The Search For Meaning

Phase I: Unconscious Meaning

Young children and the majority of the population the majority of the time. Meaning is implicitely present - the issue never arises. It's never a problem

Phase II: It Becomes A Problem.

For whatever reason, for some folks, meaning becomes a problem. The birth of meaninglessness.

There are a few ways to approach the problem of meaninglessness.

Scenario 1: All the World's a Stage

Imagine seeing a movie. The movie isn't particularly entertaining, or even interesting. But you're able to fast-foward to the end. You see the end of the movie, and it's horrible - nothing gets resolved, the hero dies, whatever. But then, imagine you still had to sit through the entire movie - and you couldn't leave - even though you knew what the ending was. That is how some folks live; live is like being in a movie with a dull plotline, where they know the ending (they die), and where the ending is pretty bad (they die). It's a tale told by an idiot. It rambles on, has not point, and starts, lives, and ends for no good reason.

Scenario2: The Long Walk

Or imagine setting off on some trip. You walk, and walk, and walk. You walk through the desert, you walk through the hot sun, you get blisters on your feet, you're thirsty, you're tired. You can rest a little, drink a little, rub your feet a little...but only a little - and before too long, you have to keep moving.

At some point, the natural question is to ask: "Where are we going?" And you can't really get any good answer. For some reason, nobody seems to know where we're all heading, or why we're all walking. You want to stop walking, and maybe you even do for a while...but eventually, you realize that when you stop walking, it's even more boring than walking.

And you never arrive. Or you arrive, but the place where you arrive is just as bad as the path you were walking on. And you're like...what was this about? Is this what all the fuss was about? Why did I just go through that? Did I have a point?

Scenario 3: Sound and Fury, Signifying Nothing

Imagine a serious delay of gratification. Delay of gratification with a goal in mind. Serious discipline. Say you give us chocolate, smoking, drinking, sex, movies, television...so you can work eighteen hours a day in salt mines...and why? Because that's the only way you can pay for your little brother to get a heart transplant. So you work, and work, and work, for twenty years.

Finally, after twenty years, you've earned enough money. You bring home your last paycheck, all ready to take your brother in for the life-saving surgery...only to discover that your little brother just died a few hours ago.

All of these scenarios are different ways of saying the same thing: life doesn't add up. It's the problem of meaninglessness.

The Solution

Is there a "solution" to the problem of meaninglessness?

Of course, futility is futile. And plenty of people live through all kinds of horrible, ironically macabre tragedies, and in spite of it all, they keep on truckin.

But a true "answer" is a difficult thing. It's not a math problem, where one problem can find the answer and share it with others, and all of them immediately see and understand and agree on that same answer. It's more like a political debate - endlessly complex, meandering, and inconclusive - but where each person has to organically dig something out for themselves. And so, the "answers" may be widely varied, and the perfect solution for one person may be completely useless for another.

But something they all seem to have in common...

It's in the stories we tell ourselves.

...or, it's the way we explain life to ourselves. It has to do with the way we translate life into something we can understand, and make sense of.

It sounds simplistic to say: if you're living a boring movie...you need to do something to spice up the plot.

You need to find something you desire, something that will make the journey worth it.

But what? What if that's exactly the problem - you can't conceive or imagine of anything that will make the journey worth it?

Or, what if you can think of something that is inspiring...but in the back of your mind, you know it's a mirage? What if you know that, once you get that pot of gold...you'll be right back where you started? What if you know that what you're living for isn't what you need? What if you are aware and conscious enough to know that, most of the time, getting what we want is not only not enough...but can even be a curse?