After we accept that there is no god, there never has been, and we have been fed shit all these many years, what is next in our day to day lives? There is no life after death, we get only this life to "make our mark" on the world. We can take the "name carved into a rock" approach. The purpose of life is to flourish, in some form. I have, now what? The obvious answer is sorting and cleaning out the shit out of our minds.
I need to learn how to make friends and care about being around people. That is difficult if I do not care about all the things that are too negative to do in my life. So I sit in front of this computer. Once a week I go work out for an hour or so. Perhaps twice a week I go to the range and shoot arrows for a hour or two. There is considerable time that need to be filled.
Early in my life, I was harassed so much that I avoided people a great deal for the comfort until no people around me became comfortable. One wife is enough. Then I studied to get out of there, and either worked or studied most of the time. Now that I have retired, due to getting to forgetful, what is next?
Religions and similar groups can provide extended social networks where a low social need person, such as I am, can be around people without rejection. They provide a common instrumental purpose. The terminal purpose is life until death. But I cannot stand the religious bullshit, criticize, condemning, comparing and complaining. You do not like it, go do something with your life. That is where I am at, what to do, what to do?
Religions provide philosophies of life, or should that be philosophies for life. Of or for, that is the question. The Christian ideal is acceptance first and why bother fixing the problem, where as modern concepts push fix the problem, and struggle. Organizations like AA and OA (god based) are needed to fix this philosophical problem of those things which have no answers but acceptance. This is different from the Stoic approach of acceptance/ignoring those things beyond our power and addressing those things within our power. It does not address those things which we physically can overcome if we had the will pointed in the right direction, and overcome our actual personal nature, like overeating.
Overeating goes far beyond weight and not knowing what we should not eat. Currently there are no secular overeating programs, the counter part to the population based largely ineffective OA program, but quite effective for those few who truly believe, and who's issues are on of the ones that the OA program addresses. Moral issues, relationship, social/community, and a life plan are addressed in OA, if the person is persistent enough, and meets with success fairly quickly. The "washout" rate in OA is high, that is the one's who come in, do not see the value of the program, and leave never to return.
Perhaps the "Personal Project" for me should be to document what I think the program should be and look into starting a "Secular Overeating Recovery Group". A "Personal Project" is a concept of a project which we do that fills all available time, and becomes more important than eating. The first piece of documentation would be to document the tools, concepts, and the like that I and others have found useful. Ultimately, the final problem I need to address is the lack of things to fill my time with, to avoid boredom, or the realization that after the "wheel of life, the path, virtues, what ever we call it", we have to fine a specific personal project to keep us busy, while we overcome the natural desire to eat. I have concluded that this natural physical desire to eat is just not going away. I will tentatively, call this tentative project "Secular Overeating Recovery Group Handbook 1.0".
But what do I know? This is an attitude that I am willing to change if I see a better way of thinking, of being, that is rational. There are rational appeals and emotional/passions/feelings. Passion appeals have no logic behind them, but work for people who are more passion based than logic based. That is one of the larger problems we have today, along with cultural and religious based thinking that we have picked up from our education. Some of this must go. Change, for the better, aka more logical, can be expected.
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