Dive into the current mental health crisis, revealing alarming trends in anxiety, depression, and despair. Explore how this crisis intertwines with broader environmental and political struggles, all rooted in a deeper cultural dilemma known as the Meaning Crisis. The discussion emphasizes the growing disconnection individuals feel from themselves and society. Unpacking insights from ancient philosophers and modern thinkers, the conversation seeks to reclaim valuable resources to foster transformation and healing in our lives.
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insights INSIGHT
The Meaning Crisis
We are in a meaning crisis, marked by increased anxiety, depression, and disconnection.
This crisis is fueled by environmental, political, and cultural problems.
insights INSIGHT
Ocean of Bullshit
Many describe the meaning crisis as an increasing sense of pervasive bullshit.
This 'ocean of bullshit' leads to feelings of drowning and overwhelm.
insights INSIGHT
Deep-Rooted Problems
The meaning crisis stems from deep historical, cultural, and cognitive issues.
These issues require careful and rigorous examination.
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We are in the midst of a mental health crisis. There are increases in anxiety disorders, depression, despair, and suicide rates are going up in North America, parts of Europe, and other parts of the world. This mental health crisis is itself due to and engaged with crises in the environment and the political system, those in turn are enmeshed within a deeper cultural historical crisis that I call "The Meaning Crisis". It's more and more pervasive throughout our lives. And there's a sense of drowning in this old ocean of bullshit. And we have to understand, why is this the case? And what can we do about it?
Today, there is an increase of people feeling very disconnected from themselves, from each other from the world from a viable and foreseeable future. Let's discuss this, let's work on it together, let's rationally reflect on it. Getting out of this problem is going to be tremendously difficult. It's going to require significant transformations in our cognition, our culture, our communities. And in order to move forward in such a difficult manner, we have to reach more deeply into our past to salvage the resources we can for such an amazing challenge. I'll be talking about a lot of people who have spoken in ways that will provide us the resources we need. We'll talk about ancient figures like Socrates, Plato and Aristotle, Jesus of Nazareth, Siddhartha Gautama, the Buddha, but we'll also talk about modern pivotal figures. We'll talk about people like Carl Jung, we'll talk about Nietzsche. We'll talk about Heidegger.
I want to bring all of this together in a coherent and clear fashion, so that together we can discover how to awaken from The Meaning Crisis.
Dr. John Vervaeke