Episode 21: Is meaning overrated?
In 2021, 38.9% of respondents to the census declared themselves to be “no religion” in Australia. That was almost 10 million people. You might also have heard about “the meaning crisis” Some secular thinkers like John Vervaeke have been exploring the void of anxiety and emptiness since around 2017. Many thinkers in this “meaning crisis” movement have explored Eastern religions and other philosophies to find a way to quench that thirst for meaning.
But what if there was another way to think about meaning? What if meaning was just overrated? Do we ascribe meaning to things we don’t need to? Is there a surplus rather than a deficit of meaning? To explore this question, we reached out to Wendy Syfret, author of “The Sunny Nihilist: how a meaningless life can make you truly happy”. She has some interesting ideas that we can all benefit from, regardless of whether we are religious or of 'no religion'.
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