Let's set some ground rules. There is a mind-body problem. This problem becomes exponentiated once emotions become involved. Whether things exists or not are no

Let's set some ground rules. There is a mind-body problem. This problem becomes exponentiated once emotions become involved. Whether things exists or not are not important, though they might exist. The ego is the most tenacious self -one has acquired through existence. It's such that stages of the unveiling of the true self, are pegged with such trivialities, such incomprehensible nonsensible non-sense that an existential crisis becomes rampant upon one's life journey. The highs and lows of life, after all the pain the true emotions they are all part of a regimen that an individual goes through. Which includes the complete mental and physical breakdown of you, the world around you, and everything you hold to be true. There are reasons on top of reasons for this. From the eyes of a guru, you are exactly treading down a path tracked by those that came before you. The only difference is that communication is more open ( as we're "(largely) engineers and science minded folks here"). Hehe, dude as you break down the many layers of ego, and as the ego is about to show it's true face, it will falsify and destroy everything else before it even lets itself be known -- and then right there at that very end of that first step your ego conforms to the self, and makes you think that your ego is the true self, that it was always the One, that it was and is the truest self. People find it easier to believe that their entire world doesn't exist rather than that their ego's don't exist. So how do you deal? Well if it's this process of self, this unopened rose that exists inside you, forget the new age bullshit, the religiosity of the masses, forget all that you know about anything, and if you can still hold onto nothingness. That's how you deal. You're at the cusp of your life, where you need to make sense out of meaninglessness and turn it into meaningness. It is the most decisive battle in one's entire life, the battle of the self, against the self. And if you already know who you are and what you want to be, then you start finding meaning in everything b/c well. I wish it was a gift I could give, something I could let you download off of me, heck I could tell you the same things in a million billion different ways --but it's better you come it yourself. That's the problem with free will right? It's a Catch-22 --No one else can do it for you.