C. Thi Nguyen

I talk about Aristotle and this idea that meaningfulness comes in rich, difficult activity.

And then we talk about Kant.

Again, you know, where existentialism comes from.

The idea that meaning comes from whatever you choose, that you are free to choose what's meaningful to you.

And then the same student who hated toot so much was like,

Is there any way, I love Aristotle so much, I love Kant so much, is there any way to synthesize the two of them?

And I was like, yeah.

What you would think if you synthesized the two of them was that meaning in life came from difficult activity that you voluntarily chose yourself.

Is that a theory we have?

And then she screamed, fuck no, from the back of class.

And the rest of class collapsed into laughter because it suits.

Because what suits you is a fusion of Aristotle and Kant slash existentialism.

The meaning of life comes from activities, but they're the activities that suit you and they're the ones you choose.

And I think that's one deep thread under this.

The other deep thread, I think, that you're picking up on is this idea, and I think it winds through a bunch of people, including Nietzsche.

that meaning is so peculiar and localized

that the root to it is going to involve a rich tapping into your, I wouldn't say instinct, feeling, to your sense of like happiness or joy.

So I learned this from Elijah Milgram.

Elijah Milgram is a super interesting philosopher who in turn was super influenced by Mil and Nietzsche.

And Milgram's version of this is to say that the values we have, we don't just figure out in the abstract.