Posts tagged with “Meaning of Life”

Should You Just Give Up? | The New Yorker →

A thousand-foot perspective on what it means to 'give up' when considering the big tasks we face in our lives.

Considering Oliver Burkeman's new book, Meditations for Mortals: Four Weeks to Embrace Your Limitations and Make Time for What Counts, and On giving Up by Adam Phillips; the answer to the question— "should you just give up?" isn't an easy one to answer.

"It would be nice if, before we gave up, we could decide on the meaning of what we’re doing. We can certainly tell ourselves that we’re being reasonable, or making room for something new. Often, though, it’s the unfolding of events themselves that determines the shape of the story."

Joshua Rothman leaves us wondering if it's the journey itself that makes the experience, and asked us to consider if we quit before it's actually time to what risk are we taking of not learning from the full experience.

Life and its meaning can’t be reduced to a simple statement, or to a list of names, just as human thought and feeling can’t be reduced to something articulated by what are ultimately ones and zeros. If you find yourself asking AI about the meaning of life, it isn’t the answer that’s wrong. It’s the question. And at this particular juncture in history, it seems worth wondering what it is about the current moment that has us seeking answers from a benevolent, omniscient digital God—that, it turns out, may be neither of those things.

AI Is a False God | The Walrus

In the island community of Okinawa”—in Japan, where very long-lived women thrive on a diet of sweet potatoes, mugwort, and goya—“everybody can tell you what their sense of purpose is,” said Sinha. “They have a word for it: ikigai, which means ‘reason for being.’

The End of Retirement | The Walrus