Let me clarify – I don’t know what the meaning of life is. I think most people will stop reading at this point. And that’s fine. But I do have a theory on how we might discover what the meaning of life.
At one time I believed that the meaning of life is something I could figure out, that I could think my way to an answer – the answer. And with this answer I was planning on changing the world. It would be the full stop to end philosophy. The answer would end wars and all suffering. And we would all stand around amazed at this gift that is life.
That was a long time ago. I am older now.
Growing older and living a full life is the ultimate education. And the one thing I have learnt is that I won’t think my way to finding an answer to the meaning of life. I’m sure I will have to fight and rebel my way to an answer.
The more I live the more life feels absurd and meaningless. In fact the alternatives with which I am presented in this society, in this reality to answer the question, what is the meaning of life? are completely inadequate and totally nonsensical.
I think I am starting to understand that everything (life, people, death, religion, money, power, law enforcement, society, peace, law, love, family, punishment, freedom) is a construct, an illusion that we all comply with. And by complying we strengthen this story until this is the only narrative with which we are allowed to explain the world and our existence. Most of us don’t realise we live in this made up world that subtly overlays and explains the true world that lies beneath. We, humanity, have created this story and then over time decided to forget other ways of being. We blindly accept that there is no other option but to live in this story with these power structures, in this consciousness.
And that is why most of us feel so deeply anxious, so amazingly empty, so desperately lost. It is because the meaning for most of us can’t be found in this construct. Who we feel we are doesn’t fit into the narrative of the world we experience.
What I am starting to believe is that we need to break out and define our own stories. We need to take back our lives, our experiences, our relationships and we have to start building a reality that works for us. We need to make a world that makes sense to us. That allows us to find our meaning.
I no longer believe that there is a single answer to why we exist and why we’re alive. But something tells me that we need to fight and struggle and writhe and kick to create a world that makes sense to us, that allows us to find the meaning we need to be able to show and explain why we have been given this amazing privilege of being alive.