The danger of meaninglessness

We are increasingly falling prey to the desperation of meaninglessness.

— Dr. Jordan B. Peterson

If you look at the world now, many people are living meaningless lives — chasing after money, status, and dopamine / instant gratification or indulgence. Basic morality is on the decline. People are more selfish, greedy, lazy, narcissistic, hostile, and disconnected.

I’ve written numerous blog posts about the various social phenomena we see in the modern world, and a lot of them tie back to this.

Even religions are on the decline. Each younger generation is becoming less religious compared to previous generations, especially in the West. While I disagree with many aspects of religious teachings, I believe people walking away from religion is a symptom of declining morality and the increasing acceptance of meaninglessness or nihilism in the world.

Religions, at their core, preach a sense of meaning, purpose, and morality. Although countless religions have been politicized or used as a weapon of social control (or even as an excuse to carry out immoral acts such as wars), many of them still preach the same core principles — peace, empathy, wisdom, dedication, hard work, and doing good for the world.

More importantly, religions introduce the sense of a greater being and purpose in life, something beyond our instincts and flesh. Under this greater being, humans are equal and powerless, and it encourages them to live in harmony and mutual respect. It has allowed people to focus inwards on their personal growth and spirituality rather than the external world. As a result, society as a whole becomes more peaceful and productive.

Society embracing nihilism and ditching meaning and morality is a dangerous trend, and as history has shown, will lead to darker times for the world.

As I said countless times, Western individualism has led to a decline in traditional values, spirituality, and morals. When people are encouraged to be themselves without consequences, they let out their basic, animalistic instincts—hedonistic, selfish, greedy, lazy, tribal, and hostile.

Humans are animals after all. Although these are the very instincts that allow us to survive, if we don’t inhibit these animalistic tendencies, we are no different than wild monkeys, and society will be a jungle.

When people let their lizard brains take over their morals, they become outward-focused rather than inward-focused. Rather than focusing on their own well-being, they focus on physical resources such as money, power, and mates. They become selfish and fight each other over resources, as animals do. Society then becomes a matter of who is bigger and stronger, and the strong bully or kill the weak. Our purpose is thus reduced to nothing but the survival of the fittest, which makes us no different than wild animals.

People knew this stuff thousands of years ago, and as a result, moral codes and religions were developed to inhibit that behaviour. It gave people a sense of purpose greater than survival and reproduction. With that greater drive, humans were able to collaborate, innovate, and build societies instead of competing with and killing each other.

It is no wonder that great civilizations throughout human history have been built on the basis of morality, often represented by religion. From Christianity to Islam to Judaism to Hinduism and Buddhism, I believe religions were first created to instill morality and tame the beast inside humans.

When morality, spirituality, and religions die, civilizations collapse. It has happened countless times throughout history — from the end of Rome to the fall of each great dynasty in China. Similarly, it could precipitate the fall of the modern West.

Throughout history, times of peace and prosperity were often correlated with strong morality in the people. Times of tyranny, chaos, and conflict have always co-existed with the lack of morality and spirituality. This leads me to believe if our current societal trends continue, humanity will be headed for darker, more troubled times.

This is why most healthy, traditional cultures have preached moralistic values. In many orthodox cultures, virtues such as hard work, family, self-discipline, dedication, collaboration, and healthy debate are valued. It is no wonder why these cultures are generally more stable than others and are able to last for thousands of years (although morality is also declining rapidly in these places as well, which is unfortunate).

Meanwhile, places that haven’t had much religious influence throughout history (like sub-Saharan Africa) are basically in the same state for millennia — little social and technological progress, and people/tribes fighting with each other over resources, where the strongest survive and rule. There is little democracy or human rights. Do we really want to go back to that?

Mankind are only able to build our civilization to the point today because we are capable of moralistic values — hard work, collaboration, discipline, harmony, kindness, and wisdom. Good things take years to build but can be destroyed in an instant, and human civilization is no different.

The power of the individual is very small. One cannot accomplish much on their own. It takes lots of teamwork, collaboration, and harmony to achieve great things. Even in the animal kingdom, ants and bees can build great colonies because they work hard, collaborate, and make individual sacrifices for the greater good.

When one stops believing in a greater purpose or meaning in life and stops focusing inward, we feed into our animalistic instincts and focus on the outer world — indulging in consumerism, narcissism, money, sex, sensory satisfaction, entertainment, and other vices. People stop contributing to society and sacrificing for the greater good.

When a person can’t find deep sense of meaning, they distract themselves with pleasure.

— Viktor Frankl

To put it this way, we live in a world today with a lot of candy. Candy is everywhere and is easy to consume. But it is not healthy when consumed in large quantities. Humans today, like children when presented with candy, mostly cannot resist the temptation and over-indulge. The more people move away from morals, the more they succumb to their temptations and become less healthy through over-indulgence.

Many people lack a purpose in life, so they fill their emptiness with various substances and instant gratification, which is readily available in the world today. And when people are encouraged to pursue whatever interests them and not be disciplined, everyone takes the path of least resistance. Their brains’ reward systems become fried and they become unhealthy.

And when individuals are less healthy, society becomes such. We are seeing more obesity and mental health issues in the population. We are seeing increasing selfishness, hostility, division, and conflict in the world. People are more ignorant, greedy, narcissistic, and entitled. From dating and family to politics and world affairs, we are seeing increasing hostility between groups and individuals.

From the breakup of the traditional family structure to society being divided between ideologies, races, and religions, to wars being started over someone’s ego and racial hatred, the troubling times are beginning.

Information technology has accelerated the spread of this hatred and these ideologies and enabled conflicts to escalate. We saw how people reacted to information during the pandemic and other major regional conflicts.

When people feel no meaning in life and have nothing to lose, they will become violent and hostile. People kill themselves. People become tribal and selfish and focus on their own interests. It becomes a free-for-all.

We have seen the rise of general hostility, regional instability, and global conflicts in recent years — From the Cancel Culture online to racial and socioeconomic conflicts in the US, to the recent elections in Europe fuelled by division and political extremism, to the wars in Ukraine and Israel fuelled by tribalism, nationalism, and ego, this is a dangerous trend that we are headed towards.

These are the very same ideologies that have allowed dictators and extremists to rise to power, started world wars, and precipitated countless genocides and revolutions.

And the people in power like it. When people are divided and mindless, they become easy to manipulate and control. They know when people are more united and stronger together, they threaten the power dynamic. Dictatorships and tyrants often rise during times of unrest and division, and spread ideologies to keep people angry and divided. We are certainly seeing more of that today with the rise of populism, radicalism, far-left / far-right politics, racism/scapegoating, and existing dictatorships being deepened.

It is also due to the lack of meaning and purpose that people stop contributing to society, from not starting families and having children to not working on themselves to become healthy, empathetic, knowledgeable, and valuable. Many younger people today are simply checking out of society and “going their own way” because they don’t think it’s worth it. And when society incentivizes people to do the bare minimum (e.g., universal basic income, cheap entertainment/dopamine hits, the illusion of options to get rich), we get what we have today.

Society is the sum of individuals, and when individuals become selfish, stop contributing, and tune out, society falls apart.

Whether you believe in God, a greater being or not, it doesn’t take much to be a decent, moral person, and live a meaningful life. It is not difficult to think about and help others, show love and empathy, and put your own needs aside to contribute to society and work for the greater good.

But more importantly, you need to define your own meaning and purpose. You need to focus inward and connect with your inner self.

Everyone is here for a reason, whether it is self-discovery, learning, serving God, or making the world a better place. We may be taught that life is meaningless, but you need to find that meaning through self-reflection (and not listening to what the world is telling you).

To truly get a grip on your life, you need to have an inward purpose that drives you, not you being driven by external forces (e.g., money, power, fame, accomplishments, societal expectations, peer pressure) or your animalistic instincts to survive and procreate. As I’ve seen in countless peers, chasing after these things without a greater cause often leads to a feeling of emptiness and subsequently burnout and self-destruction.

I believe every living being in the universe has a spirit, and our spirits are connected in some ways. At the individual level, we are powerless and weak. Whether it is humans or animals, we survive in numbers.

When you help others, you are also helping yourself. When people around you become better, they also elevate you. Think about it, nobody is truly self-made — we all had people help us along the way to become who we are today. Each one of us is the average of the five closest people around us. When people stop helping each other, everyone loses and becomes worse.

Also, when you work on yourself, you are also doing a part for the society. As I said, society is the sum of its individuals. When everyone works to better themselves, society also becomes better. On the other hand, when most people let themselves go and become lazy, society also becomes such.

Furthermore, In a world full of stimulations and distractions, just cutting out those distractions and having discipline won’t be enough — if you lack a purpose in life, you will simply fill your time with other distractions, including your jobs. Take those things away, and you’ll be miserable.

Religion, morality, purpose, and meaning need to be more popular. I’m not saying we should go back to a time when strict social rules and roles were in place enforced by religion. Religions can also be abused and weaponized for selfish purposes if morality is lacking — it is not the solution.

However, the pendulum has swung too far, and as history has proven many times, humans are short-sighted and it may take some pretty dark times for people to wake up and change their ways.