I think they mean that their father went no-contact with his own parents/family (OPs grandparents and extended family) prior to OPs birth.

Why is happiness diminished by knowing it’s a chemical reaction? Why doesn’t that apply to depression and sadness?

As in you’re bothered by the lack of meaning? Figure out why it’s so important to you to have a purpose, and then choose a purpose for yourself. It’s quite freeing in my opinion, you can’t really mess up your life in a wider philosophical sense. You succeed just by doing things that make you happy (and depending on your morals, don’t make anyone else’s life worse).

The real meaning of life is to reproduce. We are here because some funny molecules have a tendency to replicate themselves, that’s really all there is to it.

The lack of meaning isn’t really a problem unless you make it one

How is it a weakness? If anything it seems like it would help address inequity in how people are treated based on race, age, gender if people are interacting more anonymously, and maybe we could also dispense with this whole coworkers are a family bs that is meant to instil loyalty to a company that doesn’t care about you and offset a lack of work life balance

The answer is bison

But to the problem of converting to veganism on a larger scale, I think you’d just gradually phase out by banning further breeding and the cow population could dwindle down. It wouldn’t solve a lot of the other adjacent problems though.

I do believe you have learned plenty outside of interacting with electronic devices. And I am not saying you have to leave your niche either, if you are fulfilled and stimulated that’s great.

But to suggest that you can learn and understand everything within your tiny bubble is really demonstrating a lack of depth and wisdom… At least you should be able to understand and accept that you are choosing to disengage with a vast amount of knowledge that cannot be provided by your current sphere of interest. If you accept that, then that is a good start.

It doesn’t mean your pursuit of knowledge is invalid or useless. But an important piece of growth that sometimes but not always comes with age is beginning to grasp the vastness of what you don’t know, how much is out there that you cannot even begin the comprehend.

The other side of this is a bit physiological. You mentioned in another comment that may skills and concepts learned outdoors have analogues online (like navigating the internet). I just wanted to add that these are very different. Our brains have evolved for millions of years to navigate a physical environment and have unique mechanisms to do that based on vision, smell, even magnetic forces. The inherent attuning of our brains to the physical world is why things like using a mind palace technique for memory are so powerful. There are many other mechanisms like that which can’t always be exercised in a meaningful way via the internet or technology, and which contain their own opportunities for knowledge and growing ones understanding.

Yes, my answer is the same. You are conflating learning with pure comprehension of factual information. Learning and knowledge and wisdom involve much more than that.

No, you have lost touch or you have never been in touch with the many possibilities and opportunities for growth and learning which exist outside of electronic devices. I am not remotely saying there is nothing of value online, or within technology. There is incredible value and a staggering amount of information (of various quality). But when you attain more wisdom you will see that that also applies to things outside of electronic devices and denying yourself that information and interaction is rejecting knowledge and personal growth.

It locks your brain and senses into restricting patterns

The fact you don’t see the potential there on your own makes it clear that you have plenty of room to grow in your own wisdom

For a serious answer, it may be trying to tell you to keep watch on your mental health and talk to someone about what you are experiencing. Becoming overly aware of number patterns and perceiving them as signs/messages that are more than a coincidence can be an early sign of paranoid delusions or other psychosis kind of symptoms. I have seen in first hand in my friend who was eventually diagnosed with bipolar (it got a lot worse before it got any better, so do try to intervene early).

At least it’s making it really easy to identify who should be first in line for the guillotines

Is it safe?