The meaninglessness of life

Cyan Sarden wrote: How does one go about creating meaning in life?

I’ll see what the Beliefs of the Jedi have to say about it, or how I interpret them at this time. First, however, I want to point the reader to Alan Watts, specifically a talk he gave about meditation . It is the portion about happenings, and the arbitrary that I think gives me a personal answer on how to find meaning, or remember that meaning was there all along--the marker that seems to separate: I am going to find meaning and Meaning (ought to) find me is entirely arbitrary, just as the marker between voluntary and involuntary breathing is arbitrary. Both is the just cause, I feel.

So in what ways do I interpret Jedi to believe about meaning from their Beliefs?

Beliefs
Jedi believe:
In the Force, and in the inherent worth of all life within it.
If there is inherent worth, then I take that phrase to mean that Jedi believe that the universe considers life as never worthless, useless or banal. It is fundamental to the universe that it is so, and so what is the universe, and who says it can say? For me at this point in my exploration of Jediism, the Force isn’t one aspect of many, one expression of the universe filled with them. I believe the Force is itself the fundamental underlying object that expresses itself as the universe thereby. I feel that everything is the Force. Of course, in the movies, the Force became just tiny life forms that permeate the whole, but that’s the movies and storytelling, and here by contrast I feel I have some good data that gives me a scientific way to think of it. I can even model it with an analog; two, short intertwined strands of yarn to describe the universe and all that happens(*) therein. In other words, I think of my two strands of yarn as an analog of the Force.

The remainder of this post can be found here in my Journal.

Interesting question. Perhaps how to create meaning in one word - repetition. One word is hardly ever enough, so maybe to control the creation of meaning means to control the nature of the repetition.

If meaning is 'the depth of understanding something to us usually beyond the cognitive frame of reference', then the repitition could be called active learning... we can contemplate things in various ways, one way is to standardize how information is sorted.. like a database in some ways. To borrow from Tantrism you could use name, attributes and entourage (relationships). What work's best might just be the most truthful too, if we interpret truth as practical usefulness in contextualizing complexity. It becomes impractical if its not accurate after all

If we use that tripartite, we can use the TOTJO tenets to define how we relate to it I guess such that wisdom would always be the outcome of focus with accurate context the supporting act of knowledge. So if your focus is quantized to always being the name, the body of knowledge needed to define its relationships might be what we'd use as it's attributes. Why is this cup a cup, because it 'cups' the fluid so I can drink from it. Well that is easy, the name is the attribute. Its not too restrictive/particular, because if I'd only ever known a cup as a 'water cup' I might not as quickly realize I can use it to hold milk too, which is not very wise. Lol, as an example.

What changes is the granularity of this view, such that labels exist everywhere, labels can even exist for labels haha, but a labels attributes are defined strictly to it in processing for its meaning, and so I'd say its relationships are dynamically associated to the attributes. What makes the difference between an attribute and a relationship is the boundary layer between whatever the thing is and what it is not. My cup is not in outer space, it has no relationship to outer space so I tend not to associate any meaning to it ending up in outer space. Outer space is not a relationship to my understanding of cup, so it does not define any attribute of it to me. If I was to focus on the 'cup in outer space' then its attributes would be the relationships between the two groups of attributes of cup and outer space, but the relationship of 'cup in outer space' to other things in outer space would define how wisdom would manifest to the reality of the cup in outer space. I might have that wrong but its a good exercise in merging computer programming into thinking about how we might think more efficiently, and therefore control our generation of meaning in our lives.

So choosing a functional and meaningful label, and exercising strong attributes which are reinforced by external influences could develop ones capacity to have strong meaning about something. I think its just they way the brain works, with neuroplasticity meaning strong reinforcement means greater presence in our experience of cognition.
:side:

meaning is an inside job.

Ultimately our purpose is to exist and to experience. We are the manifestation of the universe. We are the universal consciousness manifest. we are either the brain cells of the universe and form its brain or we are the reflection of that consciousness. So we have a big purpose and we have our own little purpose.

Concerning your own purpose - you have to create it and live it. Be your own truth.

ETSubmariner wrote: Beliefs
Jedi believe:
In the Force, and in the inherent worth of all life within it.

So there are inherent problems with declaring what all who use a label believe or don't - something the front page isn't very squeamish about. The only way that statement can be true is if anybody who didn't believe so by definition would not qualify as a Jedi. To me this smells of the No-True-Scottsman fallacy.
Then there are these folks - and I do not mean that in a derogatory sense for I remember clearly being one of them - who come here for a few points they sort of like about the doctrine, and then let the rest of the doctrine control what else they think. I believe we should instead take the risk of thinking for ourselves, and forming our own opinions and not have any authority tell us what we do in fact believe, as if text on a website could ever look inside each of us.
Now with these two points out of the way, I'll have you know, that, although I must not speak on behalf of all or indeed of a well-defined subset of those who identify as Jedi, I can still be pretty confident in saying that there is a solid and sufficiently vocal portion who do not believe that the meaning of life (or anything for that matter) is inherent to the universe itself. Do not be impressed by the front page in this way.
Treat your fellow Jedi as individuals, not as a collective. And treat yourself like an individual, too, rather than bend your beliefs after the shape of a yoke of your own making. We are here to exchange ideas, not to parrot them. Of course, if these happen to be yours sincerely, my apologies, and perhaps we can discuss them some other time, if you please. Do not understand this as a personal appeal either. This piece of doctrine has been raised a couple of times lately, and I just used your doing so to address it more generally; so if you do not feel that my criticism applies to you, maybe it really doesn't.