Life has no inherent meaning
Our job is to give it purpose.
Many lament the notion life has no meaning, by which they often mean life has no inherent meaning. This can lead to a sense of despondency. Fewer and fewer of us can claim to be satisfied or happy.
We witness a rise in nihilism, as increasing numbers feel life offers little except a bleak prognosis of decline and damnation.
This is quite false. Life can be meaningful with the right approach.
Finding meaning
Many believe life has some hidden meaning that can be found and often waste energy searching in the wrong places. Most commonly in leaders; Biden, Trump, Elon Musk. The specific people don’t matter, it is the same dynamic. Someone else will solve problems for me and make my life better. It could be a spouse or a best friend.
But no one can give your life meaning except yourself. To believe otherwise, that meaning or purpose is something someone else imparts, is to think like a slave. You get a prize just for existing.
Taken to extremes this leads to nihilism. Since no one is handing out happiness life just gets worse as time goes on. Purpose becomes elusive. It cannot be found anywhere. Life is pointless.
This incorrect path leads to despair and ultimately nihilism. We see this all around us. Many lose themselves in consumption and social media drama. We distract to avoid the horror of it all while being encouraged to think of it as enjoyment.
Establish meaning
Terminology is key. We do not find meaning, we create it.
For some the focus is a job or career. This is all the more damning since it is sometimes true. But those who drift into jobs often cannot find any meaning in work. Over time it becomes drudgery. A meaningful career remains out of reach for most.
Those who understand life’s meaning is created by our efforts instead invest in making their life better. Meaning, then, is found through action.
Life can be understood as a set of competing priorities. Decide what matters and do more of that. Decide what doesn’t matter and cull as much as possible, however awkward or painful.
Most people have some idea of what they want. They have ambitions or goals, but they cannot face the reality, what it will take to make it happen. They are not prepared for the actions required.
It could be a significant career change or abandoning relationships that don’t work. Moving home to get away from a dead-end town or otherwise upending our lives in some drastic way.
Life requires action. We can’t think our way to a better life. The actions come at a price, and this can be high, encouraging us to fall back on ever more thinking as we look for easier ways.
Once an action is understood it must be confronted. This is the difficult part. Instead, most distract themselves. Social media, Netflix, porn and drugs are popular for a reason. They provide an immediate solace to uneasy feelings.
Distraction dampens the nihilism, the utter meaninglessness of an empty life. But this takes us further down the wrong path. There is no end of attractive things out there designed to encourage us to remain in our drug-addled, comfort-eating, porn-soaked world.
Conjuring up meaning in life is ultimately a creative act. It requires energy. Often it requires energy applied to a leap of faith. We cannot know beforehand if our efforts will be rewarded.
The musician hearing silence and composing melodic noise is creating meaning. The author joining words together into an entertaining narrative is doing the same. The woman who makes new life from the organic matter of two strangers, then nurtures it into a new human being. All are creating purpose through action.
The meaning is hidden within the creative act, in the effort of overcoming the nihilistic emptiness itself. Music, writing, raising a family. It all seems to come from nothing, or at least nothing much.
We get meaning by transforming this nothing and taking a chance on it. We act upon it to trigger some meaningful activity. We take an inert unknown and mix something of ourselves with it and the magic of existence generates meaning.
Purpose, then, is created by confronting life in this way, not accommodating it or bending to its whims. No one is coming to give our lives meaning or even show us the way. We must do this ourselves. It is often this hard reality people turn away from as it can be difficult to face. And yet this is where the glory is found.
Do not despair
We should relish the blank slate we have been given. You can be whomever you wish to be, albeit with some effort.
This is the hardest part to consider despite its promise. It is incumbent upon us to do the work to become who we need to be. It is always easier to not bother as so much of our necessary transformation is unknowable beforehand.
And yet many think they can search for meaning or even get it from others without considering the implications. A life with meaning imposed would be unbearable. Told what to think and do to be happy.
The alternative is what we already possess. Total freedom to create our own meaning. No one is stopping us except ourselves.
Purpose or meaning is often only recognized retrospectively if at all. The things that generate meaning can be difficult to manage at the time. But we must train ourselves to look for the places it can be created.
In an era of bullshit jobs and mega distraction it can seem like meaning or purpose is impossible. Nothing really matters. We all die in the end.
This is false. Life contains meaning, but it is unique to each of us. It must be constructed and the conditions for its emergence cultivated over time. It isn’t easy. Much of it is disguised as hard work.
No one else can give your life purpose. You must create it for yourself. This is one of life’s greatest gifts, the fact you can shape it into something pleasing to you.
Make sure you do.
My understanding of neurology, albeit minimal at best, is that the very act of perceiving is meaning-based. We see a cup, in its totality of meaning, its “cup-ness”, before we see a hollow, cylindrical object, closed at one end, capable of, among other things, containing a liquid. We perceive CUP as our primary act.
It seems to me that we make meaning from a meaningless world, whether we wish to or not, as a baseline function of our existence. Knowing this, the meaning we make becomes an imperative concern: we become what we think = be conscious what you make things mean.
Do you wish to live in a world where you are beset all around with plots and obstacles counter to your purpose? Do you wish to live in a world devoid of compassion and mercy? Well, that’s available from the world around you.
What if you want a life filled with the meaning that comes from compassion, love, mercy, peace? Make your list.
When you really think about it, you have never felt another person’s love for you. You have felt your reaction to your understanding that they behave lovingly toward you, but you have never felt their love; it’s theirs.
Though this may seem isolating, it is an opportunity:
If you want to experience compassion, be compassionate. If you want experience love, be loving. If you want to experience peace, be peaceful. If you want mercy, be merciful... you get the idea. The meaning is there to be made.
Really interesting read. I didn't agree with all the points but all well put. I'm sceptical of the idea that we can be whoever or whatever we want to be if we just dream it and work hard to achieve our dream. But maybe we'll think of an alternative dream suited to our actual abilities,lol.