Hello! I write to you from a charming glamping situation about 20 minutes west of Austin - just perfect for a couple days away from my regular life i.e. kids.
I wrote one of my occasional personal posts on this, my 35th birthday. Thank you for indulging me - straight to hell with coherent personal brands.
Here at the end of the year, I’ve also been thinking (yet again) about ~meaning in life~ and what to do with “values.”
These posts are interrelated arguments against trying too hard to make legible that which is inherently illegible. Meaning and values are shadowy. Leave them be!
Meaning in life is not propositional
Don’t “clarify” your values
Attempting to clarify your values does more harm than good.
P.S. What are you doing for new year’s?
Feeling some 2020 malaise? Not sure what to think about 2020, or what to do next? Like this meaning & values philosophical vibe?
Check out my New Year’s Thing, Beyond the Resolutions: a semi-asynchronous day of chat about wtf happened in 2020 and how 2021 might look for you:
Time investment: part of 1 day
(on and off during the day - we’ll voice chat back and forth on Yac)
Money investment: $135
(my going rate for just 1 hour of live coaching - so this is a good deal)
Don’t set doomed resolutions or buy yet another planner, check it out—> Beyond the Resolutions
Last thing - relevant read: This on the “Sunday scaries,” the difficulty of switching between leisure and work modes, and how things are different for hunter-gatherers (Derek Thompson, The Atlantic)
Where rest once beckoned, now restlessness did. The productivity mode thrived—and it just might deserve credit (along with luck) for almost all scientific progress and technological ingenuity. But it also bears the blame for what Durkheim called a “malady of infinite aspiration,” which by now we’ve discovered is chronic.
Wishing you a Sunday free of scaries and overanalyzed meaning & value,
Pamela