The Meaning of Life

In most modern philosophy, we begin in a place of radical skepticism.  What if nothing was what we thought it was?  What if all the concepts we lived with, the most significant foundations of our lives didn't actually exist at all?  What if there was no life after death, no soul, no God?  What if there was no real basis for any authority, any social structure?  What if, in reality, there is no meaning to ourselves or anything around us?  How then should we live?  How could we live?

And it's no wonder people don't like reading philosophy.  That's pretty depressing.  Everything we spent our lives on, meaningless.  In the end, nothing.  For the most part, however, philosophy doesn't end in this place.  It tries to build reality from this place in order to establish meaning.  From this place of nothingness, we could establish our meaning.

One option is to just remain in that place.  Okay, so there's no meaning?  Fine, I can live with that.  Or I can't.  It doesn't matter, either way, for all of life is absurd, a silly game, without significance.  So is life, our relationships, our parents, our own existence just an illusion, a smoke-in-mirrors trick?  Or is life so short... the whole existence of humanity and biological life such a brief blip in the history of the universe so quick that our activities aren't worth pursuing or exploring?  If this is the case, what are the options?  Suicide? Lethargy? Reading the same opinion over and over again?

This is the point that most bring in Sarte. In summary, Sarte agrees that there is no meaning in life, but we must create our own meaning.  The true meaning is what we make, based on who we deeply are.  We seek who we are and develop our lives around that.

Are we significant enough to do this?  Well, we are knowledgeable enough to know how small we are, how briefly we live, in the scope of the universe.  We may not be significant to change the course of a solar system, but we can be significant enough to shape ourselves to be in an image of our choosing. This is knowledge and talent that no other life or entity has ever had in all of existence (so says our radically skeptical nature).

So who are we?  Are we religious? Then let us embrace religiosity. Are we sexual? Then let us embrace those pleasures.  Are we consumers of good food?  Are we active? Are we competitive?  Are we depressed?  Are we lovers of power?  We can follow those paths.

As human, however, we find that a single description doesn't suit us.  Each of us is a weave of various threads, a city within a single mind. Every one of us consumes good food, desires human connection, fears threats, wants peace, wants control over our lives.  So this requires wisdom and balance for us to live even a life without meaning.

But is our life without meaning if we speak of balance?  Is there meaning in pursuing knowledge, even if that knowledge dies when we pass on? Is there a meaning in sexual pleasure if that leads to an ongoing relationship and family and continuing generations?  Is our real problem finding a meaning only if our meaning can be cosmic?  Isn't there meaning in raising a single child, even if that child lives a short, insignificant life?  Isn't there enough meaning for that child?

Does a deer in the forest consider their lives without meaning?  No, why should she?  Nor is she filled with despair when she looks at the cosmos, that is meaningless to her.  Even if we have greater understanding of the cosmos, does that mean that we must reject the meaningfulness of the doe, simply because we are human?  The doe exists for herself, for her children.  Can we not pursue that meaning, and find that it is sufficient?

The meaning that we have as humans is not, for most of us, to be found in knowledge of the cosmos, but in other humans.  We see others, and they are a part of ourselves, we are a part of them.  The more we spend time with another human, the more a part of us they are.  This is the function of mirror neurons in our brain, which humans seem to have more developed than other animals.  We can identify not only with other humans, but certain other animals, non-living object and fictions.  This function is a deep part of our meaning.

So should we not explore others, and how they create meaning in us?  Should we not pursue social groups, compassion, love, romance, entertainments, beauty? Should we pursue acts of the human future-- politics, activism, opportunities?

Is there not meaning in the small, as well as the large?