The Meaning of Life
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Christmas day was my birthday. 31 times has our planet we call Earth orbited around the star known as our sun since I was born. I often muse about my place in the universe this way when the customs of the human condition recognize significance in some cosmic milestone. At first, this may seem a bleak and barren way to contemplate my role, leading to nihilism as I stare into the void of space. It may seem a poor starting point to examine my existence and what it all means.
And yet, it is not.
On the contrary, I have found this approach to be the most satisfying starting point for finding reason and purpose in my life. This perspective yields a bounty of surprises, expands my capacity for purpose, and sets me on a path to answer a question traditionally in the realm of religion; “Why am I here?”
I mentally zoom out further and our solar system becomes a spot within a galaxy. Our home swirls in slow motion along with a billion other star systems. Then our galaxy becomes one of many others, dark energy of which we know little accelerating them away from one another. Eventually all the protons, neutrons, and other components of matter within them will decay and the universe will be left as a highly dispersed pool of energy.
It is clear to me that to the universe, the question of purpose is meaningless. Chunks of rock collide, a star explodes, or a planet swirls into the gravitational vortex of its sun and is swallowed. We can ask how, what, when, and where of the universe….and find our own interesting answers. Can we ask the universe why, other than regressing into a causal chain of events where we seek to understand the first four? (Why? Because this happened first, causing this, etc.) In this sense why and how can be used interchangeably. This does not get at purpose.
A true “why” question requires an intelligent entity to consider it. This question is devoid of meaning in universal scope because no consciousness exists to consider it. Even if there were, would the answer be absolute and unchanging, or would multiple consciousnesses arrive at different answers? Would the answer for a single mind remain static over time, or could it change with its host mind?
I have found that purpose exists in two places. First, it exists in the minds of those who have relationships with us. For instance, your purpose as an infant only existed within the minds of your family and those who knew you. As we develop, we gain our own sense of purpose. And it changes…..constantly. In the adolescent years, it may change from week to week within ourselves. Those around us hold a sense of purpose from their perspective for us that is somewhat more consistent.
In the end, the purpose we find for ourselves is the one that really matters. There is no need for absolutism, for an unchanging and externally imposed sense of purpose. We are not merely cogs in a mechanism a designer created….our purpose exists independently and autonomously.
My purpose has morphed throughout the years. Right now, some of the defining characteristics of my purpose include my role as a father and husband, brother and son. In the main, it is a function of my relationships with others. It also encompasses this blog, the post I am writing now, my efforts to give charity and enhance the standard of living in the third world, my professional career, and a myriad of other things too numerous to mention.
Thesis: Purpose is derived and emergent, sourced from oneself. It is not given, and it can not be bought nor sold.
Was that spiritual atheism?
Dec 27th, 2008 at 3:47 am
A quote comes to mind:
“You are what you love. Not what loves you.” by Charlie Kaufman
Happy Birthday. I’m sure your parents had three or more wise visitors on that who came bearing gifts. That makes you a messiah!
(hopefully those gifts were more useful than Myrrh and Frankincense)
Jan 9th, 2009 at 10:49 pm
Hi,
In response to your quote by Charlie Kaufman: “You are what you love. Not what loves you,” I would like to propose a quote (from the Bible) instead: “Contentment with godliness is great gain.”
If your “lovely wife” were to become discontent with you for any reason, and your marriage became filled with discontentment as a result of it, how would you acquire great gain from it? If you were in an automobile accident, and couldn’t satisfy her any longer as a result, how would your feel if she responded to you by not loving you any more, and what would you try to do to reverse the situation?
Jul 18th, 2009 at 7:23 pm
Nice posting. I think this sort of stuff all the time, almost as is we are comparable to cell within the human body asking “why are we here”, “what is the meaning of all of this”, and also “I better be careful what I eat and who I sleep with in case someone outside of this cell finds out”. Put in such perspective, these questions become meaningless, though interesting all the same. Darwin was to right, there is granduer in this view of things, and the sooner we as a human species understand this and grow up the sooner we can really start to ask more important question, then human-centric ones.
Also for the post about his wife possibly leaving him as a scenerio. Its life, he doesnt have to pray to some human war crimes fellow in the sky to find consolations. We find it within ourselves, our friends, and ultimately in the knowledge that this moment is just a fleeting one in time, and that soon enough all that ever was will be gone, all our troubles buried, all our woes back to cosmic dust which made us.’
Ant
are a cell within our own bo