@thesotiris 20 February 2026 more from that month

trauma is suffering without meaning. the curse of truth

Growth occurs when you assign meaning to your suffering. Stagnation or decline are the consequences of seeing no purpose, no meaning, no ultimate destination for your journey. It’s easy to work hard when you can reasonably anticipate your labour to bear fruit. No one lifts a finger when your circumstances don’t allow you to expect the squeeze to yield worthwhile juice. https://sotiris.substack.com/p/hard-work-is-easy-when-you-have-a https://sotiris.substack.com/p/determinism-is-real ***“He who has a why to live can bear almost any how.” ~ Friedrich Nietzsche*** Meaning is at the core of everything we do, even our daily choices to stay alive. Even our choice to end our lives holds some meaning to and for us, either as self-sacrifice for an arbitrary “greater, holier-than-thou good”, or as a symbolic act of defying humanity and its demiurge. https://sotiris.substack.com/p/the-scourge-of-moralism https://sotiris.substack.com/p/the-greatest-trick-the-devil-ever We can argue endlessly about who has suffered more or who was endowed by nature to have a greater tolerance of suffering (so much for “free will”). But it doesn’t matter how much suffering you endure (assuming suffering could be quantified and measured). What matters is what offsets suffering, and what makes suffering tolerable: meaning, and your perception of the probability of achieving meaning through your efforts. https://sotiris.substack.com/p/free-will-revisited **People who** **obsess over meaning** **are those who have** **suffered meaninglessly**, whose buildup led to no payoff, who haven’t had the chance to apply the lessons from their grief, who have come to question it all, and now see no point or usefulness even in the insight gained from suffering. https://sotiris.substack.com/p/what-is-the-meaning-of-existence https://sotiris.substack.com/p/the-hell-of-endless-aspiration What’s the point of learning from past mistakes if you never get a chance to use that knowledge? The story of Sisyphus portrays this brilliantly: Hell is labouring without purpose or meaning. **Suffering is meaninglessness, and meaninglessness is suffering.** You do not choose your suffering because you don’t choose the **mental architectures**, the **cognitive processes**, the **neural pathways** that define you. You assess each situation according to your neurological structure, and you attribute subjective meaning to whatever you encounter. This is why I will always keep repeating that **free will cannot exist** — we are the consequence of random experiences and inherited traits. Even the self-growth and improvement we conduct are based on our core physical, mental, and spiritual foundation. **We are all our** **childhoods****.** https://lessonsfromregret.substack.com/ https://sotiris.substack.com/p/narcissistic-parenting-part-2 When you are unlucky enough (or lucky, who knows) not to be blessed with things that attach you to life, then things become meaningless, even the things that would otherwise have attached you to this world. This means that once you see meaninglessness, you cannot unsee it, and you also won’t find meaning even in a hypothetical scenario where you have it all. Now that you’ve already seen meaninglessness, you cannot escape it. Once you see the matrix for what it is, you cannot go back, even if you wanted to. https://sotiris.substack.com/p/when-success-is-failure-and-failure https://sotiris.substack.com/p/the-simulation-question Perhaps this is the truth we all fear. Perhaps this is why we so desperately seek escape from reality through hedonism, sanctimony, and art in all its forms. https://sotiris.substack.com/p/xanax-and-coffee https://sotiris.substack.com/p/the-loudest-moralists-tend-to-be https://sotiris.substack.com/p/why-is-modern-art-so-ugly