I’m in a rut. It’s a nice rut. A comfortable rut, but a rut. It might even be an upward-trending rut. But…
A rut is a rut.
Get out of the rut is not a goal. It’s a constraint or a criterion. It’s a condition to apply to a goal or strategy: “does this get me out of the rut.”
So what’s the goal? And what’s the plan for getting there.
My goal has two parts. What do I do and how does that impact the world.
What I do: First Draft
I do things, and I write about what I do.
The writing is essential. If I’m doing things and I’m not writing about what I do, then what I do is just about worthless. Not completely worthless, but almost. Because I’m relatively worthless.
Hear me out. I’m not down on myself. But in a world with 7.5 billion people, compared to the worth of the whole, each of us is not worth much. If I do something privately, then what I do might be valuable to me, it’s worthless to the world.
But I have potential! My potential impact on the world is unbounded. Look at Buddha. Look at Jesus. Look at Einstein, Freud, Marx, Hamilton. All nearly worthless individuals who made a difference to the world.
Writing is my chance to make what I do potentially worth a lot.
Writing is my chance to make what I do meaningful.
Jordan Peterson: “Do what is meaningful, not what is expedient.”
RIght, Jordan. I’m signed up.
What I do: the second draft
I do stuff and produce a record of what I did and how I did.
It doesn’t have to be writing, but it has to be something.
Video, podcast, software, along with blog and book.
If I don’t produce something, then I’ve wasted that part of my life.
By Deutsch’s definition, every such product is an embodiment of knowledge.
So what I do is create embodied knowledge.
The meaning of my life
I’m a collector, organizer, disseminator, and creator of knowledge.
I’ve made collecting knowledge “for future use” an end in itself. Setting that goal has been an error.
In my analysis, the only reason to gather knowledge is to disseminate it. I can spread it in its original form, or organized with other knowledge, or as part of a new creation.
Collecting, organizing and creating knowledge may be satisfying, but they are not meaningful. Getting knowledge out where it can make the world better is part of what I define as meaningful.
Dissemination is the goal.
Are there other sources of meaning?
Yeah, I guess.
Solving a problem—which means applying knowledge to the conditions that create and maintain a problem is at least a little meaningful.
Having a conversation and communicating some knowledge is meaningful.
But the potential is limited.
Creating something and sharing knowledge is had unbounded potential meaning, but its actual meaning depends on what I do to spread that knowledge.
Do what is meaningful: Part II
This line of thought leads me somewhere I’m not happy to go.
Once I’ve produced something, then promoting it is one of the most meaningful things I can do.
What?
Writing is hard enough, but promoting what I’ve written?
Where do I even start?
Stay tuned.
Written with the help of StackEdit, Grammarly, Markdown Here,Blogger, and Google voice typing on Android and Chromebook, plus other stuff.