The Many Meanings of Life
Long ago nothing was nowhere.
Then, nothing and nowhere became something and somewhere. Because.
Makes total sense.
But what’s the meaning of it all?
What’s the meaning of life?
Nothing.
Also, everything.
THE END.
Whichever way we choose to deal with it, life has no inherent meaning. The universe appears to be 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’re 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. It’s not found or discovered. It’s 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 our minds finally cease functioning — so does meaning.
Think about it…
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 make up 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 make cute 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.
Imagine 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 our decorative, ridiculous, purpose-driven glory.
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 — including ourselves and the lives we live.
Truly understanding this inevitably leads to understanding that the meaning of life is whatever the hell you want it to be.
Nothing matters, therefore everything can. Life can be 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 life. Or rather, you can find meaning in your 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 that 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.
And so, perhaps the quickest way to answer “what’s the meaning of life?” is to say that, whatever it is, it changes from moment to moment.
Thankfully, that means there’s a lot of good answers to give for anyone struggling to find one.
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.
Other answers involve different models analyzing human nature, such as the well-known Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs or the lesser-known pace layer theory designed by Stewart Brand.
A more holistic approach might be to say that the most fundamental source of meaning in life comes from:
• health (mental and physical)
• people to share life with (friends, family, etc.)
• something to look forward to
Some people find meaning in work, an attitude prevalent in many modern western cultures that tend to 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.
Some people want to build an empire — dots all over the map, a resume that commands respect, intergenerational wealth, and a legacy to reverberate long after they die.
Others 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 types of people, both seem equally validated operationally. They also both seem to share a common goal insofar as striving to maximize what they’re given and create a positive ripple effect for those around them, however small or large that ripple may be.
Of course, some people don’t want to fit within 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, its most distilled form merely entails savoring the simpler things in life and not needing to always be at the top of the totem pole. We know it’s impossible to always be happy, but it is 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 or I wonder if anyone is even going to read this far.
It’s a beautiful thing to lose track of time and become fully immersed in whatever it is we’re engaging with. What more meaning could we ask for than that?
As some wise man once declared:
It’s the journey, not the destination.
Perhaps the deepest meaning in life is to be found in simply seeking out feeling and experience, to take in the universe in its totality and process whatever it 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.
As 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.
At the end of the day, we’re all just doing 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 and movies and situations that evoke emotion forcing us to feel. We search for lovers and lives we can touch to give confirmation that we exist and have effect.
What is being alive if not constantly trying to prove that we are alive?
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 can be a prison.
If you’re capable of finding meaning in everything, it’s possible your healthier carefree attitude might sometimes morph into a less-healthy analysis paralysis. 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 the case that many people aren’t actually lazy or incapable at all. It might just be that their mind wants a hundred 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 which are actually more conducive to suffering.
Some gravitate towards distracting themselves with pleasure and escapisms — food, porn, drugs, alcohol, entertainment.
Others find meaning in divisiveness and conflict — a fight 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, some sort of purpose in life handed to them by someone else.
Although these habits 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 above all, 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 purely 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 some 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.
So maybe this is where the buck stops. Maybe this is where we can finally find some semblance of the ultimate, foundational meaning of life:
Adaptation.
Adaptation is 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 adapt is 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.
Watering plants. Solving equations. Having conversations. Painting. Traveling. Lifting heavy objects to increase the size of our muscular structure. 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 this weird thing called life is about, one thing’s clear…
It doesn’t last forever.
- Sincerely, He Who Thinks