What is the meaning of Life for me? How do I even answer that question? More importantly, how do I answer that question honestly?
How do I say what the meaning of Life is, without resorting to abstract mumbo jumbo or spiritual-sounding platitudes, statements that hide more than they reveal? Can I convey what Life means to me in terms that are concrete and real?
Why do we search for meaning? Here are two possible answers.
First, we could be the product of "intelligent design" (as Philip Johnson puts it). Some sort of divine mind could have created us for a purpose, and then designed us to desire to fulfill that purpose. Just as our brains are "wired" to seek food and sex, our brains could also be designed to crave a higher purpose for our lives, and to not be content until we are actively fulfilling that purpose.
Or second, we could have been produced by a "blind watchmaker" (as Richard Dawkins puts it). We might be the products of random genetic mutations, coupled with the all-important proving grounds of environmental threats and opportunities, which would serve to weed out detrimental traits (the predators would tend to catch the slowest runners, for example) and to encourage helpful traits (the cleverest hunter catches more prey to feed her young). As a result of the ensuing natural selection, we developed brains that are "wired" both to recognize patterns and also to want to use our energy and resources purposefully, to improve our chances of survival. As cavemen, our brain's reward system would have been activated when we were acting purposefully, by achieving a goal that would improve our health and welfare and the health and welfare of our tribal group.
C.S. Lewis thought that the mere fact that we look for meaning in the Universe (especially religious meaning) is a sign that there actually is real meaning to it. He used the analogy of light and asked whether creatures would develop eyes in a Universe without light. Presumably, the answer would be, no. However, the fact that there is meaning in Life does not mean that it is an objective meaning created for us by God; it could be a meaning that we create, and both the capacity for creating subjective meaning and the innate longing to experience meaning could both be byproducts of the same evolutionary forces. Nevertheless, Lewis's analogy could be taken further: the fact that humans generally expect there to be meaning in the Universe itself, apart from any which we might add, is at least some evidence that the Universe was designed in a purposeful way by some sort of divine mind.
To put it in Aristotelian terms, the Universe appears to have a teleological cause (at least it appears this way to most people throughout the world and throughout history). The fact that we can conceive of the world around us in terms of purpose and meaning and design could be a fact about us, or it could be a fact about the world, or it could be both. Maybe there is purpose and meaning and design in the Universe, and maybe we are designed to seek it, recognize it, delight in it, and even add to it.
Viktor Frankl, the great Austrian psychiatrist, writer, and Holocaust survivor, believed that experiencing meaning in our lives is the penultimate human need, such that when all else is taken away, we can still carry on, so long as we really believe our lives are meaningful, even in a state of extreme deprivation and terribly cruel suffering. His masterpiece, Man's Search for Meaning, makes this case in a way that is hard to argue against; "hard" because Dr. Frankl drew the book's lessons from his own experiences and observations as an inmate of the death camps, surrounded by the very worst of man's inhumanity to man.
In spite of the eminence of Dr. Frankl, I still wonder whether all people in all times and places really do have this need for meaning. It seems that people ask whether Life is meaningful only after they have been disappointed with Life in some profound way. There are people who, to all outward appearances, are completely self-satisfied as they go about the business of making money, collecting status symbols, and engaging in trivial pastimes and empty small-talk, without ever giving a second thought to questions of Truth and Meaning.
True, there are rich and famous artists and businessmen who self-destruct with sex, drugs, and rock-and-roll excesses, but these unfortunate souls seem to have already been unhappy and self-destructive, before they set out to conquer the world. Before they hit the big time, their insatiable appetite for fame and fortune appears to have been all that kept them from self-destruction. Mike Tyson is a classic example of this. Axl Rose is another. Their narcissism drove them to professional greatness, but it ultimately sabotaged what could have otherwise been longer and more accomplished careers. Such people may ultimately turn to pursuing Truth and Meaning after trying and failing to find happiness with sensual indulgence, but they were the type of people who were destined to wonder about the meaning of Life from a young age: they simply weren't happy or comfortable in their own skin, and they needed something to cure them of this essential discontentment -- or "Dukkha" as Buddhists put it.
However, for the many other people out there who never seem to experience (or at least acknowledge consciously) this unhappiness or discomfort within themselves, they seem to be able to get along just fine with sensual indulgence and ego boosts; they never seem to care if there is or is not anything more to Life than their American McDream.
For those of us who feel the need to find Meaning and Purpose, perhaps this fact about ourselves really only shows that we experience dukkha because of some psychological or emotional injury or deprivation at a formative stage. Imagine two kids: Billy and Bob.
Billy is esteemed by his parents, teachers, and peers to be charming and likeable and deserving of constant praise and fawning. He grows up to think that he is the most awesome and talented person in the world, even though he isn't. Moreover, he is given opportunities and resources that further his smug self-assurance. Billy will probably only think about Truth and Meaning as an afterthought. Maybe he'll be raised in a church and give God his due every Sunday morning -- he'll sing a few upbeat songs and listen to a canned sermon about how great God thinks people like him are (and how rotten God thinks the people are who are not like him) -- and Billy will be very happy.
Bob, on the other hand, has parents who are overworked and underpaid and chronically stressed out and short of time. He is shy and socially awkward. He asks questions that get on the teachers' nerves, and they make little effort to hide their contempt for him. As he grows up, he gets little guidance about how the world works, so he has to figure everything out by trial and error. Bob will probably be very unhappy with himself and with Life in general, and he will want something, anything, to give him some sort of real and lasting happiness. If he does have access to sensual indulgence, he will quickly find that it does not satisfy his instatiable need for affirmation and fulfillment. Bob will eventually -- I say inevitably -- turn to questions of Truth and Meaning, because that's all that is left. (All, that is, except social connection and acceptance and meaningful opportunities to develop and apply his talents in a rewarding way.)
It appears to me (but what do I know?) that we seek Truth and Meaning only because other things have not worked out for us. But for those who honestly believe that Life's other pleasures are working out for them, they do not seem to care about Truth or Meaning. Therefore, it may be that our desire for Truth and Meaning is not a fact about the Universe or about Human Nature universally, but is only a fact about our own psychological and emotional development.
I think that is what makes Jesus, as opposed to the Christian religion, so powerful and relatable a figure; he did not really care about theology or religious traditions or religious institutions, and he behaved almost like a Cynic (as in the Greek philosophical school) towards the religious leaders of his day. Jesus healed a blind man on the Sabbath, and when the blind man was cross-examined by the Pharisees, he gave a disarmingly simple retort: "Whether he is a man of religious and moral virtue, I do not know; but I do know this: I was blind, but now I see." (John 9:25)
For the religious systems, their leaders do seem to be concerned with having you buy into their way of seeing the world and their way of doing life, as opposed to sharing their insights with you and allowing you to reach your own conclusions. Religions seems to offer the deceptive luxury of taking the burden of your spiritual and moral freedom away from you; they take responsibility for your life, and you "outsource" your thinking and moral and spiritual decision-making to them. In exchange, you get some tidy, pat answers to Life's biggest questions and problems, as well as the considerable benefit of a ready-made community of believers with whom to enjoy fellowship and support. While the relationships can have some real value, the other aspects of the religious life seem to inhibit, rather than help, the search for Truth and Meaning.
I do believe that happiness is possible, and that is something (as Aristotle noted in the Nichomachean Ethics) that is worth pursuing for its own sake. Perhaps, as hedonists like the Epicureans have believed, happiness is the highest good and something that makes Life meaningful.
Incidentally, if you think of "hedonists" as being wild and deranged, think again: "happiness" for an Epicurean would be characterized by emotional stability and contentment, not by wild sensual indulgence or disordered and unrestrained appetites. Epicurus seems to me to have taught something very similar to the Buddha: cultivation of personal virtue and mental and spiritual clarity; taming our desires and passions, but not denying or unnaturally suppressing them; and learning to experience happiness and fulfillment in the moment-by-moment experience of being alive and in Life's simple and natural pleasures. Buddha taught that Life is characterized by Dukkha (or distress, discontentment, etc.) and that by living and acting morally, we could experience Samsara, or freedom from the cycle of death and rebirth and all the clinging and clawing that Life does to perpetuate itself meaninglessly. Epicurus taught that discontentment pervades Life, but that we can experience Ataraxia (or freedom from physical and emotional disturbance) by retraining our minds to desire and enjoy only natural pleasures (such as basic food, water, and friendship), and to avoid all unnatural pleasures (such as acquiring status symbols), as well as most pleasures that are natural, but not necessary (such as extravagant foods). Of the two, I prefer Epicureanism to Buddhism, since Epicurus recognized the value in some of the attachments we form to other people (especially friendships), and good relationships do seem to me to be to be critically important for living the "good life."
And this leads me to something that I believe is a crucial insight from the more important and influential schools of moral philosophy, as well as from the major religions: our connections to other people matter, and how we treat other people matters. Confucius put the Golden Rule in the negative: if you would not want something done to you, don't do it to other people. Jesus gave a positive formulation: whatever you would want someone else to do for you, that's what you should do for them. We are social creatures; we have the capacity for empathy and acting for the good of another person. Maybe this is due to how we evolved; maybe this is due to how God designed us (or maybe both -- evolution and "intelligent design" don't seem to me to be mutually exclusive); but regardless, we do experience joy, meaning, and fulfillment in and through our relationships with others, and in and through our care for the welfare of others. This can be difficult in practice, but it does reliably yield positive effects in our own lives, when we are able to act with love and compassion for others.
Ultimately, I believe that we can experience happiness and mutually-fulfilling relationships, and that this give our lives real meaning and, ultimately, makes life worth living. So what is the meaning of Life for me? Experiencing happiness and mutually-fulfilling relationships.
How do I say what the meaning of Life is, without resorting to abstract mumbo jumbo or spiritual-sounding platitudes, statements that hide more than they reveal? Can I convey what Life means to me in terms that are concrete and real?
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| What is the Meaning of Life? (Besides being a Monty Python film...) |
Why do I feel the need to have meaning in Life?
I wonder why it occurs to me in the first place to ask the question, "What is the meaning of Life?" From the popularity of books that purport to give an answer to the question, I see that I am not the only one who has wondered about it.Why do we search for meaning? Here are two possible answers.
First, we could be the product of "intelligent design" (as Philip Johnson puts it). Some sort of divine mind could have created us for a purpose, and then designed us to desire to fulfill that purpose. Just as our brains are "wired" to seek food and sex, our brains could also be designed to crave a higher purpose for our lives, and to not be content until we are actively fulfilling that purpose.
Or second, we could have been produced by a "blind watchmaker" (as Richard Dawkins puts it). We might be the products of random genetic mutations, coupled with the all-important proving grounds of environmental threats and opportunities, which would serve to weed out detrimental traits (the predators would tend to catch the slowest runners, for example) and to encourage helpful traits (the cleverest hunter catches more prey to feed her young). As a result of the ensuing natural selection, we developed brains that are "wired" both to recognize patterns and also to want to use our energy and resources purposefully, to improve our chances of survival. As cavemen, our brain's reward system would have been activated when we were acting purposefully, by achieving a goal that would improve our health and welfare and the health and welfare of our tribal group.
C.S. Lewis thought that the mere fact that we look for meaning in the Universe (especially religious meaning) is a sign that there actually is real meaning to it. He used the analogy of light and asked whether creatures would develop eyes in a Universe without light. Presumably, the answer would be, no. However, the fact that there is meaning in Life does not mean that it is an objective meaning created for us by God; it could be a meaning that we create, and both the capacity for creating subjective meaning and the innate longing to experience meaning could both be byproducts of the same evolutionary forces. Nevertheless, Lewis's analogy could be taken further: the fact that humans generally expect there to be meaning in the Universe itself, apart from any which we might add, is at least some evidence that the Universe was designed in a purposeful way by some sort of divine mind.
To put it in Aristotelian terms, the Universe appears to have a teleological cause (at least it appears this way to most people throughout the world and throughout history). The fact that we can conceive of the world around us in terms of purpose and meaning and design could be a fact about us, or it could be a fact about the world, or it could be both. Maybe there is purpose and meaning and design in the Universe, and maybe we are designed to seek it, recognize it, delight in it, and even add to it.
Viktor Frankl, the great Austrian psychiatrist, writer, and Holocaust survivor, believed that experiencing meaning in our lives is the penultimate human need, such that when all else is taken away, we can still carry on, so long as we really believe our lives are meaningful, even in a state of extreme deprivation and terribly cruel suffering. His masterpiece, Man's Search for Meaning, makes this case in a way that is hard to argue against; "hard" because Dr. Frankl drew the book's lessons from his own experiences and observations as an inmate of the death camps, surrounded by the very worst of man's inhumanity to man.
In spite of the eminence of Dr. Frankl, I still wonder whether all people in all times and places really do have this need for meaning. It seems that people ask whether Life is meaningful only after they have been disappointed with Life in some profound way. There are people who, to all outward appearances, are completely self-satisfied as they go about the business of making money, collecting status symbols, and engaging in trivial pastimes and empty small-talk, without ever giving a second thought to questions of Truth and Meaning.
True, there are rich and famous artists and businessmen who self-destruct with sex, drugs, and rock-and-roll excesses, but these unfortunate souls seem to have already been unhappy and self-destructive, before they set out to conquer the world. Before they hit the big time, their insatiable appetite for fame and fortune appears to have been all that kept them from self-destruction. Mike Tyson is a classic example of this. Axl Rose is another. Their narcissism drove them to professional greatness, but it ultimately sabotaged what could have otherwise been longer and more accomplished careers. Such people may ultimately turn to pursuing Truth and Meaning after trying and failing to find happiness with sensual indulgence, but they were the type of people who were destined to wonder about the meaning of Life from a young age: they simply weren't happy or comfortable in their own skin, and they needed something to cure them of this essential discontentment -- or "Dukkha" as Buddhists put it.
However, for the many other people out there who never seem to experience (or at least acknowledge consciously) this unhappiness or discomfort within themselves, they seem to be able to get along just fine with sensual indulgence and ego boosts; they never seem to care if there is or is not anything more to Life than their American McDream.
For those of us who feel the need to find Meaning and Purpose, perhaps this fact about ourselves really only shows that we experience dukkha because of some psychological or emotional injury or deprivation at a formative stage. Imagine two kids: Billy and Bob.
Billy is esteemed by his parents, teachers, and peers to be charming and likeable and deserving of constant praise and fawning. He grows up to think that he is the most awesome and talented person in the world, even though he isn't. Moreover, he is given opportunities and resources that further his smug self-assurance. Billy will probably only think about Truth and Meaning as an afterthought. Maybe he'll be raised in a church and give God his due every Sunday morning -- he'll sing a few upbeat songs and listen to a canned sermon about how great God thinks people like him are (and how rotten God thinks the people are who are not like him) -- and Billy will be very happy.
Bob, on the other hand, has parents who are overworked and underpaid and chronically stressed out and short of time. He is shy and socially awkward. He asks questions that get on the teachers' nerves, and they make little effort to hide their contempt for him. As he grows up, he gets little guidance about how the world works, so he has to figure everything out by trial and error. Bob will probably be very unhappy with himself and with Life in general, and he will want something, anything, to give him some sort of real and lasting happiness. If he does have access to sensual indulgence, he will quickly find that it does not satisfy his instatiable need for affirmation and fulfillment. Bob will eventually -- I say inevitably -- turn to questions of Truth and Meaning, because that's all that is left. (All, that is, except social connection and acceptance and meaningful opportunities to develop and apply his talents in a rewarding way.)
It appears to me (but what do I know?) that we seek Truth and Meaning only because other things have not worked out for us. But for those who honestly believe that Life's other pleasures are working out for them, they do not seem to care about Truth or Meaning. Therefore, it may be that our desire for Truth and Meaning is not a fact about the Universe or about Human Nature universally, but is only a fact about our own psychological and emotional development.
What about the religious answer to the Meaning of Life?
I have considered the various answers provided by major world religions to the question of Life's meaning, and I have found them each somewhat helpful, but ultimately problematic. As with different philosophers and philosophical schools, I have benefited from the way that different religious thinkers have put the question; as I consider what they mean, it indirectly forces me to question myself about what I mean. I also think that the stories that different religions tell do contain some very important insights about human nature and the human condition. Ultimately, however, my problem has been that the religious answers seem to lead to a whole package-deal of concepts, doctrines, and practices that are more about justifying the religion itself, than about enabling human individuals to live more meaningful and fulfilled lives. |
| Religion and the Meaning of Life |
I think that is what makes Jesus, as opposed to the Christian religion, so powerful and relatable a figure; he did not really care about theology or religious traditions or religious institutions, and he behaved almost like a Cynic (as in the Greek philosophical school) towards the religious leaders of his day. Jesus healed a blind man on the Sabbath, and when the blind man was cross-examined by the Pharisees, he gave a disarmingly simple retort: "Whether he is a man of religious and moral virtue, I do not know; but I do know this: I was blind, but now I see." (John 9:25)
For the religious systems, their leaders do seem to be concerned with having you buy into their way of seeing the world and their way of doing life, as opposed to sharing their insights with you and allowing you to reach your own conclusions. Religions seems to offer the deceptive luxury of taking the burden of your spiritual and moral freedom away from you; they take responsibility for your life, and you "outsource" your thinking and moral and spiritual decision-making to them. In exchange, you get some tidy, pat answers to Life's biggest questions and problems, as well as the considerable benefit of a ready-made community of believers with whom to enjoy fellowship and support. While the relationships can have some real value, the other aspects of the religious life seem to inhibit, rather than help, the search for Truth and Meaning.
What is it that makes me believe that Life is meaningful?
So now that I've reached what seems to me to be the likely reason why I, and people like me, look for Truth and Meaning, let me consider whether Life is meaningful.I do believe that happiness is possible, and that is something (as Aristotle noted in the Nichomachean Ethics) that is worth pursuing for its own sake. Perhaps, as hedonists like the Epicureans have believed, happiness is the highest good and something that makes Life meaningful.
Incidentally, if you think of "hedonists" as being wild and deranged, think again: "happiness" for an Epicurean would be characterized by emotional stability and contentment, not by wild sensual indulgence or disordered and unrestrained appetites. Epicurus seems to me to have taught something very similar to the Buddha: cultivation of personal virtue and mental and spiritual clarity; taming our desires and passions, but not denying or unnaturally suppressing them; and learning to experience happiness and fulfillment in the moment-by-moment experience of being alive and in Life's simple and natural pleasures. Buddha taught that Life is characterized by Dukkha (or distress, discontentment, etc.) and that by living and acting morally, we could experience Samsara, or freedom from the cycle of death and rebirth and all the clinging and clawing that Life does to perpetuate itself meaninglessly. Epicurus taught that discontentment pervades Life, but that we can experience Ataraxia (or freedom from physical and emotional disturbance) by retraining our minds to desire and enjoy only natural pleasures (such as basic food, water, and friendship), and to avoid all unnatural pleasures (such as acquiring status symbols), as well as most pleasures that are natural, but not necessary (such as extravagant foods). Of the two, I prefer Epicureanism to Buddhism, since Epicurus recognized the value in some of the attachments we form to other people (especially friendships), and good relationships do seem to me to be to be critically important for living the "good life."
And this leads me to something that I believe is a crucial insight from the more important and influential schools of moral philosophy, as well as from the major religions: our connections to other people matter, and how we treat other people matters. Confucius put the Golden Rule in the negative: if you would not want something done to you, don't do it to other people. Jesus gave a positive formulation: whatever you would want someone else to do for you, that's what you should do for them. We are social creatures; we have the capacity for empathy and acting for the good of another person. Maybe this is due to how we evolved; maybe this is due to how God designed us (or maybe both -- evolution and "intelligent design" don't seem to me to be mutually exclusive); but regardless, we do experience joy, meaning, and fulfillment in and through our relationships with others, and in and through our care for the welfare of others. This can be difficult in practice, but it does reliably yield positive effects in our own lives, when we are able to act with love and compassion for others.
Ultimately, I believe that we can experience happiness and mutually-fulfilling relationships, and that this give our lives real meaning and, ultimately, makes life worth living. So what is the meaning of Life for me? Experiencing happiness and mutually-fulfilling relationships.
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