to think long about what gives me the strongest awareness of a meaningful existence. I’ve known for most of my adult life that writing fills me with … I might almost go as far as to say … euphoria. Of course, it is stronger with certain pieces, and less so with others. But nothing else fills me with such a strong consciousness that I am doing what I am supposed to do. The idea of biological design is just the latest way of expressing it.
Is that different from saying it feels right? I reckon it’s in the same neighbourhood, if not more or less the same thing.
Any serious person is taught not to trust feelings as much as reason and critical thinking. But let’s say you find yourself ten or twenty or thirty times in a situation where you have to look after children or where you express yourself creatively in some way, or where you teach other people things. Every time there is a feeling of contentment and happiness that is not present in other situations, or that, according to your own subjective measure, does not manifest so strongly. After the first few times, you eliminate food you ate or pleasant weather or company as the source of the feeling. You may have gotten the feeling even when you were hungry, or when you ate something that didn’t sit well with you. You got the feeling on days that were uncomfortably hot, and on days that were bitterly cold. And you got the feeling with or without company. Should the feeling still be ignored, or is your body trying to tell you something?
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