Taylor Capito

This video is harrowing.

Humanity’s greatest threat is the impending death of meaning. Once we as a society subscribe and surrender to this

-it’s over.-

Human beings are special, we can *create* meaning. Out of nothing. And so I have hope that we will create new roles for ourselves.

We certainly *can*.

For anyone who has looked into Calhoun’s Universe 25 - we’re in our own “Universe 2025” moment *right now*.

We get to decide where we go from here.

Do we adopt UBI and the narrative from this video - that we are “replaced”? Do we “give up”, as it were? We’re certainly headed that way.

-Or do we reframe?-

Do we *double down* on the things that make humanity special? Do we *create* the new narrative.

Do we surrender to lives that are “boring”, “redundant”, where we “have no purpose” and “do not matter”?

Or do we *create* NEW meaning?

Do we collectively *remember* a way of being - from before technology?

The meaning of being human. Of craft. Of experience with other humans and community.

I choose to *value* those things.

And demonstrate that I value them with intention and allocated time. Where I put my time.

Do we subscribe to be factory produced cookie cutter meaningless people? Do you choose that frame?

Or do we look around us at the value of human beings, human interaction, human creativity and ingenuity. Human time. The most scarce resource there is.

If we look locally at the people around us and the craft produced down the road by that barista who put her scarce resource *time* into perfecting the perfect cup of coffee. Take that in.

Can we choose to spend our most valuable asset *time* in nature with friends. Taking in the trees and the moment. Building community, family - something that grows with investment.

Can we live in this world of automation and embrace what it allows us *not* to have to focus on with our *time*. Because it frees us up for the things that matter: human experience, narrative, creativity, culture, -life-.

Money is a fungible asset. Markets shift. The value of currency is not constant. Time is non-fungible (even if it isn’t linear).

What do you value? Then get out of the hamster wheel you’re in. Forget about being obsoletified by AI. And go live.

Find what people who spend their *time* with you *value your time for*. What is that thing? That your friends say “I love you for this”. Then do it more. As much as you can. That might just be your “thing” in this new age in which we live. That might be your purpose. Refine it like your craft.

And don’t forget that humans are unique. We can control how we perceive things. And we can make a conscious choice every day to focus our perceptions on the positive future.

I have hope that we collectively will come up with a way to value human time more honestly and ways that human experience and outcomes can be directly impacted.

It can be so hard in the moment. So hard. To let go of all the constructs we have built up in our minds and just “be”. And yet, when we can do that, the level of relief we’re able to feel is indescribable. It needs its own word, because truly there isn’t a word that captures that feeling of relief when you remember that you control your thoughts and all you have to do to stop being miserable is to simple not be. To simply focus on the moment, and whatever light there is to appreciate in that moment.

In German, there’s ‘gelassenheit ‘ or “letting-be.” And in Japanaese, there’s ‘satori’. In Sanskrit, there’s ‘santosa,’ and in Chinese, there’s ‘wu-wei.’ The overall concept is prevalent in the East, but it doesn’t have the pain or eureka that precedes it in Western consumer and dopaminergic culture. So I created one. I created a word for this from the most ancestral proto-indo-european language roots and I added that precursor of “suffering as part of the process” as a part of its meaning.

It’s such a special feeling: the relief, joy, and jubilation that comes from that moment when you ‘remember’ that you control your reality through metacognition and where you choose to direct your thoughts, and you also remember that even the forgetting was part of the process to remembering and have a feeling in your belly that makes you want to laugh.

I once wrote something in the that moment that I think describes it best:

I once looked for myself everywhere and in everything. I created stories from illusions of worlds that didn’t exist - just to bring meaning back to my life. And it meant everything. And it was meaningless.

The story only ever held whatever value I assigned to it.

I keep wanting to “change the world” and to do things to improve it.

What I keep forgetting and remembering, again and again and again and again, is that by being me and actively participating, I am changing the world. Like the very, very strange attractor that I am. Even if I can’t always see the changes.

And perhaps I never will.

We can know the end point, and still that does not change that we must participate in the unfolding for it to occur. And so if time is in fact a spiral, then we just exist in ephemeral memories mid-happening.

And yet, still, the realization of this only makes it more important that we live.

For the act of being is what gives the world meaning within each of us.

And it is that collective strive to exist and discover meaning that defines consciousness as I see it.

The forgetting is also what makes the remembering so beautiful.

Because there is this lovely moment in between the forgetting and the remembering - at least for me - where I review my life from outside of myself, as though I were reading a book or watching a movie.

I often think “I’d watch that movie,” and I smile to myself and remember.

Living is awesome.

How do you capture that in a word? The immense feeling of joy, relief, and physical peace plus paradoxical elation of coming back from being lost and remembering that getting lost is the whole point.

Lunawen (LOO-nah-wen): the immense, belly-light joy and peaceful relief of returning from being lost – and remembering that getting lost was the point; the laugh-tinged clarity when you notice you can steer your mind again, and the whole spiral suddenly makes sense.

*full substack linked in thread

If you refuse to accept you have a shadow, you’ll never choose to stand in the light

I think neurodivergent people have a tendency to leave our bodies because we feel so much.

It’s a lot.

I’ve gotten to a place where feeling the pain is so worth it for the joy. I come back into my body. And thank the pain for telling me I *want to be alive*.