Set Your Alarm Clock - Job Hunting Tips on WPR Monday Morning -

Set Your Alarm Clock - Job Hunting Tips on WPR Monday Morning - Im excited to announce that Ill be a guest on Joy Cardins radio program on Wisconsin Public Radio this Monday, January 5th from 6-7 a.m. Central/7-8 a.m. Eastern. The show airs on the Ideas Network of Wisconsin Public Radio and is broadcast across Wisconsin and parts of neighboring states. It is also live streamed on www.wpr.org, and will be archived there later in the morning. Topic: General job hunting tips. Well cover pretty much everything, including what makes a good resume and cover letter, the importance of having your feelers out, sources to look for work, interview etiquette, etc. Youll have an opportunity to call in with questions by using the toll-free call-in number: 1-800-642-1234 (Madison listeners please use 263-1890). You can also email questions to talk@wpr.org Id love to hear from some of my blog readers! I hope youll listen live or check out the archive after the show! - Dont forget that we are here to help you with your goals! If youve decided on a change, Keppie Careers can help you identify and communicate your skills. We can write your resume and coach you to a new job. Contact me! Im offering a free teleseminar with coach Carolann Jacobs to help you dive into your job hunt. Click HERE for more information!

Find Out Whos Concerned About Current Resume Writing Trends in 2017 and Why You Should Listen to Them

Find Out Who's Concerned About Current Resume Writing Trends in 2017 and Why You Should Listen to Them If You Read Nothing Else Today, Read This Report on Current Resume Writing Trends in 2017 For instance, within self-help, subcategory hypnosis'' there are a few 843 results with the very best sellers on the first couple of pages. Your email address won't be published. All the data in your resume ought to be broken up into special section, according to some rules. Usually a resume shouldn't have two or more pages, since if it's very long it's inclined to be discarded quickly. To begin with, you get an original perspective on your employment potential. Additional Tips Even in the event that you've been with your present employer for quite a long time, bear in mind that the individual evaluating your resume might not be acquainted with you or your achievements. Your purpose should be to make equally as professional an impression on your present employer as you would in the eve nt you were applying for a new job outside your organization. If you are looking for a professional service to help in your career pursuits, we provide numerous advantages. Optimize your resume for an ATS Gone are the times when jobseekers could be certain that a human being would review work application. If you wish to offer your candidacy as expensive as possible, you have to adhere to the latest resume 2020 trends. The most recent trends demonstrate that recruiters like to see and meet individuals who are result oriented. There is a possibility that adding colour into your resume will help you distinguish yourself from the crowd. It is possible to help save yourself all the pang of writing a world class resume that is likely to land you the job you've always desired. A resume is the basic and essential issue to get if you're planning for any sort of job application. If you wish to receive a job, a really great job, you will need to bring some effort to compose an outstanding resume. Current Resume Writing Trends in 2017: the Ultimate Convenience! The rising millennial workforce is just one of the most popular topics when thinking about the m odern workplace. Our services are provided based on the requirements of our clientele. There is an abundance of options so far as Resume writing services in India are concerned, it is wise to do an appropriate check before deciding upon the most suitable service provider with good experience. Health care policy whether it's created through governmental actions, institutional decision making, or organizational standards creates a framework that may facilitate or impede the delivery of medical care services or the capability of the provider to take part in practice to handle healthcare requirements, the AACN explained.

Writing a Resume with No Job Experience Reviews & Tips

Writing a Resume with No Job Experience Reviews & Tips Odds are you might wind up not including some critical locations and including different folks that aren't that necessary. Then you might wind up not including some critical regions and such as others which aren't that required. There are many locations on the net at which you might get at no price. There are quite a lot of places online where one can get at no price tag. Even if one isn't required, it's generally an excellent idea to send a brief cover letter together with your resume. So manage the rest of the paper in a similar fashion and you'll certainly acquire additional attention. While the functional resume format may be an attractive solution for job seekers with very little experience, most employers would rather have a chronological or hybrid resume format. Whatever resume format you opt to use, be confident your format remains consistent throughout the document. What You Don't Know About Writing a Resu me with No Job Experience Include herein the degree you've just earned, academic achievements you might have had, stellar internships, together with recognitions for the skills you have. Now you need to know how to compose a resume with no experience that's compelling and distinctive, ideal for a high school resume or a beginner's resume for teens. You would just like to keep the peak of your resume a spot for only the most significant info. Choice of the most suitable style depends upon your experience and the kind of job applied for. Where to Find Writing a Resume with No Job Experience You can also locate different references for the Resume Writing your need here. Guarantee that the grammar is accurate. Life, Death and Writing a Resume with No Job Experience Resume writing is the main part of career planning. There are lots of resources available on how to a great resume summary, but it's tough to find decent tips on how to do it if don't have any work experience. You m ention your work experience at the conclusion of the resume, in an easy way, without a lot of emphasis on every position you held. Before you give up, however, know that's not necessarily the close of the story. The Writing a Resume with No Job Experience Trap A scarcity of job experience doesn't indicate too little work experience. Consider taking some on-line courses from EdXUdemyor Courseraparticularly ones related to the job which you are trying to obtain. Learning how to do a resume when don't have any work experience is a lot simpler if you resume show some help or short-term work experience. Learning how to do a resume when do not have any work experience is a lot easier if you may demonstrate some seasonal or short-term work experience. Finding the Best Writing a Resume with No Job Experience Employers search for staff that have a history of creating positive contributions. Now you're networking and building contacts in the business! Developing your resume is vi tal. For managers, it's advantageous to acquire a specialist style because it will give an exceptional effect to any possible organisations. Work aspirants need to look out for a resume template instead of a courses vitae template. In addition, it provides you a design of the resume which could be utilized to help to make your personal.

Using Twitter to Find Your Next Job - Your Career Intel

Using Twitter to Find Yur Next Job - Your Career IntelHave an opinion about who will win the Superbowl? Put it on Facebook Whats for lunch? Instagram it Social media touches every aspect of our lives today. Professionally, if LinkedIn is the only career social media tool youre using, its time to reconsider Im a big fan of using Twitter to find your next job.The fact is, companies worldwide have clued in to sharing open positions via Twitter. Typically they will have a link to a more descriptive job description elsewhere, but the title and hook will be in the tweet. I have placed several candidates who initially clicked on a job link I first shared on Twitter.Below are 7 tips I like to share with my clients on using Twitter for job search purposes1. Ensure your profile is updated, with a current, professional picture. Include a link to your resume and/or LinkedIn profile in your bio.2. Download Twitter on your smartphone so that you can access your account anytime. This is useful duri ng networking events where you can follow someone you just made a personal connection with.3. If you use Twitter for personal use, its best to create a separate account specifically for business. kompetenzprofil employers can see your previous Tweets and may not be impressed if youre Tweeting about whether or not Justin Bieber and Selena Gomez are back together4. Follow leaders and influencers in your specific industry. Not just people but even companies that you are interested in.5. Ask intelligent questions within your network and share relevant articles that will benefit your network and create a positive and professional profile for yourself. Follow trends and/or hashtags within your industry and chime in on conversations.6. Actively search for jobs in your area using the search tool. You can view and apply for jobs directly through your Twitter account.7. Download the free app TweetDeck to have all of your Twitter accounts in one interface. It can also help you categorize the p eople you follow. Have you used Twitter for job searches? Share your experiences and best practices in the comments below

7 Genius Ways to Fund Your Creative Side Hustle

7 Genius Ways to Fund Your Creative Side Hustle You have the ideas, you have the motivationbut the money isnt all there yet. Fortunately, there are plenty ofSince there are many platforms out there, youve got to know which ones are right for you (luckily, we haveKickstarter (about 13 millions monthly views) andIndiegogo (about 9 million monthly views), both offer similar services and charge fees of 5% and 4% respectively on the money youve raised if you reach your goal.Paypal or credit card processing fees are between 3% to 5%. If you are hoping to reach an international audience, however, Indiegogo offers more flexibility in payment options compared to Kickstarter. And, most importantly, withIndiegogoyou can totentotenstill use the partial funds raised, even if you dont fulfill your fundraising goal by the expiration date.Then theres the more recent platformPatreon, which takes a 5% fee (plus payment processing fees) for its unique subscription service that allows fans of your work to donate per month or per creation. This is great for sharing with the social network you already have in place.2. Creative Entrepreneur GrantsAcross the country, various arts councils are catching onto the growth ofCity of Chicagos Individual Artist Program offers up to $2,500 under its Professional Development track, with the goal of supporting professional artists and creative entrepreneurs to develop or deepen artistic, administrative or organizational skills to become more competitive in the creative marketplace, according to the website.In June,Colorado Creative Industries, the states arts agency, awarded 12 grants totaling over $22,500 to support self-employed creative entrepreneurs.TheCreative Economic Development Fund in gemma Angeles will offer $100,000 in grants to those, including self-employed artists, whose work will make a positive economic development impact in the city.You can checkhere for arts councils at the state and regional level,here for national level art c ouncils and privateartsfoundations in the US, andhere for arts councils all over the world.To apply for any of these grants, youll need to figure outhow to correctly and convincingly fill out the grant application forms. The Ohio Arts Council offers more advice for successful grant-writinghere.And dont forget to find out if your grant is considered taxable, although the grant giver may provide you with that information and can direct you to the appropriate tax forms.3. Small Business MicroloansEveryone lovesborrowed money is also a feasible option to help get you going in your creative venture.Unless youre a startup offering equity, you probably wont need to seek out venture capital money to fund your business. You could hit up a family member or friend for a small loan, but that could potentially land you in an awkward situation.For a small-scale creative business, a microloan may be a more fitting solution if you are seeking a limited amount of funding. Microloans can be anywhere from $500 to $50,000and you dont need a perfect credit score. However, keep in mind that the interest rate may be a bit higher on microloans compared to larger loans, and there may be extra fees involved. The Small Business Association (SBA) offers amicroloan program, as do private lenders likeAccion andCAN Capital.Especially when you are starting out, a loan, even amicro loan, isnt something to take lightly. Be sure to carefully read the details of the loan program and ask plenty of questions before you start an application with any lenders. The Denver geschftszimmer of Economic Development offers a helpful10-step approach to setting up and financing your small business.Grants and loans arent the only way to fund your creative business. Initially, you may have to rely on your own financial resources. Youre a creative person, so its time to get creative about how you can uncover hidden cash in the different facets of your life4. Downsizing Your LifeIts not a new idea, butminimizing your lifestylecan truly open up more mind space for your art to flourish and free up some major cash that you can invest back into your business.If you arent ready for dramatic changes like cutting up your credit cards, getting roommates, moving into a smaller home (a tiny home perhaps?) or ditching your car for a bike, you still have plenty of money-saving options.You can de-clutter your home and sell off items you no longer need on sites likeEbayor Craigslist, disconnect your cable service and use Netflix (or watch nothing and spend that time on your growing your business), borrow library books instead of buying them on Amazon, enjoy meals (straight fromyour own garden) and drinks with friends at home instead of going out and use cleverapps to help you save money in every aspect of your life.5. Part-Time Gigs on the SideAlthough it may not be your ideal scenario, working a side job on top of your full-time job or business could give you that much-needed financial security in the e arly stages of your creative business. Some creative entrepreneurs like to pick up part-time jobs or gigs within their industry as a way of getting in extra practice, learning new skills and even connecting with potential clients. Plus, its aperfectway to pick-up extra income. Need a pro tip? Develop an extraordinary web presence with6. BarteringDont have the cash to buy new chairs and desks in your photography studio? There might be someone in your community (a furniture shop owner, a furniture maker, a business owner getting rid of used office furniture) who has just what you need and is interested in your photography services to help them promote their own business. Go forth and make a trade and offer up what you know best Dont be afraid to ask around in your business community. After all, which business owner isnt interested in saving money?7. Ask for DonationsIf you have a professional blog or website with a decent amount of followers, put in the time to write a few posts about the process of setting up your business, and then add a donation button to your site.To help attract more attention to your site, you can try a few, youve got to figure out how to set yourself up in a way that will connect you with those people who are just waiting to throw money at you and your art (obviously).Its true that there is a lot of competition for funding out there, and the process of applying for grants and loans isnt always simple. But the most important thing to remember is that there are always more ways to scrounge up some cash than you thinkThose same creative powers and that This article originally appeared on CreativeLive.

Graduate Students Make the Most of Career Services

Graduate Students Make the Most of Career Services Graduate school is an investment with a high return. It can pay off in careeradvancement, increased earnings, or even the opportunity to change careers entirely.However, to really attain these goals, students must take advantage of all the resources their schools have to offer especially the career services office. The professionals that work in career services are there to help students edit their resumes, practice for interviews, network with alumni, and connect with employers.However, these career services employees are often busy because they support students from all over the school. So, you may need a little help getting the fruchtwein out of your schools career services office. Thats why Id like to offer a few tips to help you do just that1. Compile Your AccomplishmentsYouve been working hard over the past few years, and it may be difficult to remember all that youve accomplished. Review your transcripts, internship evaluations, and course syllabi to identify notable presentations, research projects, or programs you participated in.Once you have a list of accomplishments and experiences, a career services professional can help you condense the list into a series of attention-grabbing bullet points for your resume. Thats the first step in crafting your professional identity.2. Update Your Resume and Cover LetterMany career services offices providesample materials on their websites, and you can use these samples as guides to help you update your resume and/or writea cover letter. Add your most recent internship or job experiences to your resume, make sure your bullets are aligned, and ensure that all dates are correct. Career specialists can then spend more time critiquing the context of your materials instead of making minor formatting adjustments.If you have a specific position in mind, take a copy of the job description to your appointment so the career specialist can help youtarget yourresume toward that position.3. Practice Your Interviewing SkillsSchedule mock interviews and take them seriously. The more you practice the entire interview experience, the more natural it will feel. Wear professional attire to your appointment and ask the career specialist to record the interview. Youll receive feedback on both the content of your interview and your professional appearance. Reviewing the recording of the interviewwill help you determine your strengths and identify areas you can improve upon.4. Attend Career EventsTake advantage of career fairs, alumni panels, and other career-related events offered by the career services office. As a student, you have access to resources that professionalsin the job market dont. Attending these events will help you understand what employers are looking for, and youll get the chance to explore new fieldsand industries that you may have never considered before.5. Stay in spurStay in touch after you graduate. Many c areer services offices offer a certain number of career appointments to alumni. Look into whether or not your schools career services office extends this option,and take advantage of the services if it does.The office may also facilitate networking opportunities between alumni and students, so be sure to share your contact information and let the career specialists know youd like to participate in any networking opportunities that arise.Very few students whether undergrads or graduates take full advantage of their schools career services offices. Thats unfortunate, because theres really no resource quite like a career services department.Dont leave school without getting the most from your career services department. It could be the difference between a rocky start to your career and an exciting leap into a brand new world.

Here is a story about the way everything works

Here is a story about the way everything worksHere is a story about the way everything worksScene one I dont believe in God, I think to myself, comparing It to the sum of the ten digits I have finished colliding in my head. Numbers make sense to me. God doesnt make any sense. Im sitting in the welcheshroom as I do this, trying to piece together the things going on in my life, many of which dont seem fair. I have seen a lot in a short period. I have lived through a lot in a short period. Im not very old. In fact, Im young enough to be losing the kind of innocence that I dont even realize I have.Thought one Reading is an interactive activity. To get the fruchtwein out of something, parteicularly non-fiction, you have to go into the mind of the writer and try to replicate their thinking patterns in yur own mind. The words on the page themselves are secondary. Its the dance they create that matters - the context in which they are meant to be understood. It means that words cant be looke d at as static they have to be dynamic. Reading the King James Bible, for example, makes no sense if you are going to read it like you would, say, Charles Darwins On the Origin of Species.Scene two Its spring, and the sun is mellow but bright, the wind light on the skin, the grass greener than yesterday. We are walking to class after ur first break, and my friends are laughing with me. Everything is as it should be, but I feel a pang of guilt. I saw the look on that kids face before we left, and I know that we alfruchtwein made him cry. We have been laughing at him for the past few days. But hes annoying, and sometimes Im nice to him, and he knows that I dont really mean it. What does it matter anyway?Thought two Writing is a generative activity. Words have their limitations in reflecting reality, but there are times when what comes out on the page is a mora complete representation of yur thinking patterns than the patterns you are consciously aware of. Much of what we consume or un derstand concerning ur actions in the world gets stored beneath the surface, but it still influences how we go about life in meaningful ways. This is stuff that we dont know how to talk about because its not stuff that can be talked about. Writing momentarily changes that. When you are in that state of flow, you have access to corners of the mind that are otherwise shut.Scene three Its 1 PM. Im mildly bothered that I am awake because my day usually starts an hur or two later. But I guess I dont actually mind, because at this point in my life, I dont mind most things. I get out of bed, walk to the fridge, and grab a bottle of Lucky Lager. Its what you drink as a student. Its what I - waking up feeling like I have a hole in my brain - drink as a student. I dont know that cocaine is physically doing that to me yet, but Im becoming mora and more intimate with the feeling. A beer helps. A workout, too. Lectures dont. At night, the bar does.Thought three Earlier this year, John Nerst wr ote 30 Fundamentals to talk about his personal beliefs and assumptions. I learned a lot because it gave me exactly the context needed to make sense of his other pieces. It also verbalized many things that I also understand about the world but had never thought to put into words. My writing is still young. In fact, Im still young. Both it and I are evolving, and Im not sure where its all leading. That said, there are now general premises behind what I write, and I think its good for readers to know what they are and also for me to give things a concrete fasson as a way to understand whats going on.Scene four There is a message on my phone. Its the first time I see her name after our post-breakup conversation. I remember it being friendly and secure. It was also sad. Did you hear that a mutual acquaintance passed away, the message reads. I did. And I feel like I should care, that I want to care - to show some kind of emotion. But it has already happened, and its not like my caring is going to change anything. Yeah is all I say. Its the last time we speak.Thought four Like Johns piece, this one started off in a list format, but I soon realized that I have way too many thoughts going in way too many directions and a list wouldnt adequately capture everything in the way I would want it to. This format, naturally, still doesnt capture everything, but it does fill in most of the gaps, and it does make it more interesting for me personally. Its also maybe more helpful to someone who is having similar thoughts but hasnt had the time to give form to them. In the sections ahead, I touch on everything from the big questions of reality and truth to the more immediate ones concerning purpose, meaning, and seelenlageity, all as I try to uncover the relationship between history, culture, the present moment, problems and solutions, and where we are going in the future. Different parts will interest different people, but I think if you take the time to read each section, it st arts to fall into distributions-mix in a way thats at least interesting.Scene five I wake up in the middle of the night and notice tears in my eyes. This is new - different. Im not sure what to think. I know that Im not depressed not anxious I dont even think Im lonely. But whats left? I cant put my finger on it. It feels like the whole Universe is silent - that its right here, everywhere, inside of me, outside of me, and that it has nothing to say to me, nothing to ask of me. I sit with it. I watch it. This silence has been growing for years I suddenly realize, and until now, I have just done a good job of either distracting myself or intellectualizing it away. I know that this cant be the truth. I decide its time for a change.Thought five This is not a theory, or an ideology, or anything of the sort. Its a story - from one personal, fallible point of view. Naturally, given that its a story and that it reaches across so many disciplines, I make compromises. Wherever I have used and referenced someone elses work in a way that doesnt make sense, the fault is most likely my own. Wherever you feel a hint of originality sparkling through, the inspiration is likely someone that I have either forgot to mention, or whose influence I didnt realize, or whose name I didnt reference for some other reason. Any effort like this is always going to fall short. Im fine with that. Lets see where it takes us.I. Reality and TruthI think, therefore I am, Rene Descartes famously wrote, uncovering the fertile ground for his philosophy. My own starting point? Something is.Before I go on, I will say this For most of my life, I have been a scientific materialist - as in, what most atheists implicitly are (Im still an atheist, too). Im willing to concede that it may still be likely, but the more I think about it, the less appealing it seems. Im making this clear before I dive in because some of the following might sound superstitious unless youre familiar with metaphysical and onto logical claims in philosophy.So What is this something? Different people call it different things, but its the only objective thing that exists Consciousness. While we can think of it as objective, it is only ever experienced as change, and it cant be pinned down in language without distorting it. That said, I roughly like Process philosophy, as per Alfred North Whitehead, and some Continental philosophy.(Im skipping a lot of steps here, going from suggesting that Something is to actually answering that question, but Im aiming more for clarity than a show of pure reasoning. I know that I cant do philosophical logic even the slightest bit of justice here, hence the curiosity is to make interesting connections rather than to build a complete framework.)Consciousness is mathematically infinite (or Absolute Infinity as defined by the mathematician Georg Cantor), and its also what we think of as the void. Around 13.799 billion years ago, a state which we call the singularity sparked this void, giving birth to the Universe, including space and time, energy and matter, and the laws of physics as we know them. As space began to expand after this event - called the Big Bang - atoms formed from elementary particles, stars and galaxies emerged, and at some point, planets - among them Earth - came to be. This is all basic physics and chemistry. As we fast forward to Earth, we see biological evolution begin to work its magic, giving us the diversity we observe in the biosphere.Ive created a nice distinction here between Consciousness and the Universe, but in actuality, they are tangled with one another two sides of the same coin. This is why, I suspect, that the theory of relativity and quantum mechanics diverge away from each other in strange ways. In Buddhism, the concepts of Form, Emptiness, and Non-Duality are used, which is essentially where I stand, but they are even harder to talk about.The main point is that I dont think Consciousness is a product of evolution. I think that Consciousness is primary. Evolution simply organizes physical matter in such a way as to create a body (what we call life) - with specific abilities, adapted to specific ecologies - that provides an opportunity for this elementary Consciousness to observe itself as a part of the Universe. As such, other animals are conscious, too, but in a different way because they have different bopassivs. Here Im on board with much of Riccardo Manzottis Spread Mind theory (as wild as it is).Although Consciousness is objective and non-dual - a kind of oneness - the fact that we all have different bodies through which this Consciousness manifests for us, we experience the world relatively. We all collect fragments of different spaces, smells, tastes, sounds, and sights, and over time, they all come together to create our individual, subjective self, something that highlights the separation between our body and everything else, which Ill talk more about in the next section.As for s cience, it allows us to create knowledge, but this knowledge isnt about truth its about utility - about what works, with some degree of certainty, under particular conditions. (This is my epistemological position in general, applied to other avenues of knowledge, too.) Truth itself, or Consciousness, is infinite and cant be measured by science, but the utility science provides will slowly reach towards this truth. We will infinitely keep getting closer but never quite get there, as per the beginning of infinity hypothesis of David Deutsch. As far as the philosophy of science goes, I think Karl Poppers falsifiability and Thomas Kuhns paradigms can complement each other.Now, due to the fact that the truth is infinite and that no linguistic or mathematical framework can fully capture it, contradictions will always be inherent in our understanding of reality, as assumed by Gdels Incompleteness Theorem. Because we cant capture the whole truth when talking about it, there is no ultimate foundation that we can build a map of reality on, and thus everything is bound by context. In one context, one thing is right. In another, something else is. That said, some forms of scientific knowledge, especially in physics, are sturdy enough to be right in pretty much all contexts - meaning different truths have a different reach, and the reach of physics is currently the gold standard.There is a crucial point to be made here Just because truth is contextual (kusined on utility) and because subjectivity makes our individual and collective experience relative, it doesnt mean that one thing cant be truer than another thing when they come into conflict. We can think of each context as a smaller part of a whole, and each one has a particular truth that makes the most sense based on how well it fits with the situation. When two different contexts (parts) come into conflict, we have to merge them (into a whole) and then evaluate what is most true relative to this new context, and thi s can go on and go on towards infinity.At some point in the future, the scientific method will have to evolve if it is to effectively study utility beyond just the world of matter. We will need a better version of science to effectively study Consciousness itself. Buddhism has been doing this through meditation for millennia, and Continental philosophy has started to do this via language. I suspect they will both merge in an interesting way for us to take the next step, and I also suspect that more complex forms of art will play a role in understanding the objective in the future. As the poetJohn Keats said Beauty is truth, truth beauty.II. Personality and SelfIn the second part of the Genesis creation narrative, God supposedly created Adam, the first man, out of dust and then Eve, the first woman, as his companion, both to live in the mythical Garden of Eden. After their original sin, however, they were banished from this Garden, which catalyzed the creation of human civilization o n Earth as we know it today.Im sympathetic to the literary and moral value of this story, but I personally trust that evolution has greater explanatory power. Just as the Second Law of Thermodynamics (stating that the total entropy, or disorder, in the Universe will increase over time) is inherent to reality, so is evolution, which has been in motion since the Big Bang.On Earth, approximately 4 billion years ago, biological life emerged due to this process. What makes biological systems different is that they use energy in such an efficient way as to create order, even though the Universe around them is decaying due to the Second Law. There are good arguments that evolution is a fight against this decay. Now, does evolution have a purpose or is it completely random? I personally lean towards randomness, where evolution creates variation and then selects traits based on how well they fit the environment, blindly going on. That said - and young me would have hated to even ponder this - I dont think its insane to consider that theres something else going on at a larger scale of emergence.Nonetheless, humans are just one species in a long line of progredienz. With time, living systems have gotten more complex as to adapt themselves for survival in different ecologies. The biodiversity that we see on Earth is a result of different evolutionary pressures forcing the selection of different traits in species. Humans have different bodies than, say, lions, because over millions and millions of years, our living situations and our demands have diverged, leading to different needs and uses.Each body, whether its that of a human or a lion, provides an opportunity for Consciousness to be experienced, but the actual experience, of course, varies based on the capabilities of the body. All humans have similar bodies, which is what makes us a species, and that also means that there is such a thing as human nature - deeply embedded behavioral patterns that manifest in realit y pretty consistently - and it explains a lot of what has played out in history. Evolutionary psychology does have a place.Each person has a genome that is a mix of what their parents gave them. This means that all of us are born different in various, complex ways. When it comes to how we look, nobody would argue this fact. But for some reason, the idea that some people have bodies that are innately suited to make better logical connections or to play certain sports or insert a different biological advantage seems to cause grief. I think its important to notenzeichen that nature isnt destiny, but its just as important to acknowledge that it does play a huge role in how we experience Consciousness.IQ tests and the Big Five personality traits arent by any means perfect, but they do adequately measure these differences between us. While Im not for extrapolating too much based on them, its important to acknowledge their role so that we can more honestly use some of their information to help play everyone to their specific strengths.Personality - which I will broadly use to term a body and its brains general disposition towards particular traits and desires - is real. The self, the voice in the brain that we all live with, - or what we think of as our iddateneinheit - however, isnt. Personality does play a big role in shaping the direction in which the self develops (and the self, in turn, shapes some parts of the personality), but the self is a product of our random cultural conditioning, which I will talk more about in the next section.When we are born, our body has no self. There is no I there, and even other people arent yet distinguished as objects or persons. Our conscious experience is pure sensations, something neuroscientists call affect - a label I personally use for any state of consciousness experienced by a human (my understanding here comes from Lisa Feldman Barretts work on the theory of constructed emotions). Nonetheless, slowly, as we begin t o move around in the world, and as we begin to relate to language, we create conceptual models to draw different boundaries within this experience of affect.At first, these conceptual models are built using metaphors that are learned via how the body moves in the world (George Lakoffs work). Eventually, however, language helps solidify these metaphors into concrete thinking patterns, which are essentially habitual modes of reasoning that clarify how we relate our body to the outer world. These thinking patterns and the conceptual models they form in our mind eventually merge to create a sense of self that we use to interact with reality. This is what we commonly call our subjective experience, and its built on the memories we store about how this self relates to the broader world.At its core, the self is our meaning-making apparatus. Over time, it makes sense of our experience of affect - which includes emotions, movements, and thoughts - to add coherence to it, turning it into a story. Our affect operates within the pleasure-pain axis, meaning that our body uses information from the outside world to create an experience that ranges between good and bad. In simplistic language, if you feel good, you have been rewarded for an action that is worth doing again if you feel bad, then its time to do something else or rethink your situation. This axis is far more diverse, granular, and complex than simply good and bad, but this is roughly how we learn.Over time, our cultural environment conditions this self in various unobvious ways that shape how we interact with reality, influencing our wants and our desires, our modes of reasoning and our general biases. Contemplative traditions like Buddhism aim to deconstruct the self by shifting what the mind pays attention to so that we can watch the desires of the biological personality underneath. Much suffering in the world is born from the fact people have constructed a self that is conflicted in various ways, especially as it relates to purpose and meaning, which Ill talk more about in a couple of sections.Some advanced meditators and other mystics claim to be able to reach a blissful state of pure Consciousness - which is often called enlightenment or awakening - where the illusion of the self completely vanishes, where they experience mystical oneness. This is likely a state similar to what we imagine newborns are in, except that the practitioners have tran scended the self and can use it to operate in harmony with the world, as opposed to being overwhelmed by the initial cluelessness of birth and life.There was a time when I was skeptical of such claims, but as Ive explored more across different cultures and traditions, this skepticism has faded. I still wont go as far as to suggest that these experience tell us anything certain about the nature of reality other than the fact that there is more to the mind than most people commonly think, but it would also be dishonest of me not to acknowledg e the extent of their influence on how I see things.There is an old Zen koan - a kind of dialogue or story used in the tradition to test a students progress or to provide guidance - that summarizes my own intellectual progression in this particular area. It illustrates the difference between the silence I heard when I lived to make sense of everything linguistically compared to the same space seen directly. It refers to an interaction been an old Japanese master and a university professor who has come to visit him to learn more about their way.As the master receives the man, he quietly begins to fill an empty cup with tea. He does this until the liquid reaches the brim but doesnt stop. He doesnt at all pay attention to the guest. He pours and pours and pours. Confused, the professor watches this for a while, until he can no longer restrain himself, blurting Its overfull. No more will go inLike this cup, you are full of your own opinions and speculations, the master says. How can I show you the way unless you first empty your cup?III. History and CultureThe cultural anthropologist Ernest Becker argued that humans are the only animal that can imagine the future, and as such, imagine a world in which they are no longer alive. Because we are aware of our mortal body, we instead create a symbolic self (as discussed). This self is immaterial, and it has the potential to defy the destiny of death. What we call culture is the immortal battle-ground of all of our interconnected selves.Just like the biosphere emerged some 4 billion years ago and then evolved to become more complex, a collective conscious reality of human minds emerged as we began to create selves, culminating in a large network of connected nodes. This reality is a separate plane of existence - a social sphere that evolves and selects ideas just like evolution in the biosphere selects genes. In fact, its this collective consciousness that makes us so different from other animals in nature that allows us to transcend the limitations of the human body to kollege space and time in a way we otherwise wouldnt.No other animal can cooperate as flexibly and in as large of numbers as we can because they dont have this extra plane of existence. Its what gives us ideologies and religions, knowledge and myths, norms and morality, technologies and artefacts- all things that have pushed progress from a life of hunting and gathering to a civilized world in which we have spaceships and museums and corporations and the internet.History is the name we give to this cumulative movement of culture, and its driven by language, embodied in reality via oral traditions, books, and modern media devices. The successful ideas (or memes) in culture are the language games that have survived the onslaught the great destroyer time. The survival of a language game depends on three things utility, or how useful it is to our brains replicability, or how easy it is moved from one mind to another and most importa ntly, objectification, or how tangible it is as a systematic physical structure (like a church) and how much is sacrificed to it through time and effort as a ritual (like a prayer).Old ideas are defended by existing systematic structures and rituals, even if they have schwefellost their utility. New ideas have to win over minds far more persuasively (with either utility or replicability) before they can perpetuate themselves over time through structures and rituals. Just like the biosphere has continued to evolve and progress as life has gotten more and more complex, so history continues to evolve and progress as culture has gotten more and more complex. Today, as the social reality has moved to the internet, becoming even more interconnected, we are seeing even further cultural complexity in shorter periods.If we hypothetically imagine the first cultures, they would have been shaped by a collection of selves that collided with each other, mostly being driven by their bodily persona lities. As new individuals began to be born into existing cultures, however, the pressure dynamic switched it was now cultures that predominantly conditioned the selves on top of the bodily personalities. Cultures began to perpetuate themselves in human minds by programming them as they grew up within their bounds. While personality is a product of a body, connecting us to the biosphere, the self is a product of culture, connecting to the collective social consciousness.This brings us to the main course I dont believe the existence of culture has improved average individual happiness. What we think of as happiness depends on the relationship between our subjective experience and the objective world. Roughly speaking, when our expectations are met by reality, we are happy. When they are not, we experience dissatisfaction. This is deeply embedded in our biological hardware, and it doesnt matter how much culture improves the external world. Happiness is relative to your relationship to things, which is (mostly) an inside job. Sure, living in a world with lower child mortality and less total crime matters, but once you learn to expect that, your anchor readjusts. In fact, in many ways, given the diverse world we live in, with the constant choices and comparison, a world so different from the environment we evolved for, we are now perhaps more depressed and anxious than we have ever been, at least in the West.This isnt a new insight, but it generally leads the believer in one direction progress is evil, capitalism is soul-sucking, and we need to put a stop to it and focus inward and inward alone. This is a problem, too. It fails to realize that cultural progress isnt a choice we can deny. Its just what humans do. Ever since the social reality emerged all those thousands of years ago, there has been nothing we can do to stop it from evolving. We may temporarily be able to halt it and limit it in one place, but over a long enough timeline, it will re-emerge and re-ev olve, and trying to stagnate it is its own form of tyranny. The best we can do is recognize the problems and point this evolution in the right direction, hoping that one day it improves our average individual happiness, too, which is more than possible. Even if it doesnt, culture has now created the potential for what we call purpose and meaning, which are now more important to our health and well-being than simple happiness - something Ill talk about in the next section.To add to that, progress actually isnt evil. Its the driver of all things we think of as good and true. Contrary to our implicit assumptions, there is no objective law of nature that says you should be kind, love your neighbor, and value human rights. Like culture, morality is an emergent phenomenon. Humans are a social animal, and that has given us a conscience. That said, this conscience isnt always fair. It might care that you cheated a loved one or a tribal member, but it doesnt innately care if you murder a st ranger. And yet, most of our psyches today would care a lot if we murdered a stranger, even if we got away with it. What has changed?The answer is norms and standards. Due to progress, we have moved from a world of relative scarcity to relative abundance. This means that we have been able to bring more people into a collective community of shared resources over time, which has in turn expanded our circle of empathy. Our tribe has grown from a few hundred to the whole world. We, of course, still fight and argue within this world, but overall, its broadly understood that every human life has value. Now, being raised in a world where this is collectively understood, our minds get deeply conditioned to abide accordingly, whether we explicitly want to or not. The alternative is what you observe in a Dostoevsky character, even after they have committed the perfect crime a conscience tortured by isolation, guilt, and loneliness.If we consider our impact on Earth and on other sentient being s, humans are perhaps the most destructive animal to ever walk the planet. Thats hard to deny. But we are also the only animal to show the potential for a world of unbounded love and decreasing violence, both of which have their roots planted on the ground formed by progress and cultural evolution. We may be a blip in the Universe, and all of this speculation may be completely off-base, but this simple fact is of such obvious value that even if nothing means anything, the light of moral goodness we have ignited is worth spreading, even if only to see where it could lead us. We are a species approximately 200,000 years young. Thats compared to an average mammalian species that lives for 2 million years. In a relatively short period, we have come far. If we survive long enough, there is no telling how far we can still go, what good we can create, which corners of the galaxy we can explore.Today, the biggest problem we face is the juxtaposition of this hope, this light, that cultural p rogress shines in the world with the obvious dissatisfaction many of us collectively feel even as it continues to do its work. Part of the issue is that just as progress has solved many of our problems, it has also brought new ones with it, as it always does. We may be less violent, but modern tools have created greater existential risk. Technology may have tischset us free, but its also ruling our lives in unanticipated ways. Earth may be our playground, but the climate is now fighting back. All of these are true, but they are also things that further progress can potentially solve if we do the work.There is, however, a deeper, thornier issue that needs to be addressed, one that is partially responsible for our modern misery, and the solution to which could potentially even bring us together in such a way as to help us fight some of the problems that have been created by progress.Its often said that Western civilization is a footnote to the Greek philosopher Plato, the man who indi rectly inspired the birth of Christianity and consequently shaped the direction of modern civilization with his ideas. Well, I think we are now living in a new epoch, one where West and East have collided, one that will in hindsight be looked back on as a footnote to Friedrich Nietzsche. For the past few hundred years, culturally, we have been stumbling from one broken paradigm to another, but the most important question remains How do we live in a world without God?IV. Purpose and MeaningReligious and supernatural beliefs are human universals - that is, some form of them exist in every single culture that we have studied. The reason is that nature is incredibly complex, and not only do we not have enough knowledge yet to fully understand it, but even if we did, our brains wouldnt be capable of translating all of this knowledge into understanding.To condense complexity, we use heuristics, particularly stories. These are never literal truths, but they are both true and simple enough for practical purposes, like providing moral frameworks that we can use to build the backbone of civilization. Hence, God and religion arent about metaphysics they are about survival. Given that we are animals, survival comes before truth, and these beliefs are indeed logical from a utility perspective. Ironically many atheists who feel strongly about these beliefs have their own superstitions that they live by to survive, except that these are often more hidden. This isnt something we can help.The reason Nietzsche is so important is that he was more of a cultural philosopher than he was a metaphysician or logician concerned with a grand theory of everything. He realized that with the Age of Enlightenment, which helped drive science and elevate reason, we had slowly started to kill God, and with Him, the structure underlying modern civilization. This, he saw as the defining problem of the future, the solution to which he claimed to have found but never comprehensively wrote down in a useful way.Nietzsche lived in the period known as modernism, which indeed rejected God, but replaced Him with other grand narratives inspired particularly by the Industrial Revolution, like the infallibility of progress - an ideology still influential today in leading thinkers. But skepticism about these narratives began to build up, and in the 20th-century, we started to see the dominance of post-modernism, which in many ways has its roots in Nietzsche but leads in the opposite direction. Post-modernism deconstructs everything from meaning to truth, leading exactly to the problem that Nietzsche was trying to avoid - nihilism. It says that there are no narratives and that knowledge and beauty and everything we value is all subjective.Now, these descriptions of both modernism and post-modernism are quite simplistic. The actual philosophies and the thinkers in both movements identified real problems and tried to provide real tools to deal with them. Anyone that claims alliance to one while completely discounting the other likely hasnt done the work required to understand the core issues. That said, while these simplistic descriptions may not be directly representative of the leading thinkers in each school, in terms of the trickle-down cultural impact on the day-to-day lives of the people who have lived in these periods, they are broadly right. Modernism buried God and replaced Him with a different grand narrative post-modernism destroyed all narratives.For more than 2,000 years, with the fuel provided by the philosophy of Plato, in spite of His shortcomings, God gave us direction. The arguments that staunch atheists - like, say, Sam Harris whom I respect - make is that civilization and its norms have come far enough that we no longer need God to provide a moral framework - something I agree with, but it doesnt mean that we have replaced the purpose and the meaning functions that God once provided us with. On the other side, you have people like Jordan P eterson - whom I also respect - arguing that humans need to be told what to do by some objective force to keep them in check from their darker sides, which I also agree with in part. The problem? Nietzsche was right We are way too far past the stage where we can get everyone to believe in the old God.Today, we are stuck in a strange predicament With the blood of post-modernism flowing through us, we no longer explicitly believe in anything. But given that humans arent programmed to simply not believe in anything, the modernist narrative of progress is still what implicitly guides us. We may not call this progress God, but for all intents and purposes, it is currently our God, which its not suited to be. When progress becomes God, hedonism, materialism, and atomization become our source of meaning - all of which have a short shelf-life. This is what has created the tension between the good that progress continues to create and the collective misery we feel living in this supposed u topia. Now, the question Whats next?My thinking here has been influenced by David Chapman and his Meaningness framework. His solution, if I understand it correctly, is to push culture towards what he calls fluidity- something others are appropriately calling meta-modernism - which respects part of the certainty of modernism and its attempts to keep us pushing, while also valuing the inherent uncertainty made clear by post-modernism. In other words, there is purpose and there is meaning, but neither are fixed. They are not objective, or given by some God (or in the case of modernism, by progress), but theyre also not entirely subjective, or meaninglessly made up in our own minds, as per post-modernism. They emerge from the interaction between the subject - the self, the you - and the conception of an object.Human culture as an entity is the most advanced known expression of Consciousness, and we now live in a world where no single part of this culture - whether that be a particul ar ideology with a God at the helm or the modernist assumption that progress alone will carry the mantle - can do the whole job. The total entity, however, changes and evolves in a way that, on the whole, has the potential to create more and more goodness in reality as we know it. In my mind, fluidity sees culture itself as a living, breathing thing.This switch - from God being a creation of culture that then transcends itself to give us objective morality and, subsequently, purpose and meaning to culture essentially being its own life-force - means that when it comes to determining how we are to act in the world, the focus turns away from objects and subjects to interactions - to how things relate to each other. The power of the social reality is that its built on connections between different nodes, and the power of connections is that they can be shaped by agency - by how a particular self chooses to relate to something from moment to moment.In a fluid culture, we no longer have a defined purpose, but the simple fact that it evolves and spreads the moral brightness that illuminates our tiny speck of dust in a very large cosmos means that there is a purpose to our actions even if we cant predict where exactly we are being led. Each movement in this world, then, matters because it gives this culture a new form, which in turn shapes matter in a very tangible way. When you are kind to someone, this interaction changes how that person relates to the physical Universe, subsequently changing how our collective consciousness manifests, creating ripples in a great web with unbounded potential.If the self is indeed our meaning-making apparatus, then a healthy and non-conflicted self consistently acts in the right way, and by consistently acting in the right way, it develops more and more agency. In a world with a religious God, this kind of purpose and meaning comes from doing what that already-existing God tells you. In a fluid world, it comes from an evolving interaction, at each and every moment, where you are directly responsible for creating the kind of expression you want to see in the world.For this to make sense, let revisit our bodily personality and our conditioned self. The personality has innate traits and desires that it prefers relative to other bodies the self is conditioned to keep these traits and desires in check in certain circumstances due to norms and standards. (Example Your body may have a lot of physical energy to expand, but you know its not a good idea to expend it by hurting someone else.) But sometimes, the self gets conditioned so that it conflicts with the manifestation of our preferences as per our personality for no reason, which creates confusion when it comes to purpose. Our body wants one thing, but our self another. To clarify the purpose of our body, we have to unconditioned parts of the self and better align the two, which naturally happens over time with awareness or can be done through contemplative practices or even therapy.Once a bodys purpose stops beings clouded by the self, it can manifest in various ways and then recreate a more holistic being. This is why IQ and Big Five personality tests are valuable because they can show you your bodys disposition, which can help you better uncondition the self, in turn allowing you to zone in on a range of things that might better reflect your strengths than whatever you stumbled onto because of societal expectations.Once the purpose becomes a little more clear, we can create meaning, which emerges when an agent with a purpose acts in such a way as to fit a contextual environment. (This is inspired by some of Sarah Perrys essays and them pointing me in the direction of the design philosophy of the architect Christopher Alexander.) This means that meaning isnt something thats just there. Its something that you do - an action - in every moment, in a different way, depending on what your purpose is as it relates to the given environmen t that you happen to find yourself in. Put in a different way Meaning is what you get when you relate to culture, in a specific moment, within a defined context, to connect to it in a way that honors your bodily purpose.Times have now changed. Whether you call it fluidity or meta-modernism, today, culture itself is God. Except, its not an objective God with strict rules and expectations. Its a God that respects both what we know and what we dont know. It values progress but it doesnt overlook the fact that we have to also change how we collectively interact with it. fruchtwein of all, however, it allows the dance of nature to continue as it has for billions and billions of years one interaction after another, slowly evolving to create new levels of emergence. As uncivilized animals, simple happiness was enough for us. But with the birth of culture, what we need are purpose and meaning, both of which manifest when we nudge the collective consciousness along the way as we connect it t o our own relative existence.V. The Very ObviousIn an old interview, the late novelist David Foster Wallace once said that, in a post-modern world, one where everything is moving so fast and we are all so connected and no one really believes anything anymore, the role of fiction is no longer to describe culture as it is.All cultures are now accessible to us. Its not like the 19th-century when the best way to understand Russian society was to read Tolstoy. Rather, in such a world, the role of fiction to is to highlight the really, really absurd things that we have now been conditioned to think of as normal the deification of a clock that tells you exactly what to do and when tacitly mistaking the entertainment obtained through a screen for the intimacy of human connection the normalization of manipulative advertising.A further result of this is that some of the most obvious and important truths of our existence have been layered beneath so much noise that they are even harder to talk about than they already were. Ill mention one right here Much of what I have just written could be wrong. I have a good reason to be uncertain about everything I say and certain only about the fact that I am a very small part of a very large existence, one that only requires me to act. And yet, because all the surface-level noise is so immediate to my attention all the time, conditioning my sense of self on a daily basis, I live believing that I am indeed mostly right in how I think and that this rightness should dictate how I interact with the world, and in turn, how the world should be.Here is another obvious thing All of this is really hard. Everybody is doing the best they can with what they have in any given moment. We can talk about agency all day, but you didnt choose the body you were born with, nor did you direct the laws of physics to determine which of the billions and billions of causes would come together at each and every moment in your life to nudge you in one direct ion rather than another. Even if you are a high-agency person now, taking full responsibly for your life, making things happen mostly by the power of your own will, there was something out there, at some point, that inspired the realization of this agency, something that many other people didnt have the luxury to be exposed to.Now, here is perhaps the most obvious but difficult thing to talk about Whatever the purpose of life is, it has nothing to do with you. I have intentionally avoided going into morality so far, other than to state that it is emergent and that it evolves and that, with or without a religious God, it exists. But morality is about what we do (actions) and how we should do it (right and wrong conduct) when interacting with other sentient beings, which is the base that builds out the ideas of purpose and meaning, and it so obviously matters that reason can neither fully defend or refute it without getting in its own way. And thats because its bigger than us.Ill illu strate this by first asking a question Leaving aside the odd exception, why is it that, say, a father who is extremely homophobic, genuinely believing that there is something logically and morally wrong with two people of the same sex deciding to be intimate with each other, is more likely to accept his gay son than he is a stranger? Maybe, over time, even reconsidering his position in a way that he otherwise wouldnt.A good response is that its his biological offspring, and he has a lot invested in ensuring that this offspring, carrying his own genetic material, survives. He has no such interest in a stranger. This is a rational and scientifically sound answer. But how about as a matter of day-to-day experience? Is it this logic that changes his mind? Of course not. Its a feeling of conscious love. And not love in the sense that Romeo is infatuated with Juliet and willing to die for it, nor the selfish love you feel towards things that will satisfy your desires, but love in its most selfless, expansive, and throbbing form the kind of love that momentarily transcends the linguistic conditioning of the self the kind of love that makes life worth living, even when it brings pain.In fact, this pure experience not only transcends the self, but it also transcends your bodily personality. Have you ever wondered by so many brilliant Western philosophers throughout history have come to so many different conclusions? I suspect that they are all born with different brains that prefer different starting points in the infinite expanse of Consciousness, and such, they end up manufacturing different linguistic realities, even though, ultimately, they are grasping at the same thing. This has nothing to do with irreconcilable truths where one of them is absolutely right and the rest are wrong its a language problem. They are discussing truths in different realms, and they cant see that because they havent taken the time to look beyond words.When a father who abhors homosexuali ty looks at his gay son beyond a label produced by the subjective feelings of his own self, he is able to love, only then seeing the real sentient being standing in front of him. And then, because he is able to love, he accepts the truth of his linguistic reality, and they negotiate to find a better truth, maybe one that even changes the fathers mind on the topic. This kind of love comes less naturally to us when dealing with strangers, but what if we were to love other people and respect their experience in the same way so that we can create a truer and more honest collective experience? Isnt that a more moral way of interacting with people than following linguistic rules (deontology) or pretending that we already know whats good for everyone (consequentialism) or a self-centered, feel-good definition of what is charitable or benevolent (virtue ethics)?If we actually saw people - like really saw them - beyond our own conditioning and then simply acted to reconcile our truths, wou ldnt that eventually self-correct, say, like evolution or a complex system does, to point culture towards a greater collective truth? Wouldnt that as a byproduct of itself be what creates the best reality for everyone?Several decades ago, the Eastern philosopher Jiddu Krishnamurti began to roam. Before leaving his home in India, he dissolved a religious organization that had groomed him to be their leader since childhood. Realizing the limitations of dogmatic thinking and the importance of an individual taking responsibility for finding their own path, his travels took him around the globe, with the intent of just talking to people.On one particular day after a lecture, a man asked him point-blank if there was a God. He argued that if there wasnt one then life couldnt possibly have any moral meaning, in which case we would then have to invent one. In the process of inventing one, however, we would be separating people by belief and creed, leading to pain and teilen down the road.Kri shnamurti listened and then told him that God, as linguistically conceived by tradition and memory, was not what he was looking for. But if he stripped his words away, he would be left with something that simply is change. The man pushed, and they went back and forth for a while.Finally, the man amusingly saidThen is love changeable? If everything is a movement of change, isnt love also part of that movement? And if love is changeable, then I can love one woman today and sleep with another tomorrow.Krishnamurti, first, gave him an abstract answer, then, simply ended withGod, or whatever name you give it, is when you are not. When you are, it is not. When you are not, love is. When you are, love is not.This article was originally published on DesignLuck.