Clay Routledge is an existential psychologist, author, and leading researcher on meaning, purpose, and nostalgia. His work explores a fundamental human need: the need to feel that our lives matter.
In this conversation, we unpack why so many people today feel caught in a modern crisis of meaning, even when they’re productive, successful, or doing everything they were told would lead to fulfillment. We explore how social media, rapid technological change, and the rise of artificial intelligence are bringing deeper questions to the surface about identity, work, and what truly gives life meaning.
Clay reflects on why so many of our assumptions about success, productivity, and purpose fall short, and how someone can go about finding meaning and purpose if they are feeling lost.
We also discuss the surprising role nostalgia plays in helping us navigate change, and why questions of meaning and purpose may become even more important in an AI-driven world.
You can grab a copy of Clay’s book here: https://www.amazon.com/Past-Forward-Nostalgia-Help-Meaningful/dp/1683648641
00:00 – What Does It Mean to Find Purpose?
05:00 – Why Humans Need to Feel Like They Matter
10:00 – Are We Living Through a Crisis of Meaning?
15:00 – Work, Identity, and the Fear of Being Replaced
20:00 – How AI Is Forcing Us to Rethink Human Value
25:00 – Decoupling Job Titles From Who We Are
30:00 – A World Without Work: Utopia or Dystopia?
35:00 – Nostalgia as a Guide to the Future
40:00 – Technology, Presence, and What Makes Life Meaningful
45:00 – How Humans Reclaim Meaning in Times of Change
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📝 Transcript
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Top Comments
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@COH757
Your purpose was never to spend the majority of your life working for someone else.
15 likes
@yvonnenyawira
I liked this conversation but perhaps there’s a deeper and untapped layer here. I struggled to find my life meaningful for a very long time despite actively working on projects that I cared about outside my 9-5. I was inspired by the movie black panther and designed some merch for fun. I taught myself about art and curated an exhibition, I travel very often and stay in a place for weeks to months at a time exploring and spending time with locals. I also invested in my friendships and relationships. However, my sense of meaning didn’t come from those things even though I derived satisfaction, joy and inspiration from them. I still found them insufficient. My sense of meaning fortified when I unplugged from the rat race and I slowed down. I redefined my priorities and chose meaning as a daily practice. What’s meaningful changes from day to day. My job is to show up. That’s it. I think in a rapidly evolving world we need to employ some ambidexterity in our definitions and applications of those definitions.
7 likes
@chrisb.5351
These are the conversations we need to be having. So glad we have some great thinkers out there to shine on light on topics like this.
Keep up the great content
1 likes
@Boringaibiz
Excellent discussion, @Sinead. My notifications are set to on. Keep up the good work! 🎉
4 likes
@2010Sisko
Really great topic Sinead. Looking forward to listening to it in full. Great your making such thoughtful videos. Wonderful.
1 likes
@svrthvk98
Brilliant Sinead!
1 likes
@richrogers2157
We seek status. Perhaps you could interview Michael Storr about his book “Status Games”. To my mind, this theory answers these questions far better than do theories of meaning.
@newfreethink
Our purpose is not our jobs.
5 likes
@WishworkCamilla
I’m excited to read the book but I think the link needs to be edited.
@Mindset19877
True meaning in life arises from pursuing a noble purpose that benefits others—people beyond oneself or one’s own family. While jobs fulfill our material needs and obligations, they do not, in themselves, provide that deeper sense of purpose.
1 likes
@chiasm-vj8vn
Rutledge isn't wrong; he's just incomplete. I think what grates is not merely his secular boundary; it’s his tone of sufficiency. Many modern frameworks speak as if the human person is a closed system: if we adjust habits and community and narrative, we have solved the riddle. But the riddle is not primarily behavioral. It is ontological.
1 likes
@Sereniq-f5j
Productivity without meaning scales emptiness. As AI accelerates, purpose can’t come from titles or output, it has to come from how we choose to matter.
@TheMillennialPharaoh
@sinead Are you afraid that your predictions are catching up to you because you never positioned yourself beyond them—especially when it came to your work?
It was exciting in the beginning, talking about what was coming before it happened. There was attention, attraction, momentum.
But when the moment actually arrived, it felt intimidating—because you spoke about the transition without ever preparing for it.
Vision without preparation turns promise into pressure.