The appropriate soundtrack to this article is In Flames’ Sounds of a Playground Fading
We are ghosts of the concrete world
Genetic codes of a dying breed
Will I be left behind?
Sounds of a playground fading
Whole album is great, though, and touches on similar themes.
Note that this article will be heavy on the philosophy, which I will reference without giving background summaries. If you are interested in going deeper, you can, depending on level of time investment you believe is worthwhile, a) read the original sources, b) read some “Routledge Companion To…” books to individual philosophers or philosophical movements, or c) a good source of quick superficial but informative summaries I’d recommend is the “Unsolicited Advice” channel on youtube.
In case you haven’t heard, the world has begun its slide into a multi-civilizational collapse. Civilizations have been observed by historically to follow cycles of rise, peak and decline, and the decline of the west has been predicted for the turn of the last century by intellectuals such as Spengler and Schumpeter. While the cracking foundations were established around the 1970s with the developments surrounding the collapse of Bretton Woods, they have accelerated and reached past the point of no return. All of the historically observed epi-phenomenon of a civilization’s decline, including increasing economic inequality, growing government debt, surging costs of living, ongoing wars, political radicalization, increasingly frequent civil infrastructure breakdown, decreasing fertility rates, and the decline of religion and rise of a decadent culture prioritizing personal glory and indulgence of solipsistic emotional impulses, appear to afflict all of the major civilizations in the present day from the greater west, or liberal Christendom, to Russia to East Asia. To a lesser extend, second tier world powers such as Islam and Latin America are experiencing similar symptoms.
Yes, I know of course that the 20th century institutions and technology have brought unprecedented world advances in health and prosperity. But at this point, it looks like Japan-like stagnation is the future for the west and the whole of East Asia, and much of the Global South will stay stuck in the middle income trap. Growth is predicted to continue in Asia, rather up to 80% of economic growth in the near future, but rapidly aging populations will bring terminal headwinds there within a few decades.
The last time a multi-civilizational collapse happened, wherein multiple advanced highly complex civilizations existing within intricate trade and international relations networks degenerated simultaneously, was around 1200 B.C., the Bronze age collapse. At that point, Egypt’s historical cultural capital, Cypriot mercantile and ship-building capability, and Hittite military prowess and superpower hegemony had all peaked to bring unprecedented prosperity and technological advances to the Eastern Mediterranean. Then, while the invasion of the Sea Peoples was originally thought to be entirely responsible, eventually, the epiphenomenon of, how Toynbee writes, civilizations committing suicide appeared across all of the great powers of the age to be rotting them from the inside, bringing a hollowed out defense to the tide of invasions.
One of the symptoms of such times is increasing mental turbulence and an overall sense of nihilism in the population. When one considers the common sources of meaning and psychological fulfillment in people’s lives, this can be broken down quite clearly. And while the actual experience of existential reckoning with absurdity is deeply disturbing, it can also provide an opportunity for precise philosophical cleavage of the structure, purpose, function and primary essential attributes of meaning as well. The dissolution of the perceived validity of standard sources of meaning give way to a void that must be made sense of, if not analytically then through will to power itself, in some vitalistic creation of meaning.
Religion is the historically most prominent source of a sense of purpose above and beyond oneself. With compelling scripture providing a set of narratives showcasing the path towards a life spiritually aligned with the civilization’s ethos, religion provides a coherent vision. Moreover, with adherence and tribal unity and harmony brings the greatest joy and human communion of all to many people. And so with the decline in religion, most of all Christianity in the west, a common source of higher purpose together with social community has disappeared.
Personally I do not ascribe to any of the great modern religions. And to the degree that my recent foray into Tengrism and animism brings meaning, it is internally spiritual rather than at all social, tribal and civilizational. There are not so many adherents, anyway.
A source of fulfillment not too distant from religion is the thriving of the tribal outwardly success and power, or internal harmony and cultural richness. Through technological and economic innovation facilitating growth or creative production facilitating prominence on the world stage, an individual can take effort to bring will towards gain at a higher level of scope, that of his community. This can be a driving force behind invention, the pursuit of scientific discovery, the composition of musical productions, etc. To this end, a study in 2018 suggested that for men in particular, a sense of contribution of one’s work is the most significant source of happiness and fulfillment.
Unfortunately, my earlier naive belief in the generic social value of academic research as by classical theoretical results now can be useful years later, have been dashed by my discomposing encounter with the stark realities of applied research conduct in reality and from my subsequent reading about the state of research in aggregate, as I describe in my blog’s Introduction. And while I have found an immense sense of purpose in pursuing the topic of AI development for assisting innovation in Agroforestry in the drylands of Africa, it is by no means certain that I can get funding to be able to do and implement this at scale. Of course relentless pursuit of such research would be honorable and I will do my best to maintain enthusiastic effort, but its coming to fruition cannot be the sole, or even primary, sense of inner purpose or fulfillment, due to dependence on external factors. We revisit this point later when discussing Boethius’ pontifications on finding meaning and purpose.
Needless to say, I feel no particular affinity to any contemporary civilization, nor any ideological tribe within them. I don’t observe political leaders or truly powerful influential intellectuals that truly bring any compelling vision of hope or offer a coherent plan to continue world progress towards vibrant prosperity.
Moving to a smaller scale, the human animal has of course the most compelling source of fulfillment and purpose of all in mating and reproduction. But here too, the source of the greatest source of internal human motivating force, arguably the internal foundation of the building of civilizations, is also simply not applicable to me. I am childfree on account of the obvious fact that bringing life into the world that is genetically determined to have to suffer from autism and periodic major depressive episodes would be simply cruel. Then, since long term relationships are a cultural invention designed to raise children, there is no notable utility or purpose found in the seeking of those for me.
The only thing left on that level is hedonism. But I’ve ridden that train enough to have tried everything out there while at the same time seeing, as oft repeated in history, the various deals with the devil that appear with too long a stroll on the hedonic treadmill. Moreover, to the degree thar JD Unwin is right about the role of sexuality in a civilization’s collapse, and he probably is, it wouldn’t be the most honorable of lifestyles (despite Camus celebrating Don Juan as exemplary of a will compellingly adapting to absurdism). Julius Evola also discusses this (this is also described, in a more shallow manner as necessitated by public intellectualism, by Jordan Peterson), which explains the increasing unfortunate appeal of proto-fascist political mythologies to some young men. But that’s a topic even I know to not go near with a kilometer long pole. More aesthetically, however, there is a certain strength of honor and will that comes from being able to direct one’s behavior independent of temptations of sensual pleasures and the steadfastness of purpose to sneer at attempts of manipulation with promises of happiness, and declare, as one of Evola’s persons of aristocratic spirit, “What is Happiness to Us??” But a steadfastness of purpose is just performance without a purpose, so let us not get bogged down in the how in the search for the what.
So with religion, positive contribution to the world or to some important community, having and raising children to maturity, and eros are all unavailable as sources of meaning, purpose and fulfillment, either through external immovable circumstance or reasoned optimal choices, the philosophical literature on the themes of nihilistic pull of the inherent absurdity of existence begins to roar.
The roar of nihilism has not been unobserved more broadly in society. Indeed, from the shut-ins of the Hikikomori, to the lying flat movement in China, to the growing prevalence of NEETs (those Not in Employment Education and Training) in the OECD broadly, individuals deciding to check out of organized society are becoming an increasingly swelling population. With this, we see two frameworks, 1) a completely self-serving willingness to contribute to endemic parasitism – faking and collecting disability and self support through participating in black markets, or 2) a more principled and hustle-oriented perspective of either a digital nomad or self-sufficient homestead in the forest lifestyle, eschewing integration with any particular national economy and civilization while at the same time dedicated effort towards self-reliance. Recently, laws have been passed in my country that were handed down as directives from the European Commission that will encourage, and significantly increase, the population of NEETs in this country. As Toynbee says, civilizations commit suicide.
Let us recall and lean towards the meta-rational, how do these “flee and escape society” frameworks serve these groups of people in practice? Already we see that a conscious choice to defect from society’s increasingly non-cooperative games can yield both a rather miserly existence, as in the Hikikomori, as well as one that appears rather fun, such as that of the digital nomad. To this end we notice a degree of effort and pursuit of excellence brings a much better psychic backdrop. However, ultimately, we but inched closer to answering the what rather than the how of meaning, purpose and fulfillment.
There is significant literature suggesting humans are good at forming and believing self soothing delusions, and that this ability provides a bulwark of resilience against the tribulations of life. But at some point the bill comes due. As an example, the superintelligence e/acc crowd is adorable as to their belief that AI research will inevitably accelerate towards compounding power and effectiveness relative to time, and potentially enable technology that can solve all of humanity’s problems, and even present exotic risks of catastrophe, within a short time frame. That is, it would be adorable if not for the consequences of the AI bubble popping in the future.
Before we explore modern existentialism in depth, let us revisit the ancient wisdom of Boethius and Consolations of Philosophy, as the quintessential resource on the search for meaning in the midst of civilizational collapse. Boethius lived after the official collapse of the Western Roman Empire while fighting to preserve its remaining institutions, such as the Senate. For his troubles, he was imprisoned and sentences to awaited torture and execution. While awaiting his punishment in prison, he wrote the Consolations as a guide to make sense and meaning out of absurd and senseless suffering. Obviously the current world and myself are far removed from a resembling predicament to Boethius’, however, at the extremes one can more straightforwardly find general principles.
Boethius declares that meaning and purpose cannot be derived from the external world, as this would leave one with nothing in the event that one is powerless to create a desired change. An immediate criticism of passivity can be dispensed with as such: we must consider meaning as defining a general life principle P. This principle does necessitate action that is effective in the event that such is possible, together with maximizing opportunities to make it possible, however P must also provide richness in the absence of the possibility of leveraging it for principled impact upon the world. This can be done by enriching the theoretical structure of P, developing aesthetics devoted to it, etc.
To Boethius one’s source of purpose must come from the realm of ideas and philosophy.
Achtung!! Now here one that is well versed in philosophy notices the great care that must be taken. Indeed as Réné Girard notes, many ideas and principles are memetic, and these are ultimately derived from myths from the surrounding civilization. As Max Stirner puts it, ideas are spooks, or ghosts, phantoms, e.g. that are illusions and detract a proper individualist from their true will.
And so, when mulling ideas as to possible foundations of self-guided construction of purpose, meaning and fulfillment, how can one steer clear of ideas’ memetic claws of serfdom? To this, we can consider that if the ideas are properly self-defined from a stand of a will to power, a la Nietzsche, then they are just a guide wherein you are providing structure to your generative process of defining a new virtue ethic. Self-awareness as far as possible memetic sources of what seem to be spontaneous ideas of the mind can be the protocol here. Of course synthesizing old ideas is natural, however, proper genealogy must be taken to understand the purpose and underlying cosmology associated with each concept. In order to exercise this surgical mental construction, a regular practice of mindfulness becomes paramount to have the ability to perform this enterprise.
Let us consider mindfulness more centrally, as an aside. Observe that mindfulness practices bring a potential mechanism of full mental escape into infinite presence, as a tempting and theoretical possible strategy to avoid having to fully conduct the enterprise of directing one’s will as Being-in-the-world. Indeed, bringing awareness to the simultaneous stillness of life experience that is serene, as a cosmic backdrop to constant change, which can be observed without summoning spooks and passing judgment, is a powerful and satisfying framework for day to day existence. It is a truly spiritual experience in its own right, and its potential to bring greater mental fortitude is, anecdotally, observed by many.
Yet let’s be properly meta-rational, the manner of ascertaining the value of a particular mindset for life should be based on the degree to which the life of individuals who follow it appeals to me. At this stage, we see something concerning regarding the most enlightened: Buddhist monks are rather non-productive and thus depend on their embedded civilization for basic support. This makes them naturally vulnerable, which is clearly suboptimal in the presence of world uncertainty.
Rather than spending all day meditating and studying scripture, a more appropriate physically embodied adaptation would be to actually be thoroughly strategic and active in cultivating resilience. Develop multiple potentially transferable skillsets in case of economic turbulence, as well as develop DIY and self defense skills to adapt to possible growing societal breakdown, etc. To this end Max Stirner comes to the rescue in his Egoism being the most salient perspective towards bringing the biological imperative of survival front and center – while it may be taken care of now, strategic pre-frontal cortex thinking and planning can make a significant difference as to lifespan, healthspan and basic well being long term, and a high probability thereof. No spooks, just the human animal using its brain power to maximize the total time and probability density integration of surviving.
Still the importance of solitude is clear for mindfulness. Be As You Are from Ramana Maharshi discusses how enlightened living best arises when one spends much time in solitude, with careful filtering of company towards wisdom, and a hesitancy towards spending much time as part of some group or crowd. Metaphysically, the spooks can ride on the strategic functionality of language to push ideological conformity, and various subtle mechanisms of expression of social approval and disapproval bring notable friction to any resistance. Said more down to Earth, Kahneman found that groups in deliberation yield demonstratively more false conclusions than otherwise. Rather, solo contemplation followed by exchange for competition and confirmation is far more effective for achieving a “wisdom of crowds”.
Schopenhauer’s diatribes on the dysfunction of social groups are utterly scathing. Instead, he writes: “A man can be himself only so long as he is alone; and if he does not love solitude, he will not love freedom; for it is only when he is alone that he is really free.” Girard’s memetic desire becomes functionally more relevant when there is social pressure towards certain memes, whereas in solo contemplation proceeding at one’s own deliberate pace, proper care can be taken as to sufficient Socratic questioning and deconstruction, to ensure consistency and true internal devotion to one’s self-constructed ideas.
Isn’t Individualism the entire problem in the first place? That’s low resolution thinking – systemic incentives encourage defection from society’s non-cooperative games, and so the real existential question is not Individualism or not, but through Individualist invention of life force as embodied theoretical constructions, what sort of world will emerge from the ashes of the old one? With radical uncertainty, and the nonlinear dynamics of potentially significant systemic changes in the future, one must think strategically, rather than too tactically, and thus dependent on substrate.
Here we observe the reality of ideas. Through meta-rationality they can be made precise, rather than spooks serving interests of power. Ideas when formalized as a mathematical model are, as Badiou notes, what is Being, as far as Being-as-qua-being, i.e. ontology. Indeed, a set of general logical formalisms and generic optimization problems can serve to apply to a variety of possible situations on the ground, as far as providing a framework as to what to do with one’s life. Act with dignity, integrity, and kindness, precisely defined. Maximize contribution to aggregate well being and welfare, defined as some well recognized welfare economics metric, for instance, can be done in a variety of domains and environments. Note that here capacity and power become essential: in order to be able to maximize anything one needs to have a mental and physical toolkit adapted to contemporary technological availability.
It’s interesting watching the play out of the changing orders. Just as the final days of Roman Republic, a hopelessly corrupt party claiming to represent the people jostles with rich charismatic demagogues. Hardly a representative of the conservative establishment, Trump is no representative of Christendom. To turn to contemporary political discourse on civilization, an interesting note on the NatalCon conference surrounding the administration’s discussion of such things. There is an aesthetic romanticism, as Žižek writes, In Defense of Lost Causes, stark change requires disturbingly shocking action, and by contrast one has to appreciate the bittersweet human spirit’s gasping whimper of Christendom’s dying breath. That their discussions are beyond the pale and labeled Far Right by the Mainstream Media is an interesting reflection, especially when considered that the Media also has identified future rapid population aging as a real problem, but themselves provide no (at least not farcical) solutions.
And please don’t be stupid and assume I’m throwing my hat with some tribe here, I don’t stand with either, and that’s part of the point. I’m a detached observer, watching the glacially proceeding global decay, wherein each step may be perfectly reasonable from the perspective of the person performing it, while the aggregate of the steps creates yet another unsolvable problem or breaks another post of durability. Seeing the big picture makes things complex and nuanced and interconnected, bringing even greater distaste towards simplistic low resolution narrative.
Rather, the question is not why fertility going down but at what level will it get to. It is really the first time in history mating and reproduction is predominantly a matter of personal choice – it was always a matter of duty to tribe, nation or God in years past, or even just necessary for survival. Clearly such a radically novel circumstance will equilibriate to a new set of genetic diversity population numbers and fractions in the long term, but the disequilibrium will exhibit potentially significant upheaval meanwhile. Where the west stands now, more conservative and parochial Christian groups, of Amish and Mormon, stand to ultimately eclipse the rest, with significant turmoil in the process, and to the detriment of freedoms and openmindedness. In addition, the most conservative forms of Islam seem to bring the most fecundity.
That nothing reigning is compelling as far as meta-narratives is clear. And so in seeking ideas for fulfillment, be careful of trends, such as Stoicism. Observe that Epicureanism treated by pop gurus on this front is set as a foil representing rampant hedonic indulgence. Yet, in reality, the philosophy as defined by the relevant texts on Epicureanism specifically warned against the pursuit of momentary pleasures, and rather recommended the avoidance of politics and glory comprehensively within this framework. Instead it is the philosophy of seeking inner tranquility, stability and peace of mind. Remarkably, this humility and discouragement of downside risks were premonitions of contemporary biopsychological understanding of happiness. So of course contemporary hip hegemonic ideologies are there to exploit you – why hustle and grind, for instance, what are you grinding for, or who? If there is nothing worth sacrificing for, Individualism becomes paramount.
The sense of disturbance that the void brings leads one to the existentialist writers – Sartre, Camus, who also present this as an exciting opportunity. Despair is freedom and freedom is despair, as famously declared in Existentialism Is a Humanism. To feel the terror of the void is to feel in awe of being alive, to quote the movie Waking Life:
But didn't I mention the ongoing "wow" is happening right now? We are all co-authors of this dancing exuberance where even our inabilities are having a roast. We are the authors of ourselves, co-authoring a gigantic Dostoevsky novel, starring clowns. This entire thing we're involved with called the world, is an opportunity to exhibit how exciting alienation can be.
In some ways, now, as in this present state of of meta-narrative legitimacy breakdown, is the most exciting time to be alive. On one hand, the developed world is still largely safe and prosperous. But things will be radically different even 20 years from now so it is of no sense to tie your strings to posts of some existing sinking civilizational ship. Instead, you should create values you should define radically new modes and frameworks of life’s conduct.
And so finally I have cleared the barnacles and distinguish with full clarity the duality of equanimity and vitality, the yin-yang of flexible adaptation and a will of vigor and strength, as abstract but crisp targets of meta-rationality as far as what meaning, purpose and fulfillment should look like.
Of course any bold march in unknown terrain is, as Kierkegaard puts it, a matter of faith so terrifying that it brings Fear and Trembling. But that faith, that fire delicately chiseled by reasoned will, is the foundational vital energy of humanity. It is at once the phenomenology and the ontology of purpose.
And that ontology must be selfish since its effectiveness strongly relies on personal effectiveness. As a grand target, then, mastery, that is, the deliberate cultivation of skill, becomes simultaneously selfish and maximally prosocial. The choice of skill, while to be considered from economic and other valuation perspectives, matters less than the execution of cultivation of abilities. And a well rounded skillset at that, from the raw and physical as far as making and inventing, to the strong pulley-lever of scientific software engineering, to the relishing in the most advanced products of our civilization’s peak as far as abstract mathematics and musical composition.
A lifetime of disciplined self-improvement awaits. It is both urgent yet a marathon and not a sprint. I cannot in confidence claim to be particularly good at anything. My ERC (European Research Council) proposal didn’t pass the first round, and it is the last year of the Consolidator junior period. ERC is the the NSF Early Career Award in the US. In general, an ERC is strongly associated with having a research career that makes strong impactful contributions.
Moreover, my grandfather was an eminent scientist in the Soviet Union who was colleagues of Gagarin in the space program (and was short-listed to be one of the first cosmonauts, but got sidelined because of too high blood pressure). So relative to what I should be capable of, my meager accomplishments can be considered an abject failure.
But the decline of civilization can present a virtuous double bind. Now, one must not mope on failures, but one must still take responsibility, and a disciplined focus on achieving mastery has been lacking in earnest, and habits can and will be improved. At the sane time, if institutions in civilization are breaking down, and certainly the academic research environment has gotten increasingly discouraging of patterns of thought that lead to innovation in contrast to purely short-term economic activity, then if I don’t manage to become “successful” by the biological standard set, then the fault is not in my hands! Rather, there is no civilization to contribute innovation to, and a diversified portfolio of fulfillment and meaning become an existential necessity, with mathematical contribution to the world as but one pillar. The others, to properly round out the probabilistic landscape of the future, include the phenomenological experience of good faith engagement in flow, and a celebration of human vitality through creative cultural expression and play, which I describe in a bit more detail below.
As far as states of mind: flow appears as an excellent target – shoot for maximization of the time spent in flow – that laser pointing just in front of the delivery of motion, the dull hum of radical irrelevance of anything not immediately applicable to the task at hand, the thrill of a pace so frantic yet precisely restrained that your own creations bring surprise and cosmic awe as to their source.
Moreover, in the grand scheme of things, it is truly only by simultaneous praxis by many that systems can be nudged towards more potentially prosperous equilibria.
Life is but a concatenation of moments in time. The scientific literature suggests more than four hours, and especially six hours, per day of flow, is unreasonable. Moments when one is not in flow remain by biological constraints. To that end, the raw necessity of ensuring one’s survival in an increasingly hostile and uncertain world, through developing the skills of self reliance together with strategic adaptation of skillsets to economic dynamics, can compose much of the rest of these chunks of time. Of course, not all. It is simply cruelty to oneself to decide to be stubbornly serious all the time.
Finally, and most absolutely critical: the profound absurdity of it all should be celebrated, not moped upon. A spirit of vivaciousness and an invigorating will towards humor, dance, festive music. An important and little known fact is that Nietzsche strongly encouraged dancing, clearly it is the force of vitality spending energy with no purpose other than capricious expression. Will to power for will to power’s sake. This constitutes the essential primal element of honoring human vitality in its purest form.
My dog is great at reminding me of this. He can be a complete goofball, and I truly love him for it.
We can unify the phenomenology of flow and play within a global philosophical framework that venerates human vigor and will to praxis. These are, of course, the only real means we can rely on to contend with the hazards of father time’s serpentine voyage.