>>11896894People can be at different levels. Some say that one approaches enlightenent asymptotically, getting closer, but not arriving. I'm certainly not enlightened, I'm here, I'm attached, I'm using the values and methods of the mind to communicate.
Werner Hertzog made a film named Grizzly Man.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uWA7GtDmNFUHe really loved those grizzlys, but he got eaten by them. Not for any purpose, just because he didn't use his mind, he was all love, but no logic. He probably didn't consider death, that nature is not his lovey dovey friend, there is a reality which has rules and destruction.
On the other spectrum we have love and death, unified with awareness.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prince_SattvaA monk walks in the forest. A starving tigress will be forced to eat her babies. The monk sacrifices himself, his body becomes food for the tigress such that she and her babies won't suffer and die. The monks own death and suffering doesn't mean anything to the monk, he is at a very very high level.
>Otherwise why would I value things or want to keep improving and livingI can't help you, by extension this is identification and fear of death, you can only get past it by assuming falsity and seeing it clearly from the other side. You can return if you wish to, it's easy to take a step backwards.
As for the meaning in the meaningless. When I sit on the porch, hearing the wind, seeing the light, the beautiful nature all around me, the trees swaying, the birds flying, a deer beholding me and I it, the light penetrating and revealing the glowing cells and nerve looking structure of the grape leaves, I'm not moving towards anything, not thinking, and I'm not necessarilly neurochemically happy or satisfied, but I experience second by second a deep connection with the present moment, which is much more meaningful than where ideals can take me, in fact ideals today may cause regret tomorrow
10 year old you, which ideals then held up even today
