Say, how do you find meaning?

Will I find meaning if I pack a backpack and embark on a six-month journey in India?

Will I find meaning if I volunteer at a homeless shelter?

Maybe if I have children?

And… what does it even look like?

How do you know you’ve found such a thing?

After all, we all know the feeling of losing meaning. This is the feeling of emptiness that expresses itself through the boredom at the end of the day, the same boredom that we blow away with the help of a joint. But although we all know the feeling, not many of us know that boredom was much less boring before the twentieth century.

This is ridiculous if you think about it for a moment… because back then, there was much less to do in free time. There were no smartphones – people would sit on the toilet and read the labels on the back of the air freshener or shampoo to pass the time.

But what we had instead of smartphones were religion, traditions, regular family gatherings, and much less abundance, and all of these shaped our lives in a way that made it easy for us to feel significant because most of what was required of us came in the form of knowledge and not in the form of a question.

Pray, and God will love you – your place in the next world will be assured.

Keep the traditions of your people, and in this, you fulfill the role given to you from birth.

Respect your mother and father, have children, and you will be free from drowning in the sea of possibilities that are open for you today.

But today, the world is changing. There are no longer fixed values. If you want a role that fills you with meaning, it is no longer something you are given from birth but something you will have to invent yourself – and how many options are there to invent such a thing? Well… it’s almost endless! The options change constantly as part of our changing world, and fast!! What you choose today may not be relevant tomorrow.

In the past, signing up to study for a degree was seen as elevating one’s family status; it came with a sense of purpose. And today? Let’s see you complete a master’s degree, and good luck if you even understand what you want to study in this complicated market.

PS – Don’t forget that you also need experience to get hired, so… start investing now, and maybe in 15 years, you will feel significant.

Then comes the end of the day, and we feel like a mouse running through a maze. Every time we turn a corner, new choices pop up. It’s hard for us to feel significant, it’s hard for us to feel satisfaction, and we’re full of the feeling that we’re wasting our lives because we can’t choose one thing and stick with it.

So we shut ourselves off from the outside world and take a break from this puzzle that is so difficult to solve – but then the feeling of emptiness takes hold of us, and the only way we know to get rid of it is to smoke weed.

This is how the addiction to cannabis is related to the feeling of emptiness that awaits us at the end of the day.