Meaning: Eternalism
Eternalism is the idea that everything has a true and permanent meaning.
Your first kiss? Meant to happen that way.
That car accident? It had a purpose.
That difficult boss? Meant to make you more patient and forgiving
That lucky check in the mail that arrived just in time? The universe is looking out for you.
Every bit of suffering and happiness is meant to be that way and has a purpose in your life.
At first blush this is a beautiful view, but on closer examination it turns sour, even hellish.
The beauty of the view comes in making the hard moments richer and more bearable, the bland moments full of liveliness, and the good moments become sharper triumphs of the things that are right in the world.
But say you have a degenerative disease that slowly causes the myline in your nerves to wear out, causing every nerve in your body to ring with intense pain. That has a purpose! It’s meant to be!
The suffering of millions stuck in poverty? Purposeful!
Your boredom, your suffering, frustrations, weaknesses, all rich with proscribed meaning. Somehow worse: all of your successes, the heights of your life, the loves, the lovers, the loved are not yours. They were writ into the cosmos full of meaning and if you can’t recognize that, shame on you!
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If it’s not obvious above, I think eternalism is rotten through and through. It crushes out the stuff that gives life actual meaning and replaces it with a sickly-sweet malaise of “everything happens for a reason.” Just as you would spit out rotten, vinegary wine, I beg that you spit out eternalism.
Eternalism fundamentally denies the richness of human life, the ambiguity and flow of our stories, the uncertainty that makes hardship and success worth it. It washes out the texture and color of our lives and tries to make us accept a bland black and white where all has been done by design.
In moments of great struggle and sorrow, it’s comforting to hope that there is a purpose behind the suffering. In those moments, absolutely adopt an eternalist stance if it will help you to power through.
But do not commit the error of believing that it is a useful stance for all positions. The poison is in the dose, as they say. Eternalism writ over your whole life makes no life at all. If left unchecked, eternalism steals all agency, all warmth, all magic, all miracles, all joy, all sorrow, all wildness. It’s all just the turning of a mechanical meaning machine.
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An ode to the eternal meaning by an Eternalist, probably.
I thank the gods that they gave each moment meaning
I thank the gods that they made me give thanks to the gods
I thank the gods that the gods gave me meaning in thanking the gods for meaning
A life rich with meaning!
