“Going through the motions.”
Are you?
You probably haven’t the slightest idea, and to be frank, most of us are “NPCs” anyway, entirely incapable of independent thought or behaving in our own best interests.
The news.
Your friends (whom you’ve likely picked due to similar tastes).
Your parents.
Family.
Professors.
Bosses.
So many others in the world are injecting into you their thoughts on things. Politics.
Religion.
Social justice.
Education.
Health…
You read article after article. Watch video after video. Hear opinion after opinion.
Often only really hearing and absorbing the ones that you want to hear and absorb.
You openly embrace the biases of friends, family, and the news that you want while sticking your fingers in your ears, screaming “LA LA LA LA!” to anything else.
Are you actually leading a life of meaning?
Are you really, truly acting in a meaningful manner?
Are these actions moving you in a direction towards your penultimate self?
Or, are you just a sad, pathetic sponge, absorbing narratives, trends, and social movements because you’re told to?
Don’t just “go through the motions.”
Act meaningfully to you.
Follow for daily philosophical meditations.
These are distillations from my coming book “YouDaimonia: the Ancient Philosophy of Human Flourishing.”