Whatever higher-order purpose we think we live for, much of it comes down to seeking and experiencing sensation. Strip away the stories we tell about meaning and ambition, and underneath them is something simpler: we are chasing a feeling, and the purposes are mostly the routes we take to get there.
The emotional sensations — the core “good” feelings you can, to a real degree, deliberately pursue — are the magnetic force of my inner compass. Naming them matters, because once you know which feelings actually pull you, you can orient by them instead of drifting. For me, they are three:
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The fulfillment of the “this is it” moment. When I enjoy life exactly as it is; when the present is all I have, and it is enough — no part of me reaching elsewhere.
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The feeling of moving forward. The mission is far away, the direction or even the destination may be unknown — but I know I am moving (usually more than I feel I am). The certainty is not about the destination; it is about the motion itself.
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Serenity — the trust that everything is fine, that I am doing fine. A large part of this comes from the digital engine my life runs on, which quietly handles the things that would otherwise nag at me.
- You can feel an imbalance as it happens — and by instinct, the urge to restore it. You like things balanced.
- You feel the debts accumulating, and you enjoy releasing them.
- Where there is expectation, there is debt. Every open expectation — your own or someone else’s — sits on the books until it is settled.
(A way of sensing I share with a friend’s notes.)