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?
this might not be answering your question here but I think it is very possible to engage in some kind of organized religion if you find it meaningful and safe to belong in that kind of community and explore that kind of ritual even as an atheist. that is probably the easiest way to get at spirituality though i am sure there are people around here that would like to vouch for some modern non-religious spirituality
i wouldn't actually want to opine [too much more deeply] about what spirituality is because ultimately that should be something you answer for yourself (whether through firsthand experience or some sort of intellection). if you wanted to explore it yourself you could take too many mushrooms or get too high on weed which is the first thing i did right before doing a search for "weed as an entheogen" on english wikipedia
compatible with materialism?? this reminds me of being a teen and being hammered with "richard dawkins (b slur)" and this question of religion being compatible with science, which like.. science isn't trying to replace community and ritual and its also not immediately ready to help you navigate difficult things. long way of saying I do not think you need to make spirituality adversarial to any historical or present analysis of material conditions. if you want to introduce one into your life, you shouldn't let it interfere with your other efforts
hope this was constructive
edit: to make this slightly more appropriate i would share that i too have basically spent my whole life looking at the universe and existence with what i assumed was an atheist perspective, but once i started to interrogate certain assumptions in my worldview i found i had a few very irrational faith arguments that were pretty fundamental to me. didn't change the broad strokes, which still felt to me as very atheist, but it helped me understand how to engage with spirituality and religion meaningfully in my actual life. if you spent some time with yourself (maybe after smoking way too much weed) and looked at some of your presuppositions about how the world works you might find some of these weird little inconsistencies in your personal philosophy. maybe you change them, maybe you don't -- if the latter, you're pointing in the direction of Spirituality Town my friend
edit: edit again because this is a mess i hope mom doesnt see
Sadly the weed thing's not a good option for me considering I'm trying to put it down after being a multiple times a day toker where I reached a point I couldn't even feel it anymore. I will have to examine my beliefs though. I have a habit of being self-critical in a way that is self-flagellating instead of constructive. I think an inability to feel positive feelings has also warped my worldview into a self-defeating one even when I know intellectually I can change.