I keep hearing from people in my life that spirituality is an essential part of living a meaningful existence. I hear the phrase “let go and let God” and “everything happens for a reason” used a lot as advice and comfort. However, I’m an atheist and a materialist. I don’t know how I could even be spiritual with those beliefs. At the same time, my life is not fulfilling despite the fact that I am not struggling financially. Moreover, I feel paralyzed when I try to get off my privileged ass and do even the bare minimum for socialist organizing because I realize that it goes directly against my labor aristocratic class interests. I feel like knowing that sticking my neck out and contributing to the real movement to change the present state of things is the morally correct thing to do isn’t enough to drive me.
In short, what is spirituality? Is it compatible with materialism? If so, how? And if spirituality is the wrong tree to bark up, how can I drive myself to do what is to be done?
Imo, it’s really just how you frame and relate to your experience of existence. I’m a Buddhist. I’m not really strongly attached to my view with regard to the supernatural, you could say that it’s quite agnostic. Nonetheless, I found the teachings of Buddhism to make a lot of sense, and they helped me frame and relate to my existence in a way that I think is healthier than my previous framing, which was more of a purely philosophical material nihilism (which, itself, I found to be a healthier viewpoint than Christianity). I’m not saying be a Buddhist, that’s not the point. The point is that when I recognized that my beliefs weren’t helpful, I took the time to make peace with it, re-evaluate my position, and look for something that made more sense. If you think you could benefit from philosophy shopping, then make peace with the fact that your beliefs aren’t helping, and come to it with an open mind. If you find something that helps, it’s not stupid.
I admittedly never went through the “let me look at all these different world religions and see what resonates with me” stage during my deconversion from Catholacism that many go through. Hell, I never even read the bible from start to finish. I should investigate these things.