If an aspect of your creative work isn’t going well, it can be tempting to think it’s solvable. We might see our work as a system, with a set of tools and a process for fixing issues. Or we can even see it as a machine and the same thing applies—there are schematics, processes, and visible steps toward fixing whatever’s not working.

But here in the Gifted Underachievers clubhouse, it’s becoming apparent that we operate in something more complicated than a system or a machine.

We ask: Is it true that rules can be followed and problems “fixed”? Does it serve us?

Not really. Sometimes it leads to analysis paralysis, random ineffectual actions, or even worse, the belief that a malign force is keeping us from achieving what we want to achieve.

As James says, “Agency cannot exist in the presence of nihilism. Nihilism cannot exist in the presence of agency. Yet both are in constant states of existence and pushing against each other within a much larger unknown that is not here to serve or deny us—it is merely here.”

Climb up into the Gifted Underachiever tower of ontology and let’s smoke our philosophical pipes as we puzzle this out. 😀

Questions for Listeners:

* What’s your position on the agency / nihilism front?

* Do you think there’s more to the world than humans can perceive?

* Pat says, “Ease up.” Bad advice, or good?

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For Further Exploration:

The Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy explains Nihilism:

https://iep.utm.edu/nihilism/

Excellent 8-minute video on the universe and Optimistic Nihilism by Kurzgesagt

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