Hi John,

I’ve also asked this question for the last 30 yrs or so. I have concluded a few things. One is that for me it is special to have the experience of being me and observing this life. There is however nothing special about me other than the skills and personality we develope, this makes us feel seperate from other things but for me is just a fun illusion that allows the experience.

The main learning was that trying to gain any meaningful understanding of life through our mind is not possible.  So your questioning will forever be unanswered. Understanding the truth of life, to take a phrase from Alan Watts among others, is like a knife trying to cut itself, it can’t be done. However, I do feel that if u are said knife, if u let go of trying to cut yourself up to see what you are made of and learn what u are, you will then be left with the experience of being the knife. On a shallow level, u can just enjoy being a knife and cutting your way through your experience until your life as a knife ends and u are crushed. Or u can fully embrace just being a knife and no more and maybe touch and feel the essence of what u are beyond the knife, when the knife is crushed, what are u then. Perhaps like a wave that crashes and then discovers it’s part of the ocean. It’s lost the experience of being a wave, and could never have had that experience if it knew it was the ocean also all along. So I suggest letting go of the questioning of life and looking for meaning but use any peaceful moments to just sit with the experience of being you and see where it takes you.

Apologies for making it sound a bit poetic,  all the talk of love, compassion, etc is all very well, but for me, this is just junk food for spiritual tourists.  Sightseeing. The world is not full of love and care, it exists, but equally it’s balanced with death and destruction, there is no need to choose one over another or even care. Just duality, doing its thing and being tied to being ‘loving, nice, compassionate,  is just a choice nothing else. It feels nice as the ego thinks it’s competing well but you are simply a knife selecting what u will and won’t cut. I don’t think either enhance your ability to feel your true essence and too much attention to it will take u away from this further. So I consider myself mostly a lovely person because I’ve not got any child trauma or things that made me nasty, but i don’t feel anger or disappointment if I’m not always full of love and patience, I’m just being me. Too much buddhist text emphasises duality choices when ultimately it’s feeding the ego and reducing your true connection with yourself