What Is The Meaning Of Life?

Ah, time to sit back and smell the dying roses. Existential questions. Those rising, dreadful things that strike at you in the dark moments of tragedy or introspection and strip away the fleeting illusions of life revealing the truth of absurdity. We have all been there. Most brush those questions aside, but they are there. Lying dormant in the long grass of the mind, waiting to pounce when you least expect.

I know why people avoid these questions. They are powerful and terrible and downright earth shattering when we happen to stumble across some less than desirable conclusions. But they don’t have to be. They can be some forceful motivators for taking responsibility and action in your life.

Now, I want to make one thing clear before we start, while I am drawing on the extensive knowledge I have in regards to Existential philosophers and Existentialism in general, I am drawing more deeply from my experiences of and in the world. That is the root definition of existential after all. The word existential with a small ‘e’ just means those things that relate to existence. And that is how I will be handling this question – as well as every question I post on this blog. A little academic and a whole lot of experience. I hope that you will consider them the same.

Now then, time to melt our minds. Don't worry, this hurts me just as much as it hurts you (and I pursue this kind of stuff every day).

What Is The Meaning Of Life?

Follow along with me because I am going to get really depressive and bleak to start, but I pick it up at the end. Ok? What is the meaning of life? Well. The truth is as I can tell, life has no meaning. It has no quality of meaning inherent to its existing. There is nothing essential of life that can be pulled out of it and used to validate your reason for living.

Now, while nothing can be pulled out of life to reveal its meaning, you have an opportunity to put every tiny shred of what you want into life and create your own mountain of meaning.

That's the thing. We look for meaning in life and when we grab at that whisper thin tendril of smoke that we think is going to be the meaning we want it disappears in our grasp. We're trying to grab at phantom things. And that grasping gets us hurt most of the time. It makes us doubt the point of living. It makes us doubt the meaning of everything, actually. But here's the thing, we just have to realize and accept the fact that there is nothing hiding behind that curtain of life except for what we end up putting there.

Now there is an amazing amount of freedom and value in that fact. Think about it:You get to decide in every moment what your life means. You get to decide what is critical to your existence - what you need to survive and what it means to be alive. You get to do what matters to you, and by doing so give meaning to your life.

Albert Camus, an Existential philosopher, once said:

"The literal meaning of life is whatever you are doing that prevents you from killing yourself."

 And for some people that will be friends and family, lovers, and more; those close bonds of fraternity and love that we can create and nurture. For others, it is financial and career success; security, and accomplishment. And still others, it is art, beauty, and the creation of dreams; a pursuit of those imagined things that we seek to bring into the world. My guess is that inside you there is a little bit of all three and undoubtedly a million more major and minor moments of meaning that have accumulated in your life.

And there's your meaning of life right there.

It's unique to you and nobody else is going to see exactly the way you do and it won't be anyone else's meaning, but it's a meaning. The most important meaning because it belongs to you and keeps you moving and motivated to continue to search for the other meanings you can find.

I know this isn't exactly the answer you were hoping for at the beginning of this blog (believe me I wish there was a clear answer). But, there's not, and it's depressing. Questions like these can really drag you down and make it harder to get back up. The fact there is no inherent meaning to life weighed down on me for a long time. Still does sometimes.

But eventually you have to let that go and focus on the other aspects of the answer. The parts of the answer that the Existentialists want us to focus on.

That this is my fucking life and I get to decide what it means. I get to decide who I am and I get to decide what it looks like when I'm done. I have an amazing amount of freedom, and yes, responsibility, to do whatever I need to do to make my life matter. And the best part is, I only have to make it matter to me. Nobody else get's to tell me if I'm doing it right or if I'm being the right person because those are things I have to decide.

In short, I am not accountable to any other definition about the meaning of life and who I should be and what my life adds up to and that is a heavy, beautiful fucking burden that I want to hold close and wear with pride. I hope you decide to do the same and not shy away from these existential questions and see in them the power to take responsibility of your life and give it everything it needs to matter.

I'll see you all tomorrow.

Buh-bye.