I wrote roughly 40k words for a novel

why do you say so?

not sure you are OP, but i like that way of thinking. i have recently started to appreciate every moment and experience, not caring on its objective importance or "trascendence", but giving it value because it forms part of a collective reality (experience can be shared). i have a problem, tho. even when i consider life to be inherently beautiful, it doesnt really makes me wanna live it. with the years i have come to realize that i feel more comfortable getting to know the world through art, and not by a direct contact, and that i think has marginalized a lot what i can write or even feel.

Jesus, no ... unless you abstract stuff enough to construct some sort of "this meaningless thing/action made me feel nice, so it had a meaning". The world is beautiful the way it is, meaning feels like adding bloat to it. And I don't get why so many people care about it as much beyond coping with chance and lack of direction.

Not yet, they need to be edited first. After that I will probably look into publishing them, though I don't really know how to go about it either.

Sorry, was meant for you. I accidentally responded to myself instead

I understand that perspective and you could be right, my only reasons for believing in it are subjective experiences, so there is not much point in my stressing the point. Many people do have this need for meaning though, they don't see it how you do, because they also have that subjective experience.

It isn't about beauty or feeling nice, both of which can exist entirely without meaning, it's a different experience.

>Many people do have this need for meaning though
Yeah, definitely, saying a vast majority does would probably be an understatement … which is a bit discouraging from the POV of a writer when you don't share the view but still feel compelled to pander to it unless you want to risk annoying most readers.

Yes, I did the very same. Congratulations user. You're one of us now. If you don't go on to be a successful novelist at least you can say in earnest you were once a failed one.

You really don't have that experience at all, of meaning being this otherwordly transcendent thing, linked to religion for many, to secular philosophy for others, to just human experience for another portion of people? You dont get that sense of ineffable wonder from art, love, the grandeur of nature, the imponderable course of history, the existence of this entire universe in all its creation?

You can obviously still write things of value and connect with people, but it is just so central to the human experience that I almost don't believe you don't have it all. Forgive my presumption but it seems like maybe you have either defined it differently or repressed it within you. If not then I don't know, but Im sure your art could still have value for many people regardless. my entire concept of art is centred around meaning, but were I to take your view of things, then your craft, your attention to beauty, to the things we don't notice mostly about life, the skill of your language, etc. all these could still make people appreciate your work, so that isn't a reason to not write, just because you disagree with the majority. It may be only a difference of definition or of mindset, that can be overcome by the similarities between us, misunderstood or unseen, but still felt in art.

>You really don't have that experience at all, of meaning being this otherwordly transcendent thing
Zero. Not even a hint. I like the idea, but purely on distant speculation level without taking it too seriously. Hell, I even love the more mushy ideas like basically anything Bishop Myriel says about God, it's lovely and heartwarming but not something I can take seriously.

>sense of ineffable wonder from art, love, the grandeur of nature
Knowing how the sausage is made and having a rough idea of how our brains respond to certain stimuli kills the ineffable part for me. Besides, neither needs any meaning to evoke awe and the likes for me. I can zone out while listening to Beethoven's sonatas or watching the clouds just fine without seeing any other meaning in the stuff.

>the imponderable course of history, the existence of this entire universe in all its creation
The complexity and scale alone make these awesome.

>Forgive my presumption but it seems like maybe you have either defined it differently or repressed it within you.
Hey, I kinda hope it's the case too. Feels a bit disconnected not to feel or see any meaning when it appears that almost everyone does. Mostly banking on the former but who knows, the idea just feels very tacked on when everything is amazing already before you add any meaning.

>so that isn't a reason to not write, just because you disagree with the majority
Hey, the only reason not to write is not being physically able to. The reception sounds like the tricky part, I can't think of a popular work which didn't at least touch the topic in an affirmative way, as you noted it seems central to human experience – answering such an universal question with "why would you even ask" won't lead to too many positive reactions. And even on a smaller level with plot developments, wanting to subvert causation feels like walking on a tightrope, when people have the innate need for things to make sense and the expectation that decisions will make a difference. Going against it in a work meant for the mainstream ... well, at least I'll have another excuse why agents won't respond.

>the idea just feels very tacked on when everything is amazing already before you add any meaning.
It is it's own entire experience, like you know how red and blue are different subjective experiences, meaning is a different experience from awe or recgonition of beauty or whatever, it is a specific thing you have in you awareness, related for me to those things I listed as examples in the previous post. It isn't just any of them, it seems like a different 'level', like some thing emanating out from their combination in specific instances, and creating a feeling that has to united unvirsally with what else is of it.

I understand that's not a real argument, it could just be delusion, or it could be a random quirk of mind given to us by evolution that you don't share, or it could be again just something you have given different names than we do, but I have to emphasize that it is subjectively entirely distinct from other experiences, I brought up the contrast between colours because i think everyone can get that, but it''s more like the difference between sight and sound, they are just different senses.

The special thing about meaning though is that it's an experience you can't point toward, it isn't just thing that is directly involved in all concsious existence we can all agree on, it's more like something many of us feel being there, arising from certain circumstances, again love, art, the contemplation of the natural world and its workings, are usual conduits for it, but it also comes about in random moments that just infuse our existence with this incredible importance, making like symbols out of things appearing to us, hinting at this grander order than what science, in its admittedly impressive work on what we can say about reality, can let us know.

Obviously I cannot say for you specifically user, maybe this falls on deaf ears, and maybe the experience is nothing but yet another neurotransmitter pattern in the human brain, yet to be made fully sense of by neuroscience, consciousness just accompanying its mute unfolding. It is possible, this I see, but the experience does exist, and I think it has value, because it influences the way you act in this incredibly way, it just changes everything when you are in it, which you cannot be all the time, for reasons obscure to me.

In any case I think it's always valuable to present the opposite understanding of an perspective. I do it with no animosity, I know I could be flailing about here in delusive desire for something I have just associated with what is positive in my life.

I would ask you, if you don't believe in any metaphysical concept like that, what do you believe in, is it a materialist understanding of reality, or just a more modern philosophy that has its more expansive ontology but doesn't admit of the somewhat maligned by modernity concept of objective meaning?

> it is a specific thing you have in you awareness, related for me to those things I listed as examples in the previous post.
Well, damn, seems I'm even further away from experiencing it than expected. And at least based on your description, I'm pretty sure it's not even a lack of name for it. Feels like reading about visual snow and learning that it's actually a rare condition or finding out that not all people have internal monologues.

>I think it's always valuable to present the opposite understanding of an perspective.
Definitely, and I really do appreciate yours. It's surprisingly hard to get a more in depth perspective about stuff most perceive as ubiquitous, and getting it from a fellow writer adds insight and details I rarely get from friends or religious people talking about their experiences. Usually feel like the guy who asks to describe a colour.

>what do you believe in, is it a materialist understanding of reality
I'd even go a batch of fedoras further to full physicalism, while obviously leaving room open due our very limited knowledge ... and while being in love with a lot ideas from idealism and romanticism without believing in them.