What does it mean to “matter” - is it a synonym for “importance”? For something to matter, what are the necessary fundamental actors and motivations?
I think we all have a gut sense of what it means to matter or not matter right? It might be hard to say, but it’s not hard to feel. For me it’s something like value. What has value, what doesn’t? And I guess the real question I’m asking is: What ultimately matters, what has ultimate value?
I rewrote the thread title to reflect the ‘ultimate’ aspect of mattering.
Plenty things matter relatively: dark chocolate, comfy chair, thunderstorm. But what (if anything) matters ultimately, absolutely, inherently? Love? Intelligence? Peace? Silence? Life? Death?
If “ultimate” is ‘the last and concluding element of a series’ (death) then nothing matters, not even love. Love only matters when living. How one gets there (love) doesn’t matter, being love does.
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“Being love” is nice way to say it. On a tv show I watched a while back, the lead character (not human) would say of her closest friends: Ben is love, Maddie is love. I liked that. 
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What may ‘ultimately matter’ (for Man) is whether Man can go beyond his ignorant, destructive selfishness?
What does it mean for something to have value ? For something to have value, what is necessary? What are the essential actors and motivations?
I’m asking this question because I believe that if we understand what we mean, the question will become less confusing for us - resolution might even occur automatically.
If you prefer to avoid all that - another path of questioning would be : what do you hope to achieve by this inquiry (into what matters)? what is your goal?
Honestly I would rather avoid analyzing the nature of value/mattering, would prefer it to stay a mystery. But that’s me, if anyone wants to analyze, have at it!
What is my goal here in this thread? To explore together what it means to matter.
Does mattering matter? It seems to, it feels like it does. Or is it just busywork to fill the silence?
What silence?..
The gap between thoughts kind?
When I’m measuring, making something etc, it ‘matters’ what the outcome is, right? Simple? The pump won’t work cause the vandals stole the handle….
But why carry that concept of ‘mattering’ where it may simply have no place? Why bring it at all into the movement, the ‘unfolding’ of life? The concept may have no place there nor does thought. The ‘eternal’ movement IS, and we have been given the privilege to be able to move consciously with it. Thought with its concepts of ‘matters’, ‘importance’, ‘value’, significance, good and evil etc, can not.
They ‘freeze’ life’s movement, put it in a ‘frame’, ‘evaluate’ the un-evaluable…and take us away from the ‘movement’.
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Those gaps are a microsecond. Even if you could extend them to a second or two, it would be too little time.
The conditioned brain asks what matters because it is not choicelessly aware of what it is doing when it asks what matters.
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I don’t think the word “choicelessly” is necessary here - we are just not aware, and in some cases it seems, purposely looking the other way.
We are selectively aware, or as you say, “looking the other way”. The conditioned brain distorts, denies, and dismisses awareness, altering it to conform to its beliefs, conclusions, biases, etc.
We know that every living thing is aware; that awareness is life, living, and that awareness may be beyond, outside the brain because not all living things have brains.
So when you say that " we are just not aware", you’re missing the point, which is that we are aware (as are all living things), but the human brain has chosen not be choicelessly aware, but to alter awareness to suit its purpose.
The conditioned brain chooses to live in its own world, its own reality, its prison of self, in defiance of the infinite, limitless world it inhabits.
Does mattering have a place in the flow of life? It’s certainly present, mattering matters to most people, right? Is it an unwelcome guest, an interloper, or baked into the nature of life/reality?
admittedly I’ve contradicted myself by claiming purpose and at the same time denying non-choicelessness.
It’s the “What you don’t know can’t hurt you” approach. Perhaps we evolved from ostriches?
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The bicameral brain may not be able to see how it has hoodwinked itself into doing what it does.
It may be that the brain can’t help but be in denial of what it’s doing and why it’s doing it until/unless its self-deception is seen from outside the structure of the bicameral brain that creates and sustains the illusion of its prison/castle.