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The Meaninglessness of Life Does the title sound too cynical? Does it sound like the ramblings a truly miserable person? Maybe, or is it simply that you have successfully convinced yourself that life is some precious little element of the bigger picture? Have you convinced yourself that you are a small tile in some beautiful cosmic mosaic? Is life something so precious that it must be protected at all cost? What ever. It has become apparent to me in my short stay here amongst the swine, that the meaning of life is over rated. The very thing that we hold so dear and guard so closely is also the source of so much pain and misery. Of course it would be foolish of me to completely ignore the positive attributes of life, but they are as meaningless as the pain and misery. Throughout the ages philosophers have tried to figure out what makes life so great, and it seems that despite their efforts, no one has come up with a viable explanation. In this article I will attempt to lay to rest once and for all the delusion that life actually means something. I will attempt to crush your fragile little belief system in an attempt to show what it really means to be alive. Submitted for your review is why I think the meaning of life is over rated. What do you live for? Most people would answer with any one of the following: my kids, my wife/husband, my job, my money, my pet, sex, sex with my pet, and so one. Bullshit! You live simply to stay alive. But wait a minute, does that even make sense? That’s like saying water exists just to be wet, or the word meaning exists just to give meaning to itself. What other function does life have? Some people will say that this is a testing ground for the “afterlife”, but what the hell does that mean? What is the afterlife? Is it the heaven of the Christians, with mansions and streets of gold? Are the Muslims correct in their claim of forty virgins? Is it more of a mythological symbolic place within us all that can be attained through sacrifice and good deeds? If so, why were we created with an insatiable appetite for the pleasures of the flesh? What spiritual being would create something in love that lusts for that which is forbidden, just to tell them that they are to spend their entire lives denying their in-born desire, just to “earn” the favor of the creator and ultimately some great reward? How ridiculous does it sound to create a being that is programmed to like the color blue, only to turn around and tell this creature that it is against your will for them to like blue, they must only like green? What kind of justice is that? It’s sick if you ask me. No sir I want nothing to do with a “god” of that kind. Why is it that heaven is described by most religions as a place of great joy and pleasure? Isn’t that what we are supposed to be avoiding here on earth? So what makes it o.k. all of a sudden in this mystical place? Why is it that we are told we can expect promises of selfish rewards and possessions? Isn’t that stuff supposed to be a sin? “But Bagoda, you don’t understand, it’s the test that is important. We deny ourselves the pleasures of the flesh here so that me may enjoy ever lasting happiness”. The last time I checked, happiness, joy, and all the things we are to experience in heaven, require chemical reactions within our bodies. So do we take our bodies with us to feel this joy? I guess we do because Jesus took his didn’t he? Or is it that we are really spirits in an earthly shell? So if we go to a heaven of the spirit, would it be setup to cater to the pleasure of the earthly shell or some other kind of "spiritual" emotion? It is all terribly confusing. So what of hell? We are told it is a place of great suffering and pain. Again we are to be manipulated by our selfishness. “I must do what they say or I will be affected negatively”. The heaven/hell model is nothing but the ultimate in selfishness. It is another attempt of the ruling class to rule by fear/reward, a model that has been in use since the dawn of “civilized” man. Of course, none of these things have actually been proven, nor have any of the other countless ideas of what life means. Sure we can explain how life works, but when it comes to the simple question of why it works, we have come no closer to an explanation than any other people in history. If that is the case then wouldn’t it stand to reason that life is meaningless? If we have no concrete meaning to assign, then logically it is nothing. Life has no meaning. So let me ask you again, what do you live for? Most of our days are spent doing shit that really doesn’t matter. Don’t believe me? Try this little experiment. Go and sit in your favorite easy chair and sit in complete silence for an hour. Don’t turn on the television, no book or anything else that you would fill your free time with. How do you feel? What thoughts are going through your head? Are you thinking of all the “important” things you need to do? How long does it take before you are unable to sit there any longer? Some people say that this is the true essence of life, that the only way to tap into it is to completely block the distractions from the outside world and pay close attention to what life truly is. Some people call it the soul, the spirit of the universe or the subconscious. But how many of us have ever experienced it? No, we are too caught up in the distractions of life to pay attention to the meaning of our existence. If there is such a thing. Within 10 minutes I am thinking about all my school work that needs to be done. I am thinking about updating my web site, playing the piano, and watching television, none of which involve the act of living. All these things I engage in are distractions, things my brain uses to convince me that this life is somehow important. What does it matter if I go to school? Who cares if I play the piano? So what if my website gets updated? Sure, going to school is advantageous to me both financially and mentally, and could possibly have a positive effect on the world at large. But once again, what does it mean? So what if I happen to write my doctoral dissertation on some aspect of the human mind that revolutionizes the worlds view of the brain and leads to happiness for countless millions of people? So fucking what? What does that mean? All that means is that I have enabled people to distract themselves in a pleasurable manner rather than one of discomfort. And what if I decide to go the other route and become a corporate psychologist, providing cutting edge marketing research for some large company? Sure I will find financial success, but what does that mean? All it means is that I can afford still greater distractions. So again I ask, what is this living thing all about? I can’t seem to figure it out. Perhaps my answer to the predicament of life is to use this question as one of my many distractions. My point is that no matter what road we take in this debate, we will always return to the initial question. No matter what you believe, whether it is something that was told to you, or a belief that you actually came up with yourself based on experience, life in it’s simplest form, is meaningless. If you have figured out the magical answer to life, please e-mail me and let me know. I would love to meet the person that FINALLY solves the biggest riddle in the history of the world. Maybe I’m just a bit too pessimistic, or maybe I truly don’t get it. Some people believe in the theory that humans are nothing more than billion year old mutated viruses. There are the theorists that claim that we are a hybrid mixture of the indigenous ape like creatures of earth and the alien race that wiped out the dinosaurs. Then of course there are the creationists and evolutionists that believe in just as whacky (although more socially acceptable) ideas of what life is and where it came from. Perhaps this is a fact that we were never meant to know. Perhaps the answer is staring us directly in the face, awaiting the day we put down our distractions long enough to see it. The fact that life has no meaning is precisely what makes it so beautiful. You thought this article was a negative bit of pessimistic propaganda didn’t you? No it is not. Every word written thus far is simply meant to preface my main point. You see, the fact that life is meaningless allows us to assign whatever meaning we wish to it. We can choose to make it stand for beauty or we can make it stand for much worse. Each one of us has been given a blank canvas to paint the meaning of life. No one has access to your canvas unless you grant it to them. You are in complete control of your meaning of life. The main problem is that many people have given away access to their canvas long ago. By the time they are in a position to create their beautiful portrait of life, it has already been painted by someone else. That is why the scholars insist that you question everything. It is not blasphemes, but the essence of life itself. We will all continue to assign values to our actions to justify taking or not taking them. Will any of it matter? Who knows? In a scientific analysis of the situation we can find no logical answer to the meaning to life. But then again, all a meaning is, is an assumed importance based on perception, and god (whatever that means) knows there is no such thing as a true perception. I take comfort in the fact that life has no meaning. It allows me to live it free from the bondage of other peoples perceptions and live in a personal freedom that only I can fully understand and appreciate. If you disagree with me that is fine but how can you disagree with something that doesn’t exist in the first place? -= Bagoda =- |