Camus says life hands us no meaning, so we revolt and make our own. Frankl says meaning is found, not invented. The Gita says it lives in your dharma. Three answers to one question.
Buddhist no-self, Vedic ahamkara, Freud's ego and the modern self-narrative all point at the same 'I' — and agree it is something the mind keeps building, not a fixed thing you were born with.
Pain is real and unavoidable. But the 'why me', the replaying, the dread — that we add ourselves. Buddha, Epictetus and Frankl each found the same gap — and the same slim freedom inside it.
We assume a solid 'I' sits behind everything we do. Vedanta, the Buddha, Hume and brain science all looked for it — and found something stranger, and freer.
Epicurus argued that the thing we dread most can never actually touch us: where death is, you are not — and where you are, death is not. A 2,300-year-old argument about fear, not about grief.
The Greeks called it the Lazy Argument: if fate fixes the outcome, why try? The Stoics, the Gita and modern philosophy gave one answer — your effort is one of the things doing the fixing.
The wellness internet says 'kill the ego'. But wanting to be egoless is itself an ego-project — note the 'I'. Across Samkhya, Buddhism and psychology the move is to see through the self, not slay it.
Pop culture turned 'stoic' into a man who feels nothing. The real Stoics fought destructive judgements, not feeling itself — and kept a positive column for joy, goodwill, and caution.
No articles yet — check back shortly.
