Experience

I don’t know who this guy is or where I found the quote, but it was staring up at me from my notebook this afternoon.

Joseph Campbell, The Power of Myth:

People say that what we are all seeking is a meaning for life. I don-t think this is what we’re really seeking. I think what we’re seeking is an experience of being alive.

I think that’s very true.

“The experience of being alive” — or rather the confirmation of it — is the opposite of what we get when sweating at a desk in front of a monitor screen for some guy we’ve never met or barely know.

It’s the opposite of that braindead feeling that comes from commuting, making smalltalk with people we don’t particularly care for, watching television, eating junk.

It’s that sparky feeling we get instead when we do something worthwhile, something with a sense of connection, something that genuinely translates to value or positivity in the world.

So it might not be ‘meaning’ we’re looking for in life (which, we all know, is nonsense when you put it into a computer) but experience. I think that’s great. Direct, soul-pleasing, non-intellectualised experience.

Something that tells you “you’re here, right here, right now.”

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