Maybe you won't solve the global meaning crisis or maybe you will. What you can do is solve your meaning crisis and encourage others around to do the same.
How to overcome the meaning crisis, or my practical takeaways from John Vervaeke
The steps below are presented in a checklist format based on my experience & interpretation - it is not my intention to be demanding or authoritative
Step 0: Foundational physiology (not part of Vervaeke's work)
"The body tells the brain how to feel" - Robert Sapolsky
Eat healthy https://www.hsph.harvard.edu/nutritionsource/healthy-eating-plate/
Consider supplementing Vitamin D3, Omega 3, and creatine https://www.reddit.com/r/HubermanLab/comments/y5t3pz/what_supplements_do_you_take_daily but don't over do it. Also B12 if your diet is plant-based.
Sleep well https://www.healthline.com/health/sleep-hygiene
Exercise regularly https://medlineplus.gov/howmuchexercisedoineed.html find something that you enjoy with MET score above 4 https://golf.procon.org/met-values-for-800-activities/
Get sunlight in the morning. A good morning routine will help: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=gR_f-iwUGY4
Take notice of your motivation & dopamine, and avoid instant gratification https://youtu.be/ha1ZbJIW1f8
Once the preliminary, foundational stuff above is taken care of...
Step 1: Take a look at this: anagoge https://i.imgur.com/DEtXD8W.jpg
Print it out. Hang it up somewhere you can't miss it. Remix it and take ownership as you like.
Step 2: Study up on logical fallacies https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_fallacies & propaganda techniques https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Propaganda_techniques
These are used everywhere in our society (debates, political commentary, advertisements, etc.) to mislead people. They are also sometimes used by well-meaning people by accident. Being able to recognize them is critical to avoid deceiving ourselves, being deceived by others, and deceiving others by accident. That's critical for anagoge & and staying on the path to ever increasing connectedness with reality.
There's quite a few of them so maybe focus on a couple a day every day, and mix in some flashcards later.
Step 3: Explore and find psychotechnologies that work for you. Reading, journalling, try different meditations, IFS work, Tai Chi Chuan, NSDR, yoga, lectio divina, etc.. Vervaeke's upcoming After Socrates series will facilitate this. Try to find tutorials online but be cautious to avoid pseudoscience, etc. take what works and toss what doesn't. Look for practitioners who are exemplary and if possible, come from an academic or long-standing tradition.
What activities get you flowing? The flow state is crucial - it will allow you to learn faster, be more productive, enjoy moderate to intense exercise, connect deeply, etc.
Where and with who do you feel you get to enter a dialogos? This is where a conversation you have with someone brings you further than you could go yourself, or they could go alone (not a perfect definition). Treasure those relationships and work to get yourself into those conversations where you both afford each other insights more often.
Do your best to get closer to good role models – people or characters you admire. They are demonstrated and practical success stories for how to adapt in specific challenging situations. Having the right role models will accelerate positive change in your character since their skill and behavior will bleed into you. When encountering challenging situations, visualize and embody that ideal.
Different psychotechnologies work for different people. The same psychotechnologies work differently for different people. It's exploration into the unknowns of your own self via simultaneous self-expression, self-invention and self-discovery.
Step 4: Explore the arts via creation, not consumption or critique. Meaning lies in creation and so much of that meaning has been taken away by consumerism - the fact that we buy everything in our society https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=TIjvXtZRerY
Try making soap, music, poetry or painting, gardening or dance... or tinkering with bikes, electronics, or cooking something new. Doesn't have to be perfect or practical, but it does have to be an honest self-expression. This is also a place to play and potentially flow.
Step 5: Try to find communities of practice and communities of creators (artists, cooks, tinkers, makerspace, etc.) if possible. That could be a local or online meditation group. Or a book club, hiking group, writing club, etc. where there are people who like to have deep, self-reflective conversations. Those are critical for getting constructive feedback from others which can help you from falling into isolation, autodidactic spirals (self-reassurance, your own echo chamber) and egotistical self-centeredness.
Step 6: Consider where the psychotechnologies that work for you fit into anagoge. For each one, which steps do they facilitate? Draw them into anagoge & borrow the format from chemistry https://archive.md/xYuUy
How do different psychotechnologies & habits work together to reinforce each other? Drawing it out may help.
Examples: my reading helps my writing, my writing helps me stay on track with my goals and habits, my meditation (taming the monkey mind) helps my conversation skills, having good conversations helps my anxiety, low anxiety affords me greater focus, being in social situations motivates me to exercise consistently, exercise clears my mind afterward and helps me sleep better, intermittent fasting 16:8 trains my discipline and helps focus, etc.
Step 7: Reconsider psychotechnologies or activities that do not serve anagoge in your life. Prune them as needed.
Step 8: Get into daily or weekly routine with the psychotechnologies. Certain combinations of habits and psychotechnologies should 'catch fire' and embed themselves into your life, such that little mental effort is required. It's more than just a habit sticking.
"Plato had this great insight that if you get the psycho-technologies lined up in the right way, they will become mutually reinforcing." - http://www.soulspacepodcast.com/2019/02/24/episode8/
Life comes along and will shake your foundation, so neither that habituation nor that fire is enough to keep the routine. Here's what I do:
Remember that my everyday is much better / more meaningful / greater connection to myself, others, my work, nature, the future, etc. with the psychotechnologies... Why would I want to go back to my old ways?
Express gratitude - I am grateful that I get to do this today, that a mix of my own efforts, luck, etc. have afforded me the time and opportunity to read, write, meditate, flow (via sparing, tennis, basketball, hiking, etc. whatever you find that works), dialog into dialogos, etc. ... Vervaeke expresses gratitude every morning https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Edkw-PC_jI&t=2930
At this point, you'll have realized what's relevant, and relevantized what's real - along multiple dimensions of your life.
Step 9: Change your life. Seriously. Switch jobs, or move, donate and/or change the way you live somehow - whatever you need to do so you can start working on problems and projects that matter to you and others, in whatever way you can.
At this point you should be spending a lot of time in the overlapping areas of Ikigai https://archive.ph/YIwbK
Step 10: Help others anagoge. Encourage them to explore and take up psychotechnologies that work for them. Live wisely.
If you make it this far, you'll find yourself living virtuously, with good habits calling you and discipline on tap. People close to you may say you've grown up or you've changed for the better by step 6 or 7. This is a nice consequence but it's not the goal. What's better is if some may start to rely on you or see you as a role model in something, or want you to help them get started.
"Virtue is the beauty of wisdom" - John Vervaeke
Note: The order of the steps above is flexible. Steps will happen out of order and/or simultaneously. As life happens you'll acquire a taste for the need to return to certain steps.
This is my attempt to articulate what's surrounding anagoge - a dynamic, looping set of steps & structures.
The solution to the meaning crisis isn't to watch all of Vervaeke's videos, or to become a philosophy expert, or to win debates, or to make millions of dollars, or to join a religious faith, etc.
The solution to the meaning crisis is to cultivate meaning in one's own life and to help others do the same.
It will take an incredible amount of effort but it's the most rewarding thing you can ever do - and only you can do it in your life.