The meaning of Life
Does life have inherit meaning? Or do we create our meaning?
What matters?
Is there an inherit intrinsic spiritual meaning to life?
Are we just products of our biology where reproduction and genetic survival is all that is actually matters?
Or does life not possess inherent meaning and is it us, the individuals that must create our own sense of purpose?
Can the meaning of life be found in the Simpsons?
When I was a child I was quite fond of the Simpsons and had owned a bunch of little Simpsons memorabilia. I remember as an eleven year old child I had this little 100 page book all about the cartoon show the Simpsons. It covered topics about the personalities of the characters as well as little breakdowns and inside scoops about the show. But there was something peculiar about that book that caught my interest. There was a little gag in the book where there would be a statement off center in very small text on random pages stating “ If you want to know the meaning of life flip to page 36”. Well as an 11 year old I took this quite literally. It was like finally I can have this existential question answered thank you Homer Simpson! Basically how the gag would go is the message would first appear on page 3 then it would take you to page 42 then back to page 3 then page 78 and so on. It put you on this silly little journey flipping through the entire 100 pages of the Simpson’s book in the efforts to finally uncover the secret of the meaning of life.
Even after I finished the book I continued looking through it because I was set on uncovering the truth of what the meaning the life was. (And if anyone or any source was to have this godly knowledge of course it is to be found in a 100 page book about a cartoon). Well spoiler alert I never found that elusive page that revealed the meaning of life even after all that searching… I know what a shame. And even in this life I live right now despite all my searching I still have not found and will never know/find out the meaning too life.
The book and it’s little gag of “find the secret to the meaning of life on page” - “ __” was a little metaphor for life. Often times we get so caught up on trying to understand the purpose for why we are here and how to best live our life that we forget to actually live our life. I mean we all share the same fate at the end of the day, so does life necessarily need to have meaning for it to be lived well? And does life even have a inherit meaning at all?
Are we just monkeys for real ?
The meaning of life has been something that has been theorized and philosophized since the dawn of time. Is there any true purpose or meaning to life beyond passing down our genes and ensuring the survival of our genetic line? Is the only thing that separates us from our primal ancestors and animals is our developed consciousness? Does this developed consciousness give us the illusion that there is an inherit meaning to life in a world where there is truly none?
We ask ourselves this philosophical question “What is the meaning of life”. And you will hear cliche messages such as the meaning of life is to be… “ To be a good person, to have a family, to be happy”. Yes these messages are all cliche, but they do have their place.
(The philosophical question I have been asking myself recently is “are we just monkeys for real?” haha)
Being a good person promotes prosocial behavior, thus promoting more cooperation, resource sharing, survival and thus harmony in the in group which promotes a greater chance of survival and reproduction.
Having a family is quite obvious as greater parental investment creates greater chances for the survival of your offspring and your code continuing on.
And happiness is often correlated with self esteem, and those with higher self esteem tend to be more socially dominate/attractive and pursue more mating opportunities than those with lower self esteem, thus leading to more opportunities to find quality mates and pass off their genetic code.
It very well may be the case that our sophisticated brain has created sophisticated ways to delude ourselves in believing that human beings and human life has a greater purpose/meaning for life. A reason that differentiates us from the basic biological instincts/reasons that we share with all animals… How narcissistic (lol). But who am I to say that us humans do not have an inherit meaning for existence.
(Do I believe life has a deeper spiritual esoteric meaning? keep reading to find out. And maybe ill even tell you on what page in the simpsons book you can find the meaning to life lol)
Why do we have a deep need to explain the world “He who has a why to live for can bear almost any how”
We as human beings have created many different pathways in which we can come to explain & justify our existence. We have different branches of philosophies, religions, scientific theories that all attempt to explain why we are here, how we are here, and what does and doesn’t matter. But why?
Well the world is a painful contradiction and we desire answers to justify our pain in our enduring efforts. The thing is our moral ideals demand some things that life and earth seems incapable of obtaining and that causes us distress. Humans desire reasons: reasons for pain, sadness, death, reasons for good and evil, all in a world that cannot give you a definitive answer. I think Niezstche said it best - “He who has a why to live for can bear almost any how”. We as human beings need a reason & an explanation to justify our efforts amidst all the suffering, chaos, and absurdism characterized by this world to keep going. If the world doesn’t give us a reason then we will create a reason to explain/justify whatever phenomena/circumstance.
Fortunately or unfortunately for us the human brain has developed to a point to where we are painfully aware of the nature of this world. And our super developed intelligent brain has also helped us develop super intelligent coping mechanisms in order to cope with this reality. The world is paradoxical, it demands that you strive towards an ideal of perfection to achieve lasting fulfillment, but denies you the ability/resources to give you access to perfection. And to cope with this fact we as human beings have searched for reasons to justify this conundrum.
Religions will say perfection and salvation is not to be found here, but in the world next. So act carefully for you are being watched and imbue meaning in the good deeds you do, and the evil you abstain from and you will be rewarded by being granted access to a world that does not abide by this paradox.
A utilitarian philosopher will tell you to imbue meaning in experiences that are pleasurable and denote the ultimate net good for that is what will reveal the most pleasure and that is what is meaningful.
A Nihilists may say life is meaningless and has no objective meaning that unites all of humanity. They may also believe that existence, including action, feeling, and suffering, is ultimately senseless and empty.
An Existentialist may say that life is initially meaningless, and that individuals must create their own meaning through their actions and choices. And believe that humans are created as a blank slate, and that they must rely on their own resources to discover their purpose and meaning.
The Depth psychologist Carl Jung might say something along the lines of - To know the complete depths of you are unequivocally (all good, bad and gray) is the closet thing to perfection that we can achieve, to make the unconscious conscious is the closest we can get to God. So meaning is to be found in knowing yourself completely and actualizing yourself without restraint.
So is imbuing meaning into our experience just one large coping mechanism to shield us from the sufferings of existence? Or is it something greater?
Is Imbuing meaning just one large coping mechanism?
See per the examples up top, we as humans have the proclivity to imbue meaning in each and everything that we do in order to cope and endure. But what if everything is truly meaningless and we live in a world that is truly random and devoid of inherit meaning? What does that mean for the meaning that we imbue into our actions? Is it even real or necessary? Do we really need to imbue meaning into our actions to endure?
Well imbuing “Meaning” could all be some large psychological coping mechanism that we have developed to deal with the potential fact that maybe life has no true inherit meaning. Maybe we choose to believe this because we suffer a bit less by interacting with life in this way (i.e upholding this potential delusion).
(So if thats true then the delusion would be - life has intrinsic purpose and meaning. And reality would be - life is inherently meaningless and it is humans that attribute meaning/worth.)
I believe it is human nature to choose to live in delusion rather than facing the potential “Reality”. Why? Because the distress that would come from that realization (of life being inherently meaningless) would render the coping mechanism of imbuing meaning powerless to cope and curb immense psychological distress. I mean even the trite saying “everything happens for a reason” is enough of a reason to help people endure. But if there was no true reason behind “everything happens for a reason” well then we would be met with the full face of negative emotion that comes from negative experiences. So we can see how people would imbue meaning into things in order to cope and curb a larger response of negative emotion.
But there is a large difference between by creating meaning by imbuing false meaning into meaningless things and creating/discovering meaning by living authentically, in a way that is true to your own values and beliefs.
If life is meaningless and imbuing meaning into our experiences is a coping mechanism how can we grow & find purpose?
The thing is sometimes our tendency to imbue meaning into meaningless things is actually what takes you away from the experiences that truly are meaningful. Well thats fucking a mouthful so what do I mean by that? It’s basically the concept of missing the forest for the trees. If you spend too much time or effort fixating on something it will often evade you. meaning & growth is something that happens naturally not artificially.
(Viktor E. Frankl has a great quote tying the concept in just replace success with meaning) -
Personal reflection-
Throughout my life I have had the tendency to imbue all too much meaning into things that were ultimately meaningless (and I would do this in quite extreme ways). For example 2 years ago on my ex gf’s birthday I left my house to attend her house party without folding my clothes from my fresh laundry. During this phase of life I was going through a transitional period. Frankly I was quite lost, I was no longer playing sports at the time due to injuries, unemployed, and out of school. (feeling like a real winner haha) I felt quite inadequate and confused in what I should do with my life. I remember telling myself before I left the house “no matter what I have to fold and put away my laundry before I go to sleep because that signifies that I am getting my shit together and and as I organize my room I am organizing my psyche and that means im heading towards the path of becoming better”. (Writing this down now and reflecting on that in retrospect I realize how foolish and batshit crazy that conclusion I came too sounded lol).
As I arrived to my ex girlfriend’s party I staunchly remembered my inability to be present. All that was on my mind was “I have to get home and fold my laundry”, because in my mind folding my laundry was the catalyst that would ignite great growth and reveal the meaning and purpose that I so desperately needed in my life.
Throughout the whole party I was missing out on spending quality time and cherishing my ex on her special day, interacting with her friends and family, and accepting the metaphorical invitation to engage and cherish in what makes her world bright. Essentially I missed out on fostering a deeper intimacy with my gf of the time because I was so preoccupied with this false meaning I imbued in folding my clothes.
I ended up leaving the party and not staying the night so I could feed my ego the appearance of growth from false meaning. The most growth inducing thing I could of done was be present and cherish the time/celebration with and for my ex. Not only would that of induced the most growth and meaning for myself due to being present, not overthinking, and fostering a deeper emotional closeness, but more importantly on her special day there should’ve been nothing more important the cherishing and celebrating her. But hey at least I folded my laundry… my bad shordie. miss ya haha
So 2 years later what did learn from this?
1.) My thought process was batshit crazy and I needed drumroll please….. (insert sparkles here) Therapy (insert sparkles here)
2.) Growth/change is something that happens organically and is not something that has to be formulated and crafted. Change is shown not talked about. A caterpillar can talk about how much it’s changing & growing, but a butterfly’s change shows without words. What do I mean by this?
So what does the process of true growth/change look like? How do we find meaning in a world that may lack inherit meaning?
Well change happens organically through honest lived experiences. It does not happen artificially through trite self created experiences. People will put themselves through these artificially created experiences in hopes to induce “change”. But the meaning they imbue is false leaving the experience unable to induce true change.
But change is not completely passive. The active component of change comes from a honest and transparent introspection of your past experiences. It’s then followed by future action which contrasts your prior action as it's taken towards the direction of where you wish to change/grow.
Whereas if one tries to create experiences that they think will facilitate change they are often mislead by their own cognitive dissonance. This "change" is inauthentic and contrived. And it prevents the individual from achieving lasting change as their own cognitive dissonance prevents them from addressing the aspects of themselves that will lead them to wholeness. It does this in order to protect the ego from being disillusioned.
Change happens naturally from authentic life experiences, intentional introspection, and then application of introspection towards the direction of the desired area of growth. It is not found in creating contrived scenarios where you think said experience/hardship will induce a change/catalyst in you as a person. The mind is too crafty and prone to delusion (in order to protect ego/sense of self ) to let that create authentic positive change.
So in order to truly change/grow, live life and live it honestly. Life will throw you many experiences in which you will be challenged and have opportunities to grow and change, so there is no need to create said challenging experiences artificially (life is tough enough no need for self caused adversity/suffering)
Again live life authentically while being mindful & reflective of your experiences as they happen. Then see how you can better act (post experiences) then attempt to implement change. You will find true growth and meaning through this course of action. And not have to rely on imbuing meaning into things that don’t even matter.
My take away
If I was Albert Camus id probably say something like - life is inherently meaningless and absurd. The absurd does not merely refer to some vague perception that modern life is fraught with paradoxes, incongruencies, and intellectual confusion. Instead the absurd expresses a fundamental disharmony and a tragic incompatibility in our existence. The absurd is the product of a collision of confrontation between our human desire for order, meaning, and purpose in life in the blank, indifferent silence of the universe. The absurd is not in man nor in the world but in the presents together it is only bond uniting them.
Whether life has inherent meaning or we create its meaning at the end of the day it doesn't fucking matter. Camus would say that life is inherently meaningless. And yes due to that fact we can choose to end it all, for who cares or we can find our own meaning. Either way it doesn't matter. You can choose to spend your life transferring from one goal to another, or you can jump off a bridge. It's all the same thing as life is Absurdism and at the end we all progress towards a death, so how we live is all that matters truly.
And in my opinion we are stuck with life so we might as well love it, cherish it, live it to it’s fullest and treat it as if it’s meaningful. For no other reason than it feels/is good to do good, to be kind, to express love, to work hard, and achieve goals. Who cares whether there is some sort of inherent meaning behind the actions that make us feel good or if it is us that creates meaning behind those feel good actions … it doesn't matter. For all that matters is that way we live our life, best we know how through authenticity. And let living life fully be what changes us and reveal what is meaningful. So simply put just live life and stop searching for the fucking meaning of life for it doesn’t matter.