Ekaterina Netchitailova

Echoes of a Multilingual Mind

What principles define how you live?

On Kindness

To acquire a sense of life, one needs to live a life full of meaning. And each path in life asks one to abide by certain principles.

They can be found in the Bible, and so I won’t reflect on them, but I would like to explore a bit the concept of a life with meaning.

A life of meaning is a life where you actively search for the truth and have an overwhelming desire to contribute to the humanity in one way or another.

If you steal money from other people, your life has no meaning. If you disrespect other people, based on their race, religion, or sexual orientation, your life is going to waste. We are all here for a good reason, and it’s a shame if some of us are being discriminated against.

And yet, this is exactly what we have been witnessing in the recent past. It has become okay to hate the other, just open any online social network, and you will be shocked. Or maybe you won’t, as hating someone else, has become a new normal. Let’s hate all the Jews, the Russians, refugees, and Muslims, – this is what you can find today online, and it’s a big problem that not only it has become tolerated, it is being actively promoted to us as a new status quo.

It isn’t okay to invade other countries, but it is also not okay to hate an entire population of people, a nationality, or a race. In every conflict there are two sides of a story, something we have been struggling with recently. The post-covid world has changed, and it hasn’t changed in a nice way.

What has been missing since the pandemic is kindness. This is the most important principle in life. ‘Love your neighbor’ can be taken in its literal sense (after all, it is always better to live when you are in a good relationship with your neighbors), but also in its wider context. Loving the humanity and other people in general, makes your life worth it and meaningful. Maybe you are incapable to work because of an illness, but you still manage to uplift the others via a simple post online. Or maybe you volunteer somewhere that brightens the others. Or maybe you do nothing and struggle to survive, and it has meaning, because you are still here and you are making an effort. Believing in the kindness of others, can save your life.

There was a post on X (Twitter) recently by a guy who was very honest. He admitted that he has no friends. He wasn’t begging for attention, but was brave enough to appeal to the kindness of others, those who understand that it’s impossible to live a life being totally isolated from others. This guy is now popular on X and does so much better. A single act of kindness can radically transform your life.

So, yes, I think that life should be defined by some principles, and one of them is to remain kind amid the current distress in the entire world. Being kind makes your life full of meaning.

Do you agree?

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Ekaterina Netchitailova's avatar

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Ekaterina Netchitailova

I am a Doctor of philosophy, a university lecturer, writer, and a lover of cats, fine wine, books, theatre, and human eccentricity. Despite my last name ‘Netchitailova’ which means ‘unreadable’ in Russian, my greatest passions in life are reading and writing.

33 responses to “What principles define how you live?”

  1. Rochdalestu Avatar
    Rochdalestu

    Paradoxical as it may seem, the purposeful life has no content, no point. It hurries on and on, and misses everything. Not hurrying, the purposeless life misses nothing, for it is only when there is no goal and no rush that the human senses are fully open to receive the world.

    Reply
    1. Ekaterina Avatar
      Ekaterina

      True.
      Joy can be only found in tranquility. Life goals and super-achievements feed the ego, not the soul

      Reply
    2. lecox Avatar
      lecox

      Wow. Do you really believe this?

      Reply
      1. Rochdalestu Avatar
        Rochdalestu

        I do. For example if you are walking to somewhere you have a destination in mind that you are concentrated on getting to. If you’re walking with no purpose, you just walk, you are free to concentrate on nature, your surroundings and you are free from distractions

      2. Dirtsmith Avatar
        Dirtsmith

        Life is not in the destination, but the path.

        Remember that the ultimate destination is death. Life is merely the passage.

      3. The Bipolar Kid Avatar
        The Bipolar Kid

        Absolutely right 👌 if we wish our present moment away and concentrate on the future then we will be forever chasing a tomorrow that never comes until one day, we meet our ultimate destination, death,

      4. lecox Avatar
        lecox

        But…death is not the ultimate destination. To die is only to be reborn.

      5. The Bipolar Kid Avatar
        The Bipolar Kid

        It’s an unknown fact about what happens. No one has ever returned after experiencing death. The first rule of thermodynamics is that energy cannot be created or destroyed. On this basis the transfer of energy from ourselves to another state supports the idea of reincarnation or perhaps passage to the next dimension in our life?!? Ultimately we just don’t know what happens. We have a tendency to establish our own understanding of the universe and proceed to make this assumption fit into our own understanding of what happens. If we though, don’t fully grasp the concept of life itself, we can’t really know what happens when we leave our senses and lives to be able to experience the resurrection that comes after (if it actually happens).

      6. Ekaterina Avatar
        Ekaterina

        True, we can’t claim the truth without proof and yet, I do believe that we have immortal souls.

      7. The Bipolar Kid Avatar
        The Bipolar Kid

        It’s a very interesting question to discuss. Surely there is something else that you pass on to experience. Being as intelligent as we are (compared to everything else on Earth), you wonder if we stop being so intelligent at a certain point in our lifetime. If Earth is progressing as an inhabited planet, then we pass on our knowledge and understanding. We can look at the ancient civilisations of the Egyptians and Incas and their structures that share the same characteristics of constructions even though they were miles apart. What we know is they sit in the certain constructions which are perplexing to us now to fathom out how they did it. Did we return to them form the future, or another planet or something similar that helped them to do these constructions or was it just another example of them becoming more intelligent than we think we are??!?

      8. Ekaterina Netchitailova Avatar
        Ekaterina Netchitailova

        That’s indeed a very interesting discussion. As you I am fascinated by the Egyptian and Greek civilizations. Especially the Greek one for their belief system. Quite remarkable. And how the Egyptians built their pyramids is a question I often ask myself.
        We don’t know many things, indeed. Is there another planet where creatures live? Are we reborn and reincarnate? Is there a Goddess or God, or both? I want to know.

      9. Dirtsmith Avatar
        Dirtsmith

        Perhaps. But death is a fact. Rebirth is not.

        There are 10,000 imaginary stories about what happens after we die. Which one is true?

        Time is merely another dimension. This doesn’t require imagination. We all understand this intuitively. And we EXPERIENCE it, as FACT: It begins – we travel through it in one direction – then it ends. It is a story with a beginning, middle, and end.

        And as a dimension, it merely exists, eternal and never changing.

        And if it exists, our human experience is merely a wave propagating through matter along the dimension of time.

        And if that is so, why would it pass only once? Why wouldn’t it pass through again and again and again?

        And if it passes through eternally, then our LIVES are recurring over and over again, never ceasing.

        And the consequence? We live our lives, over and over again. BUT always EXACTLY the same way.

        So if there is no end, that just means the loop begins again.

        Like a book we have read before. We can read it over and over as many times as we like. But it will never change.

        That is a perspective that can be understood, intuitively. And far closer to “fact” than any of the other 10,000 stories about what happens to us “after” we die.

      10. lecox Avatar
        lecox

        There has been a lot of research done on this, and I consider the basic question already answered. More research could be done to fill in details. I just wrote a longer comment answering this objection, but it was rejected by the site. Perhaps this shorter one will go through.

      11. Ekaterina Netchitailova Avatar
        Ekaterina Netchitailova

        Mhh, I wonder why your other comment didn’t go through.

      12. Dirtsmith Avatar
        Dirtsmith

        You are saying that the basic question, “what happens after we die?” has been resolved by research?

        I am aware of no such scientific consensus. And certainly no religious consensus. Whatever research you refer to may be satisfactory to YOU. And there is nothing wrong with that at all.

        But it falls far outside of the domain of FACT, and squarely in the domain of the 10,000 stories. And that’s wonderful! Pick any story you choose! But remember that it is imaginary, just like my own speculation. It is not fact.

      13. lecox Avatar
        lecox

        Free of distractions? If you have no end point in mind, all you have is distractions. Though I can go with a certain amount of wandering in my life, I do also have to stay alive. I have to produce things that exchange for support from my community. If I don’t spend a certain amount of my time each day producing valuable final products, I will go broke and starve. Life is a game, not a day dream.

        Just because I have somewhere to go doesn’t mean I can’t enjoy the trip. That’s a matter of how much “free attention” I have. There is no reason that the simple task of getting somewhere should totally monopolize my attention. I should have a lot of attention left over to enjoy the trip.

      14. Ekaterina Avatar
        Ekaterina

        I have to agree with Lecox.
        While I love wandering and just walking (it’s my daily exercise), I also believe that there should be some purpose in life in general.
        Studying a language, writing a book, getting a nice job, wanting to have a bit more money, dreaming a bit about different things and then doing something in order to get them.
        Life isn’t a linear thing. It has ups and downs and requires to have some sort of aim, a purpose.

      15. The Bipolar Kid Avatar
        The Bipolar Kid

        There is a difference between having a purpose and acting out of purposelessness.

        Acting out of purposelessness is an act of spontaneity. Behaviour that isn’t goal-directed is often seen as genuine.

        We’ve all seen that little boy who acts funny without the goal of being funny. When he finds out that people are laughing about his behavior, he repeats it. But now it’s considerably less funny because it’s not spontaneous anymore. It’s goal-oriented. The kid’s goal is to get attention.

        An act of out of purposelessness is quite unique and possesses a magic of its own. It’s novel, unpredictable and coming from a place of uncalculated spontaneity. There’s no anticipation for a reward, validation or to impress anybody. It’s a form of doing which comes from the innate drive of pure pointlessness.

        Spiritual entertainer Alan Watts was the first person I heard coining the term purposelessness. He based it on a Taoist concept called Wu Wei. Wu Wei can be explained as “non-doing” or “effortless action.”

        He tells us about a hunter who tries to kill a bear with his ax. The bear, however, can read the hunter’s mind, so it knows exactly what the next move of the hunter will be. This makes it impossible for the hunter to make a deliberate effort to kill the bear.

        But as soon as he gives up and swings his ax out of frustration, it’s head breaks off, swings towards the bear and kills it. Because the hunter did not intend this move the bear couldn’t predict it.

        Ask yourself this. Does water have a purpose? Water always follows the natural course and, thus, always seeks the lower places. When it’s allowed the flow, it flows. When it’s allowed to be still, it’s still.

        Water itself does not have a purpose nor has it a goal. Still, it nourishes everything that it passes and its softness erodes what’s hard and sharp. It’s the source of life.

        Purposeless also lies at the roots of a paradoxical activity called meditation. The act of meditation has no purpose. The only thing you do is watching your thoughts without getting entangled in them.

        People often meditate to calm their minds, but if they force to calm their minds because that’s the ultimate goal, they find out that meditation doesn’t work. You cannot will yourself to relax. The secret is to not force anything, to forget the goal and to just do it.

        When a meditator has forgotten the goal of his or her meditation, the mind starts to calm down spontaneously.

        The same goes for creativity. Ideas are often born out of purposelessness. They just pop up. Most of the times this occurs when you are in a state of relaxation.

        For example, during a long walk in the forest or when taking a shower. You can’t force creativity, but you can create a situation in which a sense of purposelessness can ignite creativity to grow.

        A musician might discover the right tune for a new song, while he just intended to strum his guitar a bit without any specific goal. A paintress might create a masterpiece while she was just freestyling a bit without much expectation.

        What can we say about life and purpose? Is life about purpose or is it purposeless? Are we here on this planet to strive towards a collective goal or is life completely meaningless?

        If there is a collective goal, then what is that goal? And who decides what that goal is? Is it written in the Bible? Or perhaps in the Quran?

        Should we take the Kierkegaardian leap of faith and become religious or embrace the belief of Albert Camus that life is meaningless and completely absurd?

        Are we humans looking for meaning in a meaningless world?

        If we would all embrace the meaninglessness of our lives, would our behavior become way more genuine? After all: we aren’t doing good deeds to have a good afterlife or something, are we?

        Will religious people stop praying when their attempts turn out to be meaningless or will they keep doing it just of the sake of doing it? Is there meaning to find in the things we do when we leave purpose out of the equation?

        Yes, perhaps we are modern-day Sisyphuses condemned to pushing a huge rock uphill just to let it roll down again. Maybe our existence is not from point A to point B but cyclic. So, what´s the goal of our existence in this universe then? Could it be existence itself?

        There has never been solid undisputed proof of a collective purpose of mankind or the universe. But if we do have a purpose, what will happen when we reach it?

        Will we be assigned to another purpose and who would do the assigning? And if God would give us that purpose then what is the purpose of God?

        Purposelessness means living life without asking yourself where it’s leading, and completely immersing yourself in the present moment. It’s about not worrying about the future and not ruminating about the past and not fleeing from your thoughts in addictions.

        Will a purposeless life be safe? No. Will it be secure? No. Will we grow millionaires and pass away with a big fat bank account with our names on it? Probably not, but who knows.

        The thing is: when purposeless living leads us to die poor we can at least say that we have lived rich, instead of dying rich after having lived poorly.

      16. Ekaterina Avatar
        Ekaterina

        This is a very profound philosophical discussion!
        I also think that one should have a purpose, some meaning in life.

      17. The Bipolar Kid Avatar
        The Bipolar Kid

        I agree. The fantasising about the prominent future and or dwelling on a causative past can make us ignorant about the present moment. The present moment is all that exists. So if we aren’t in touch with the present, we are then out of touch with reality. Life is not a problem to be solved but an experience to be had.

      18. Ekaterina Avatar
        Ekaterina

        I like to fantasise about my future and reassess the past. Past, present and future make us who we are today.
        By looking into the past one can correct one’s behaviour and become better. It is never too late.
        And by fantasising about the future pushes one to become even better and work towards achieving the goal in the future.

      19. The Bipolar Kid Avatar
        The Bipolar Kid

        I have realised that the past and future are real illusions, that they exist in the present, which is what there is and all there is.

      20. lecox Avatar
        lecox

        Well! This was quite a dissertation on the meaning of purposelessness! Yet you betray yourself in the last line, when you write, “…we can at lest say that we have lived rich…” Then there WAS purpose there after all! Every game has a purpose, and every being prefers to play a game.

      21. The Bipolar Kid Avatar
        The Bipolar Kid

        It’s been an excellent thread of messages from people that have created an amazing narrative for the question. I have thoroughly enjoyed reading the posts. I think the question of purposelessness is one that is very much a paradoxical one in my opinion. There’s so many quotations about all aspects of life that concur with it and disagree with it. To have a purpose is to have a sense of self worth and an understanding of achieving a certain goal. If you then look at purposelessness in the same sense, it is a way of thinking about life without being self conscious. You don’t look at yourself as a separate entity and you are interconnected with your surroundings and your environment. You have to be aware that everything in the universe is connected and that nothing is separated. For example, if you look at a tree and see it’s branches and how it spreads out as it grows taller, it is impossible to deny that the shape and structure of the tree isn’t exactly identical to what your lungs are, albeit upside down. We are expelling carbon dioxide and breathing in oxygen and the tree will absorb the carbon dioxide and expel oxygen. Photosynthesis is their way of creating an atmosphere that will support our lives. Is this act a purposeful act or is it a purposelessness act by the trees? If you are behaving as you are intended to then you will be existing as expected. If we hold our breath to change our behaviour then we lose our breath and we will lose our lives in theory. The purpose of being alive is not defined by the words we use to describe ourselves and our actions. We have created a language to express and describe our actions and emotions which pigeon holes us into a situation where we have created an identity that maybe doesn’t belong in definition to what it actually is.

  2. lecox Avatar
    lecox

    Since I found out about it, I have tried to live according to the Way To Happiness (a non-religious moral code). My parents tried to raise me to be good, honest, and responsible. But they didn’t have this little book to spell it all out.

    Reply
    1. Ekaterina Avatar
      Ekaterina

      I have this book

      Reply
  3. philosophy through photography Avatar
    philosophy through photography

    Absolutely! Kindness is like a good coffee—sometimes hard to find, but life just works better when it’s there. The world’s crazy enough as it is, so why not sprinkle a little kindness around like glitter? Trust me, it’s a game-changer, even if you’re just being kind to your neighbor’s dog!

    Reply
    1. Ekaterina Avatar
      Ekaterina

      Thank you so much for commenting on my posts!
      You are very kind!

      Reply
      1. philosophy through photography Avatar
        philosophy through photography

        Anytime, my friend!
        Your posts are always a good read. 😊

      2. Ekaterina Avatar
        Ekaterina

        Thank you for saying this!

      3. philosophy through photography Avatar
        philosophy through photography

        You are welcome, my friend.

  4. Dirtsmith Avatar
    Dirtsmith

    Life is about our experiences and our relationships to others. Everything else is survival and ego reinforcement.

    Reply
  5. Ekaterina Avatar
    Ekaterina

    Absolutely! We mirror our reality. What we plant in our minds manifests itself in the reality, where the most important thing is our communication with each other.

    Reply

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About Me

I am a doctor of philosophy, a university lecturer, and a lover of cats, fine wine, dancing, theatre, and human eccentricity. I was born in the Soviet Union (Moscow). I am fluent in four languages, and have spent all my adult life studying (except from 18 to 19) working and living throughout Western Europe. Despite a surname-Netchitailova- that translates from Russian into English as “unreadable”, my greatest passions in life are reading and writing. My personal struggles have made me appreciate the manifestations of weirdness that exist everywhere.

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