The Many Meanings of Life
Long ago, nothing was nowhere.
Then, nothing and nowhere became something and somewhere. Because.
Makes sense.
But what’s the meaning of it all? What’s the meaning of life?
Again, nothing. But also, everything.
The end.
Whichever way we choose to deal with it, life has no inherent meaning. The universe appears indifferent, leaving no meaning beyond that which we make ourselves.
Meaning is of the mind. Outside the context of minds, things like beauty and morality become pointless to discuss. As does pain, joy, love, hunger, color—any of it. It only ever “matters” if one exists as a mind capable of saying it does, capable of experience and thought. Every event, every emotion, every idea, these very words you’re reading right now—they’re all made coherent and “meaningful” by our cognitive function. They have no meaning at all until reaching our minds. To the universe, these things are irrelevant and made-up. To us, they are central.
But this is not a negative realization as some might believe. Just because the universe is indifferent and uncaring, that doesn’t mean we have to emulate this cosmic apathy. The struggle to discover what is truly worth valuing in the vast landscape of possible meaning is certainly a worthwhile venture as it relates to suffering and well-being. Things like appreciation, compassion, frustration, and contemplation are all ways in which meaning can exist. But only ever on the level of subjective loops of agency involved in their manifestation. Meaning is inherently subjective because it is entirely subject-dependent.
Some people find “greater meaning” in something “beyond us” like god or destiny or artistry or the collective good, but that’s merely a failure to realize the only and actual foundation of meaning: existence itself. The simplest yet most profound way of encapsulating this idea is to understand that “being” precedes “meaning”.
Meaning emerges and dissolves within us. Meaning is not found or discovered. It is forged. Learned. Created. It ends when we so choose. When we define a new value and our priorities change. When we reason past an old belief or purpose. When the minds we are finally cease functioning.
Nobody really expects atoms and molecules to have purposes, yet many people expect themselves, other living things, and life overall to have a purpose. Why? Atoms and molecules makeup everything we know, including us. So how could there be any sort of indelible meaning to certain bundles of atoms and molecules?
Ask yourself: what’s a paper clip for? You might say it’s for holding together paper. But what about when it’s used to hold together flowers or stems of a bouquet? It could also be used to mark a page in a book. Or as a hook to hang something. Or as a tool for unclogging small holes. It could be wrapped around your finger to make a pretend ring. Or stabbed through a marshmallow to give it cute little arms. Or stabbed through an eyeball to give cute it little retina piercings.
With this in mind, we can see that a paperclip’s purpose is undefined. It has more common uses than others, but it has no single definite meaning. There doesn’t seem to be a definite meaning for anything.
Think about it…
What if some sort of otherworldly creature appeared before you right now and asked “what’s a human for?” How would you respond?
You could explain the historical process preceding us. You could be a good Darwinian scientist and talk about the evolutionary functions of our different features. You could muster up some poetic phrase about storytelling or engineering or exploring. You could criticize our shortcomings or embellish our positive traits. You could offer some religious mumbo jumbo. You could speak on all the things that exist as a result of our own existence. But humankind itself? We’re not “for” anything, we just “are”. In all of our decorative, ridiculous, purpose-driven glory.
Remember:
Nobody exists on purpose. Nobody “belongs” anywhere.
Nobody went to the beach one day, found a $100 bill in the sand, and suddenly had an epiphany as to its value. We created the value of that flimsy ink-marked blend of cotton and linen, just like we determine the value of everything else that exists. This includes ourselves and the lives we live.
Human beings can be complicated and full of contradictions, often straddling the fence between two opposing modes of operation. Any given person might sometimes embody the spirit of the mathematician or scientist, while at other times embodying the spirit of the psychologist or philosopher. We seem split between feeding an insatiable curiosity for the infinite web of causes and conditions versus just accepting things as they are without excessive inquiry.
It’s the two sides of our coin. One seeks to move on. The other marinates in thought. One is concerned primarily with what comes next. The other is concerned primarily with what came prior. One deals in the simpler world of facts and logical assessments. The other probes around in the more abstract domain of feelings and subjective reason. It’s a battle we all endure. Or perhaps calling it a battle is misleading. Perhaps it’s just the inevitable nature of our being.
Moseying around can be fun, but it seems the most immediately true way to answer the question of meaning in life is to say that the answer is whatever the hell you want it to be. Nothing matters, therefore everything can. Life is infinitely meaningful.
There’s a great sense of freedom to be found with this realization, either in the form of an empowering free will to choose or a removal of pressure in a deterministic universe. Take your pick.
The point is that you can’t figure out the meaning of life, but you can certainly figure out the meaning of your own life. Whether or not you think it’s given to you by pure circumstance, developed on your own, or bestowed by divine appointment is irrelevant.
This idea of “nothing matters, therefore everything matters” can sometimes be framed as optimistic nihilism or existentialism. And then there’s absurdism, which suggests that any inquiry for meaning is a silly question from the start. Whatever name is given to the notion of “nothing = everything”, the equation remains unchanged. It’s all a matter of what we do or don’t put our minds towards.
So what’s the meaning of life? Well, whatever it is, it changes from moment to moment.
The great Helen Keller, an author, activist, and lecturer who was both deaf and blind, once said:
“Everything has its wonders, even darkness and silence. And I learn, whatever state I may be in, therein to be content.”
According to the French philosopher Albert Camus, “the literal meaning of life is whatever you’re doing that stops you from killing yourself”.
Different models analyzing human nature have been proposed over time, from the well-known Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs to the lesser known Stewart Brand’s pace layer theory. Yet one can always find exceptions to any attempt at extracting answers pertaining to the meaning of life when done in such a matter of fact way.
A more wholistic approach to answering the question might be to say the meaning of life consists of something like:
health (mental/physical)
people to share life with (friends/family)
something to look forward to
That sounds nice, but clearly there’s more.
Some people find meaning in work, an attitude prevalent in modern western cultures that promote purpose derived from jobs, labor, and productivity.
Others find meaning on the complete opposite end of the spectrum, an attitude held in many indigenous cultures that find purpose in simply being alive. Just as nature is alive. To be here. To be beautiful. To be strange.
There are some who want to build an empire. They want dots all over the map, a resume that commands respect, intergenerational wealth, and a legacy to reverberate long after they die. Then there are others who want to work 10 hours a week, live minimally, make great memories with people they care about, and leave the world with most people having never known they existed.
Despite the vast differences between these two types of people, both seem equally validated operationally. They also share a common goal insofar as striving to maximize what they’re given and create a positive ripple effect for those around them.
Of course, some people don’t want to fit in either of these categories, and they don’t have to. As some random person on the internet once said:
“Your life doesn’t need to have some major purpose, nor you any grand ambitions. It’s okay to just wander around finding interesting things until you die.”
For some, choosing the non-standard path through life is what makes the most sense. Many people are ashamed at being different or weird, but “weird’ is really just the edge of human civilization creating something new. One might say that being weird is the most exciting thing to be, with the universe anxiously waiting to see what we create.
A simpler-minded person might say the meaning of life is to be happy, but the idea of contentment makes more sense than happiness. Contentment includes happiness, but also allows room for those times when life is difficult. Although being content is often associated with being lazy or unmotivated, it can actually just be about savoring the simpler things in life and lacking the need to be at the top or always happy. We know it’s impossible to always be happy, but it’s certainly possible to train oneself to always be content.
Many artists and meditators and deep-thinkers speak fondly of being in “the now”, a state of flow where we find the present moment to be so compelling that our mind isn’t wandering to thoughts of “what’s the point of all this” or “what’s next”. It’s a beautiful thing to lose track of time and becoming fully immersed in whatever it is we’re engaging with. What more meaning could one ask for than that?
As some wise man once declared, “it’s the journey, not the destination.”
Perhaps the deepest meaning of life is to be found in seeking out feeling and experience, to take in the universe in its totality and process whatever the adventure brings. Regardless of wins and losses, we want to play the game. We don’t really want all the cheat codes. We don’t want to teleport to our ending place in life, even if we could, because then we’d lose the beauty of the adventure.
We all do what we can to feel alive. We seek validation through material things like money and toys and trophies, something tangible to hold as a place marker. We yearn for physical sensations like pleasure and pain in music, movies, and situations that evoke emotion forcing us to feel. We search for lovers and lives we can touch to give confirmation we exist and have effect. What is being alive if not constantly trying to prove that we are? If we held still long enough, would we start to slip?
As Rick Sanchez (the greatest fictional scientist of all time) tells us:
“To live is to risk it all. Otherwise you’re just an inert chunk of randomly assembled molecules drifting wherever the universe blows you.”
Some people hold the concept of freedom as the most important aspect of life, but being free can be a gift and a curse. The ability to choose one’s purpose is perhaps unrivaled in liberation, but freedom without purpose is often a prison. If you’re capable of finding meaning in everything, it’s possible your healthier care-free attitude might sometimes morph into a less healthy paralysis analysis. Being open to all possibilities and being free enough to explore those possibilities might render you paralyzed by indecision.
Contrary to some common mantras, it might be that many people aren’t actually lazy or incapable at all. It might just be that their mind wants 100 different things at a time and is stifled by the amount of options at their disposal in the modern world.
This perpetual cycle of unhappiness and discontentment often leads people to finding meaning in the wrong places (places far more conducive to suffering).
Some gravitate towards distracting themselves with pleasure and escapisms—porn, drugs, alcohol, entertainment. Others find meaning in divisiveness and conflict—fighting against the boss, the patriarchy, the government, the other team. Given the opportunity, many people find meaning in tribalism—blind loyalty to a country, a skin color, a gang, a cult, a set of beliefs, a purpose in life handed to them by another person or group.
Although such things may provide a false sense of security and prevent people from ending their own life, it’s obviously not the ideal case of existence. Ignorance, close-mindedness, submission to authority, avoiding confrontation—the universe has so many better things to offer.
If you’re not one of those unfortunate souls who’ve been captured by addiction or ideology, it’s hard to deny the humanist’s approach to life. A commitment to the perspective, interests, and centrality of human persons. The practice of reason, skepticism, and the scientific method as the only appropriate instruments for discovering truth and structuring human community. The view that human flourishing is dependent on open communication, discussion, and criticism. The acknowledgement of possibility in living confidently without metaphysical certainty and that all opinions are open to revision and correction. The attitude that we should respect all forms of life and strive towards compassion, tolerance, health, knowledge, growth, and the mitigation of suffering.
Whether or not you subscribe to humanism, it does seem that the most fundamentally sound goal to strive towards is producing greater well-being. We can maintain an acceptance that suffering is an inevitable part of the package, but no human being genuinely wants to experience unpleasant things.
It’s important to note here that suffering itself isn’t just inevitable, it’s actually necessary and something we do want in our lives now and then. Exercise. Tough conversations. Building a LEGO Death Star. Anyone who’s done anything difficult at any point in their life knows that with struggle can come clarity and strength and many other rewards.
Knowing this, what we really don’t want is needless suffering. We don’t want struggle and discomfort without any acquisition of knowledge or growth on the other side. We want suffering that leads to well-being.
Even then, the very notion of “needless” might be a fallacy of its own, since all it takes is a shift in perspective to turn the worst failure imaginable into a learning experience. The worst pain used to comfort another. The most boring task made into a game.
And maybe this is where the buck stops. Maybe this is where we can finally find some semblance of the foundational meaning of life: adaptation.
It’s the process of growing and evolving and existing as a fluid force. Moving not against the currents, but with them. To adapt is to accept and be one with what is. To embrace change. To welcome discomfort in order to grow. To survive. To learn. To improve. To endure the journey.
We can accept our predicament of existing, and reframe our circumstances when necessary. We can train ourselves to let go of everything we fear to lose and make the most of whatever life we are given. We can surrender our egos and laugh at the absurdity of the universe. We can relinquish the need for certainty and cultivate curiosity in all things.
We can find meaning in silence and stillness just as much as we can find meaning in noise and entertainment. We can find meaning in studying astronomical phenomena just as much as we can find meaning in the ant hill on the side of the road.
We can find meaning in solitude and meditation. Or social gatherings and raising a family. We can find meaning in collecting things from others or in creating things for others to collect. We can find meaning in watering plants. Or solving equations. Or painting. Or traveling. Or lifting heavy objects to increase the size of our muscular structure. We can find meaning in conversations. Thrills. Fiction. Self-improvement. Helping others. Relaxation. Sweating. Breathing. Being.
We can find meaning in finding meaning.
Or not finding meaning. Meaning in remaining undecided.
Whatever you choose, whatever you think is the proper response to this great philosophical conundrum, whatever you think life is about, just remember that nothing and nowhere became something and somewhere for a reason.
We don’t what the fuck that reason is, but it’s there. And so are you. So get on with it.