[{"_1":2,"_68":-5,"_69":-5},"loaderData",{"_3":4,"_38":39,"_66":-5,"_67":-5},"root",{"_5":-5,"_6":-5,"_7":8,"_22":23,"_24":25,"_26":27,"_30":31,"_36":37},"user","shoppingCartId","shoppingCart",{"_9":10,"_11":12,"_13":14,"_15":16,"_17":18,"_19":20,"_21":14},"id","no-cart","count",0,"free",true,"updatedAt","","paymentGateway","STRIPE","cartItems",[],"loading","locale","en","readerTheme","light","constants",{"_28":29},"paypalClientId","AX53Cwz8jR6rVVzzZiZNWWXl0dGagi-GZrjG-S3Ua14E5nrKMn7DxDQ730O4R8LusLPp49ALn6aRVaEy","publishers",{"_32":33,"_34":35},"companies",[],"universities",[],"needsLocaleCookieSync",false,"routes/_store+/_readers+/email_author.$slug/route",{"_40":41,"_65":-5},"book",{"_9":42,"_43":44,"_45":46,"_47":48,"_49":50,"_51":52},"Z2lkOi8vbGVhbnB1Yi9TdG9yZTo6Qm9va1Byb2R1Y3QvNzcxMjQ","title","THE SECRET OF MEANING — On Chosen Constraints and a Life Worth Living","state","published","contactAuthorMethod","email","aboutText","

We live in an age of abundance and fog. More options than ever before — and a growing sense that none of them are quite ours. The days go by. Things get done. But something is missing.

The Secret of Meaning argues that this fog has a structure — and a cause. For centuries, a hidden thread has been systematically removing the spaces in which meaning grows: the judgements we make, the constraints we choose, the tedium we work through. AI is the latest and most powerful step in this process.

But the book is not about despair. It is about a discovery: chosen constraints generate meaning. Not the constraints imposed on us — those are burdens. The ones we choose. The ones we wrestle with. The ones that, after long enough, settle into us and become part of who we are.

Moving from a retired engineer's woodworking bench to the history of painting after the camera, from the economics of comparative advantage to the philosophy of attention, this book offers a way of seeing — and a way of living — that no algorithm can optimise away.

The Secret of Meaning is Book Two of A Philosophy of Finitude. It can be read independently. Readers of Book One will find the argument taken somewhere new.

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