We live in a society of meaninglessness.

More and more people are depressed, anxious, and feel their life has no deeper purpose.

We are constantly reminded that the universe has no inherent meaning... That our feelings and intuitions are just illusions that emerge from the complex firing of neurons in our head.

This is what the materialist-rationalist worldview tells us.

We double down on trying to fix these issues by trying to prescribe easy fixes: pills or a step-by-step “do this and become happy” programs. We double down on the approaches that cause the feelings we are desperately trying to escape.

At the same time, more and more people feel that there is more to life. Cracks start to show up in the materialist-rationalist worldview.

And more and more people get a feeling that they – as people – are not insignificant. That they can truly do something about how their lives are currently going.

If they could only get a deeper insight into the nature of reality…

The Pros and Cons of the Materialist-Rationalist Worldview

Before bashing the materialist-rationalist worldview, it is important to mention that it’s not all bad.

The materialist-rationalist worldview made us treat the world as a place of objects. One that is made up of dead material (that sometimes, for some reason gives rise to life… How?).

This has made us very powerful...

I am writing this on a Mac so powerful that it would have been unthinkable 30 years ago. I researched the contents for this essay by going on the internet, having instant access to the ideas of the brightest minds that have ever existed. And I had the time to do this, because I don’t need to worry about where my next meal is coming from.

What I want to say: I am grateful for what the Enlightenment and Science has brought to us. Not all of the materialist-rationalist worldview is bad.

Our (material) living standards are higher than they have ever been. And it is because of this, that we can start criticising the worldview that has enabled us this richness. It’s important to keep this in mind while reading so that we don't throw out the baby with the bathwater.

Nevertheless, the scientific / materialist / rationalist worldview also has a couple of downsides:

• Risk of turning into a materialist-nihilist perspective

• Risk of gaslighting us that our consciousness is just an illusion

• Risk of getting blindsided by our material power and

• Risk of losing sight of what matters outside that-which-is-material.

These are just a few things that are good to mention.

In general, the materialist-rationalist worldview seems to be at the core of the mental health problems we are facing at the moment.

But why should this be the case?

Where Pure Materialism Goes Wrong…

The thing is that looking at the world through a purely materialist lens leaves out some stuff. Quite a lot! And quite some important stuff...

For starters, the idea of an objective reality makes a lot of sense (especially because we have been trained to see it everywhere). But how about your conscious and subjective experience? How does it fit into the picture? Do you really feel that it has to be removed (e.g., by using the scientific method) to make sense of the world? Or does it rather feel like it is a core part of reality?

Just take a second and be aware of how it feels to be you in this moment. What would be left if this subjective experience was taken from you?

Notice how you don’t know anything outside your subjective experience…

Do you see how a worldview that treats the subjective as something to be eliminated might cause some problems within this very subjectivity (e.g., anxiety, depression, and meaninglessness)?

Do you see how much is taken from us, if we only listen to what is 'objectively' true?

The thing is that the materialist worldview is quite powerful. And it can fool us into believing that it has the best access to truth and reality.

But, like other worldviews, materialism and science have to be based on some fundamental assumptions that cannot be proven within this worldview (look up Godel's theorem if you are interested in this).

This leads to some interesting situations…

Religious and spiritual traditions use the concept of God, the Tao, or any other term that is a stand in for the fundamental nature of reality. Because the rationalist-materialist worldview cannot do that, it falls back on infinity.

For example: It is incredibly unlikely to get the universe that we live in. Tiny changes in the concentration of energy just after the big bang would have led to a rapid im- or explosion of our universe.

The emergence of life is even more unlikely.

Science accounts for this in an interesting way…

There are an infinite number of universes. And our universe just got lucky.

It’s tough to put a number on this (and this is of course a hot debated topic), but it would be a 0 with more zeros after the comma than I could care to type. Similar criticism has been leveled at the theory of evolution. Some say it doesn't properly account for time. According to this criticism, evolutionary theory also seems to rely on (quasi-) infinity.

Here is what I find interesting about this reliance on infinity. It tries to do what every other spiritual or religious tradition tries to do:

1. It explains the structure of the universe (through random chance) and…

2. It relies on unobservability (by relying on infinity)

What gives structure to the existence that we clearly experience, yet cannot be observed because of it’s infinity?

Is it God, the Tao, or the infinite amount of parallel universes?

Or are they just different ways of getting at the same thing?

I think so!

So, when we have different worldviews that all aim at the same thing – explaining reality – why not look at all of them, instead of just one?

Wouldn’t this be a way of actually getting to a deeper truth that could help us overcome our anxiety, depression, and meaninglessness. Isn’t the chance greater that we can find happiness, fulfillment, and meaning when we come at it from different perspectives?

If we do this while taking our own subjective experience into account, what picture emerges?

This is what I want to discuss for the rest of this post before wrapping it up with some practical tips. My goal is that after reading this, you can start your own exploration of the structure of reality – While relying on both, the objective and subjective. And to help you see how in that exploration, you can find deeper connection within your life…

The Way of Being

The image above – the logo of this newsletter – is a representation of how I have come to understand the structure of reality at this point in time.

It’s made up of three aspects:

1. The stream

2. You as resistance

3. The Known & The Unknown

Let’s break them down one by one…

The Stream

The stream is what is most obvious in the logo. Yet, it is what we seem to oversee the most in our day-to-day life. Much to our detriment…

Because the stream is what underlies everything.

Do this: look around the room. What do you see?

Objects most likely…

• A table

• some chairs

• a TV

• maybe a couch

All things that seem static.

Notice how I emphasised the ‘seem’ in the previous sentence.

These things are not really static. They are only static from our perspective. And it’s very easy to see what I mean by that…

Imagine a slow motion video of a guy getting hit in the face with a football. When it is played back at its slowest setting, you can see the entire face deform as the person gets hit by the ball. But when you play it back at regular speed, it happens so quickly that you don’t notice all the details.

Or go the other way around…

Imagine a timelapse of a mountain that was filmed over millions and millions of years. At the beginning, you see a flat surface. Suddenly, the mountain erupts from the earth, almost instantaneously, and then it slowly starts to fade away, being eaten away by the tooth of time. But when you look at a mountain with your eyes, you just see an immovable static mass of rock.

Notice how your perception plays tricks on you. How you have learned to see the world only from this perspective.

You need to try to overcome this bias. Because it’s keeping you from seeing what is actually true: that everything is constantly in flow. And that it just seems static because of the human perspective that you inhabit.

This is not just some nice philosophical or spiritual insight. It has direct implication for your day-to-day life…

You can apply the same exercise with the slow motion video or the time lapse to yourself and the people around you. Notice how everything is constantly changing:

• Your experience in this very moment

• Yourself over time

• The way you look at the world and understand your place within it

Take some time and let that sink in. Try to think back to different times. How did you look at life back then? At yourself? What did you do on a daily basis? Why? What made you change?

Such questions are important because they will inevitably lead you to the realisation that I am trying to express here. Not only that everything is flowing. But that everything is flowing as one. And that you are part of this flow…

When you look at yourself in a given moment it might seem obvious where you stop and things outside yourself start. In the day-to-day, your body is generally perceived as the boundary between you and the world.

But look a bit deeper… What is this still the case when you consider yourself across time? How have the things that changed in your immediate environment changed you? And vice versa? Is the line between the two as clear as in the general day-to-day perspective that most humans are stuck in?

In my experience, this is not the case. If you go down this road you will realise that everything is in infinite flow. It might appear that things are static or limited. But when you really start paying attention, you will see that it was just a figment of your perception…

And you will realise that you, and everyone you know, are a core part of this infinitely changing flow…

You Are Resistance

What you need to realise is that you are a resistance in the flow.

This might sound negative at first, but it really is not. Iain McGilchrist illustrates this beautifully in his book ‘The Matter With Things’:

Imagine a stream of water. How it flows.

Now imagine that you put a stick into the water.

Instantly, vortices and eddies will form and carve out a space downstream the stick.

Notice how these vortices and complexities somehow have their own identity but are still part of the flow. The resistance of the stick creates something new that can be clearly recognized as its own thing in the stream, while still being part of the overall flow.

This is what is illustrated by the orange dot and the empty space in the image above.

You are the dot. As the dot, you are part of the stream. But you are also resistance. And with that resistance, you are creative. You bring about new things that weren’t there before, that would not have been there without you, but that also only last as long as your resistance.

This is a super important insight. It shows you that you are not some dead twick being pushed around by the forces of the stream. You yourself are a force to be reckoned with. You can determine how you want to resist to the stream, and what sort of new things you want to bring into the world.

It is also an insight of humility…

On the one hand, it shows you that your resistance can bring on new things. But it also tells your efforts of resisting and bringing on new things into the flow of existence will only last if something is upholding your resistance.

This should lead you to an important realization: that you can either

• resist against the stream…

• or with it.

Most people are the dead twick in that is pushed around by the stream… I hope you are or will soon be beyond this point. But still, when you resist the stream, you can do so in an unconscious or in a conscious manner.

Resisting blindly and unconsciously is to resist against the stream. This happens when you have realised that you can make a change in the world, but you have not yet realised how fluid (pun intended) the boundary between you and the stream is. You are trying to force your will onto reality. But the eddies and vortices – the new things that you create – will only last shortly. Because you don’t have the energy to resist against the stream too long…

Rather, you have to become conscious of the current of the stream… How are things moving around you? How do they move you? How do you move them? This is the difference between someone who resists against the stream, and someone who resits with it.

Take another look at the video I linked above. Notice how the top leave is effortlessly staying in the same spot of the stream. You can do the same. See what around you carves out their own eddies that can help you make your resistance – your creativity – easier. That is the essence of resisting with the flow…

Someone who resists with the stream is conscious of their place within it. You are not blindly forcing your will on things. You are conscious of how you move in the stream. You have foresight. You focus on doing the things that are worthwhile given the current state of the stream and yourself. You focus on things that you can make last for at least the time you have as a unique entity in the stream… Before you dissolve back and become fully one with it again.

Doing this requires another deeper insight…

The Known & The Unknown

As you become more aware of your role in the stream your ability to manipulate it will grow. This feels great, but it also poses a danger.

There will be temptation. As you gain more and more understanding about your role in the stream, you will get better at navigating it. You will become more successful in life. And this will give you the illusion that you understand.

It is therefore important that you remember that for you, and for everyone else, the stream is eternally divided into the known and the unknown.

This separation will never go away. And it is this separation that I want to emphasize with the hexagon that you can see in the image above.

Why a hexagon you ask?

A hexagon is rigid. Like our human understanding. It can be turned and twisted. And we might be able to add a few points here and there to make it fit the shape of what we are trying to understand better. But ultimately, it will always only be an approximation of the actual truth – of what is really real…

Look at the image above.

Imagine you would scale up the hexagon so that its points touch the outer edges of the stream. You would still be left with some areas that fall outside your domain of the known.

This is super important to remember. Never forget that there is always more that you don’t know than that you know…

If you forget this, you will find yourself resisting against the stream very soon. And you will find yourself overpowered and all the efforts you put into your resistance wasted.

Don’t do that!

Next Steps

So now you know what the logo of this newsletter means.

It is a reminder – to myself and now also to you – that we are powerful. That we actually have the capacity to move something in the world. It is a reminder that we derive this capacity form the knowledge and the awareness of our place within the stream. From the recognition that we are a part of it, and yet, are our own selves… And it is a reminder of humility, so that we don’t overreach, and instead of resisting against the stream, resist with it.

But all of this is awfully abstract… How can you start realising and doing this in your day-to-day life?

1. Start With Understanding

The first step is to get a deeper understanding.

Educate yourself. Read books. Listen to lectures. Talk to others who are on a similar journey to you.

It is important that you first get a rational understanding of what we are talking about here, because you are a rational native.

What I mean by that is that you were born and raised in the materialist-rationalist worldview. And this makes rational understanding the easiest point of entry for you – before you can take it to higher, more experiential and embodied understanding…

When it comes to your education, focus on the things that speak out to you. Read about or listen to philosophical and spiritual content. At the moment, Iain McGilchrist and Leo Gura from Actualized.org are two people that shape my thinking and experience a lot. But Jordan Peterson and his 2017 Maps of Meaning (scroll down for the 2017 lectures)and Biblical Lectures really got me on this journey, so you could start looking there. This will be especially helpful because it will make you understand the power of stories and how you can learn from them.

And if you don’t want to start with any of them, just google for whatever you are interested in and put “reddit” behind it. The people there always have great recommendations.

2. Practise

Once you got more rational understanding of the things that we have discussed above, try to translate them into experience and embodied understanding.

I will write specifically about this next week, so I won’t go into too much detail. But one thing that you should definitely try to give a shot is Mindfulness Meditation with Labeling… Actualized.org has a great video to get started, so you could check that out in the meantime.

3. Carry Your Learnings Into the Day-to-Day

As you will engage in more and more practise you will be able to carry the insights, focus, and power into the day-to-day. You will become more conscious and aware of the forces in the stream of life and your place within it. The things that you want to do will become easier to do, because you are more aligned. You will learn to resist with the stream.

It’s hard to put this into words… But if you do what I wrote above, you will soon experience this for yourself. Give yourself the time. Learn, Practice, and Experience consistently, and you won’t be able to recognize yourself in a couple of years time… It’s amazing… You are Amazing – you just haven’t discovered how amazing, yet!

So, with that being said: Much success!

Now go and do!

All the best,
Niklas