Re: CHAT: OT CHAT: Asperger's syndrome

Steg Belsky wrote:

> Well, actually, when i had my nervous breakdown what helped was when the
> person who came over to help me went right to the point of what caused
> it.  But my problem is that i overanalyze myself - like if i want to do
> something, i'll think "maybe i'm just wanting to do that because i have
> some kind of psychological problem" which then becomes "of course i have
> a psychological problem, i'm constantly second-guessing and overanalyzing
> myself!" and then "but what does that say about this urge?" and becomes
> an endless cycle.
Hmm.  I do a lot of second-guessing of myself too.  But my problem is
meaningfulness.  I try to fill up my life with learning and understanding about
everything, to find "was die Welt / im Innersten zusammenhält" (what holds
the world together in the innermost). But it is ultimately futile because, as the
Teacher said (Ecc. 1.1), life is meaningless, empty and absurd. None of all
that learning, nor all that book-buying leaves me ultimately fulfilled.  My problem
is that, like I think all human beings, "meaningfulness" is an abstract ideal
towards which I strive, but that in itself is ill conceived, because abstractions
themselves have no independent ontological existence.  That is to say, these
ideals we run our lives with -- like harmony, justice, kindness -- do not actually
exist in the world.  There are only acts between individuals, the countless minutiae
of existence, which we bind together under general labels which help us to
understand their relationships to one another.  But they are just that:  labels.
So "meaning" is not so much a thing to be strived for, as something to be
constructed, because we can rearrange the way we organize the labels that
help us understand that existence.   For this reason, despite what Boethius
said, there is no consolation as such in philosophy, as consolation is something
that helps us in our emotional troubles;  philosophy is only a guide to the
intellectual understanding of our lives through the analysis of individual things
to one another.  When I seek meaning, I take it in the joy of my friends, family,
and God who love me and care for me, in the instantaneity of personal relationships
-- the walks in the garden, the shared experiences of nature, the discussions of
what makes each other happy -- for these are what ultimately define
our humanity for me.

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Tom Wier <artabanos@...>
ICQ#: 4315704   AIM: trwier
"Cogito ergo sum, sed credo ergo ero."
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