Ben,

Meaning is a reductionist concept. Presumably it’s the signal distilled from the noise. The goal towards which we aspire.

Presumably relativism was dismissed because the shallow presumption of it meaning there is no ultimate, absolute, theistic purpose to life. Yet, as I keep pointing out, theism confuses the ideal with the absolute. Which has been now transferred to scientism and mathematical platonism. That some ultimate truth can be distilled out of the chaos of life.

Meanwhile the absolute is where everything cancels out. The flatline between the ups and downs. The zero between positive and negative. The eye of the cosmic storm at the center of the galaxy. The opposite of the absolute is the infinite. So we do exist somewhere between everything canceling out and everything fading out. The ups and downs of energy radiating toward infinity and the forms manifest coalescing towards the absolute/equilibrium.

Does this have “meaning?” No. Meaning is the problem. Where are we going? Playing harps in the clouds? 72 virgins? Those are ideals, not ultimates.

Without the friction and contrast created by this energy/desire, pushing out, versus the forms/information coalescing in, there is no reality. We ride the ups and downs, not totally avoid them, just some of the more extreme ones. Like enormous financial bubbles built on unsustainable debt.

It is all circular. Time is not linear. Energy goes past to future. Forms go future to past. Consciousness goes past to future. Thoughts and feelings go future to past. We are the light shining through the film, as much as the images and events on it. So trying to find some meaning at the end of the story just totally misses the point. It’s like trying to find meaning in the cake you just ate. It is it’s own meaning, in the moment. We are riding the wave and when we worry where the wave is going, we lose focus and fall.

Though, sometimes, when we don’t like where the wave is going, we find another wave, going another direction.

It’s not so much stoicism, as fluctuating between hedonism and cynicism. The ups and downs are real.