How to Uncover Your Reason for Living
A quick guide to discover your passion.
Do you often find yourself having nihilistic thoughts? I mean, as a spec of dust floating around the infinite cosmos, its only natural one would speculate that there is no meaning to life. Well, spoiler alert:
Everyone has their own unique meaning on this spec of dust, they just don’t know how to discover it for themselves. I see many people relying on social media or other people in order to discover their “passion” or their “will”. One must look internally for real, profound answers rather than concentrating on external distractions. In this short article I’m going to teach you how.
This technique is called Socratic Analysis and the method is so easy a toddler could do it — toddlers really are the best at it but we tend to become annoyed when we actually witness it. In order to foster this form of critical thinking, ask yourself “why” repeatedly, even when it seems banal and redundant because you will inevitably get to the root of your motivation (or lack thereof).
I’ll go ahead and demonstrate the method for you, a fresh brain-barf if you will. I’ll be getting to the root of WHY I write, something I’ve never done before:
- Why do I write? Well, to write is to know how to think.
- Why is that? If I can articulate well on paper, I can articulate well in my mind and through speech.
- Why do I want to articulate my thoughts well? So that I can navigate the world well and make connections with other like-minded individuals.
- Why do I want to navigate the world well and connect with educated individuals? So that I can learn more about making real change on our planet, our home.
- Why do I want to make change? Because the planet is dying, our children are losing their attention spans, and the future looks bleak.
- Why does the future look so bleak? Because the threat of losing ourselves and/or the planet doesn’t seem urgent.
- Why doesn’t it seem urgent? Because there is so much uncertainty in the world’s flow of information and especially within the media.
- So am I writing to build a platform and audience for whom I can share my experiences and perspective on the world? Yes, I know that I will become well known and financially capable of helping people heal along with the planet.
Well holy cow, that took me about 10 minutes and now I understand my deep motivations for writing here and now.
It also uncovered that I have a negative view of the way the world is headed, contrary to what I think on the surface level. This is all about delving into your subconscious in order to understand yourself more — to heal on a deeper level. I believe to understand and love one’s self is to realize that one is never truly alone.
To spare you, I decided to dive into that rabbit hole for 10 minutes but depending on how many whys you are willing to dish out, the deeper and more profound your realizations will become. This is a common practice in the field of Law as a Socratic seminar leads to just, airtight, and logical conclusions.
The Method is actually named after famous Greek Philosopher, Socrates. He’s the man who started probing the minds of his students and peers with that simple word. Believe it or not he didn’t probe with the the intent of finding answers — though his questions always led to more questions, he asked why in order to understand more about the world.
Ahh, that’s the work of a philosopher for you. Unlike the modern man, I’m sure his peers were seldom sitting around bored in his presence because this method has led to some of the worlds most amazing discoveries and conversations.
The next time you think why am I doing this or what’s the point, I urge you to try becoming an annoying toddler and repeatedly ponder the ultimate question; why?
