#37 - Finding Meaning in Life

Hello Eric,

This episode reminds me of a movie/documentary I recently saw and found cool on Netflix: "The Stutz Method: Building Happiness"; you may have seen it since. At the beginning of the movie, the pyramid is mentioned, which is similar to what is mentioned in the book: 1. Body / 2. People / 3. Yourself. I liked this documentary and it makes me want to read the book co-written by the psychiatrist of the documentary "The Tools Method".

In any case, I recommend seeing the documentary, I find it well done, very affordable and also quite touching, showing the very vulnerability of the psychiatrist himself.

Thanks for your content anyway, it inspires me to think. :)
Cédric

Hello or good evening,

another great episode, your podcast is great so don't stop :), I love to hear you confide in your mike and the interviews are so "stylish".
This episode and its content make me think about a movie (I hesitate between the return of the living dead 3 and Candyman, maybe it's another one of the same kind) in which one of the characters, a very enlightened bum for the fact says "we all have something inside us, the important thing is to manage to get it out" as well as a sentence read in a book "know what you want and do everything to get it". Is this really the recipe for happiness?

This leads, when we think about it, to ask ourselves the question of the determinism of the universe in general and of the destiny of the individuals in particular as you did with Elio, because if we MUST realize our destiny: to be only happy? Would happiness be a kind of "currency" of the universe that we receive without realizing it when we follow OUR own line, that is to say the one that would have been assigned to us, and therefore do we really have the choice? Do we condemn ourselves to a life of misfortune if we don't follow the scenario? To the terrible Hell of religions?

I invite the people who will read this, so I hope Mr. Flag himself, to think about this, is there any moment when you felt depressed, without any desire or motivation, bored trying to do one thing after the other expecting to fall back in the flow to realize that no, it's still not that?
Is this what it feels like to be off track? This could be a good topic for a podcast/debate :).

Hi Eric,
Just thanks for this podcast. I really liked your summary/analysis of this part of the book.
I find it interesting how language has an impact on people's culture and understanding of things. Like the word meaning here which in French loses a lot of "openness" and possibilities, a difference that we find between French and American culture.
The word meaning is not the only one to show how the vocabulary impacts the culture but the purpose of my comment was mainly to thank you and congratulate you for your work.

Looking forward to the next episodes, all the best to you

Fiona

(P.S. Oops comment already posted once but under the wrong episode haha sorry but here it is again under the right one)

Hi Eric!
Very interesting episode - it's cool that you're playing with podcast formats; I really liked that this episode and 35 were based on a book. This was a very deep/meta/dense episode, which pushed me to even more thinking and questioning. I am able to find meaning in my daily actions, in that they all, or most of them, tend to achieve goals: e.g. studying for a degree, etc... However, finding a big life goal, a meaning, ... that's "another story". But the more I think about it, the more I realize that it is enriching to be in this process of questioning, searching and so on, and I almost wonder if this quest is not an end in itself?
To touch on another point, I understand this "paralysis of analysis" that you mention when we have so many choices, and I understand that it is sometimes easier to maintain the status quo - because same here - so I was wondering, how would you go about changing things?

Thanks for your podcast! Keep up the good work!
Marina