New direction

Focusing on the meaning crisis affecting society

I started seeing a clinical psychologist in 2021 for my anxiety, depression, difficulties forming romantic relationships and my difficulties falling asleep. It’s difficult to articulate what a profoundly transformative experience therapy was for me. The work was incredibly difficult and at times risky. But it has completely changed the texture of my life for the better, proportional to the work I put in.

I’ve realized that psychotherapy (or at least my experience of it) is closer to “field medicine”, as opposed to “wellness” or “longevity”. That is, the therapist is not allowed to prescribe the goal of the client’s therapeutic journey. A necessary condition seems to be that the client has clearly identified a problem, and wants a therapist's help to either further specify the problem or to solve it. This sort of “field medicine” is in contrast to the more ambiguous problem of “wellness”, where the client seeks to engage in a series of general habitual behaviors to minimize the suffering in their lives.

However, I suspect that there are many people that are currently experiencing a sense of steady-state existential discontent that they can’t clearly articulate, for whom psychotherapy is helpful but not entirely sufficient. Put it another way - how do you ask for help if you don’t know that you have a problem? Or if you don’t know what the problem is?

The new focus of this substack is on these questions. My goal is to collect and distill resources into a series of exercises and contemplations that fit within a scientific worldview, to help you reduce the suffering in your life and hopefully find more meaning. Make no mistake, this substack is NOT a substitute for therapy. I am not qualified to offer any sort of medical advice. But I hope the content here will give you the tools to improve the day-to-day experience of your life.

I’ll say it again, I’m NOT qualified to offer any medical advice. This substack is NOT a substitute for therapy.

Initially, I’ll go through John Vervaeke’s excellent lecture series on “Awakening from the Meaning Crisis”, and some of the books he recommends. I’ll try to weave this together with what I’m learning in parallel about the nature of intelligence, Buddhism, Christianity and machine learning.