Far Removed

I use social media.  I don't like it, but I use it for work. I share my art, writing, music, and conlanging.  I try to limit my exposure to what other people are saying but I do see.  I see posts from others.  Sometimes they're entertaining so I browse.  It's like lingering in an irradiated zone to look for something pretty. There are simply too many people on social media.  It's baffling, dangerous territory.  I see a lot of news and I ignore it as much as I can.  Signs of what's happening in the world I don't want to live in.  The news is invariably accompanied by commentary.  Whether I agree or disagree with any particular opinion is irrelevant.  Opinions flash and then vanish.  Incidents fade, even tragedy.  Even horror.  But there is a great implicit pressure that I invest in outrage.  I don't have the necessary energy. Many are alarmed, angry, and so passionate.  I can't identify with their passion...

What is the meaning of life?  I can't interpret this question.  I understand that it's abstract.  Its answer, if it has one, is probably abstract, too.  But I don't think it's posed well enough to encourage good thinking about a genuine answer.  It seems to presuppose that there is something that life means.  Furthermore, there is feeling tied up in this question.  That there may be no meaning to life seems to some hopeless.  Is it implicit in the question that any answer must pertain to hope?  I don't myself see the connection between hope and the meaning of life. Where does hope come from?  Honestly I'm not sure what hope definitely is.  I know what it's like to hope for something.  Sometimes I will act to increase my chances of getting what I hope for. But I can act independently of hope. Even when it's not realistic to hope for a particular thing I can hope for something else.  And I can hope for something without ...

What does it mean to be human?  This has been asked before.  I don't know how to think about the question.  But I think about it anyway. If there is something that it means to be human, is it in my life?  I look into my life to find it.  I am influenced by others.  But I want to see what I am, if anything, beyond that influence.  Beneath what influence has made me, and beneath what I've made myself, am I anything?  I want to be. I want to be free of influence.  To live in the world without touching it and without it touching me.  To have pure and separate experience.  I want this in part because I want to see what I am when I'm not trying to be anything.  The universe is huge.  Almost none of it has anything do with humans.  I want to feel as small as I really am. At school I was bullied by exclusion.  Occasionally a bully would harass me directly.  But that stopped and I became a ghost.  W...