“What is the meaning of life?” “What is the purpose of my existence?” None. And none.
“What is the meaning of life?”
“What is the purpose of my existence?”
A lot of people ask themselves these questions at some point in their lives. You’ll find a zillion Quora topics that explore exactly this kind of questions and the possible answers to them. And you’ll also discover that people start to feel lost when they fail to find an answer. THE answer.
They become obsessed. Then they become depressed. And they start to malfunction, almost like Walter from “Westworld”: in the very first episode, you can see one of the park’s androids, Walter, losing his mind and going on a rampage. It’s later revealed that he’s been affected by Dr. Robert Ford’s “reveries” (minor tweaks that his maker has used to alter androids’ core programming in order to help them escape the leash and acquire consciousness).
You can see Walter going berserk and wreaking havoc because he can’t make sense anymore of the narrative he’s supposed to play a part in. He loses track of his purpose for being there and this interferes with his internal set of directives, so everything goes haywire.
Unfortunately (or fortunately?) I think that “What is the meaning of life?” & “What is the purpose of my existence?” are somewhat of an occidental spoiled mommy’s boy / spoiled daddy’s girl — type of questions. Meaning I don’t like to overthink things, especially when things that are pretty clear.
There is no higher purpose to our lives. And there is no meaning attached to our existence.
I, Gabriela, don’t have any purpose and my life has no meaning whatsoever. And that’s okay with me. I will fuck around and try to do my best until someone or something in my body tells me: “The party is over, Gabriela, time to say goodbye”.
There is a lot of serenity in feeling this way and accepting things as they are.
Ever thought you are here just because two other people decided — consciously or not — to create you? And other than that, the “meaning of life” stops right there?
Truth is you don’t need a meaning in life. We have, what? Almost 8 billions people on this planet. Do you think they all have a purpose or a meaning? Fuck no, buddy.
Life is a simple accident. No purpose attached. Take me, for example. Everything in my life came to me as an accident. And all I could do was deciding to act on it — either deciding to neglect it, either deciding to give it meaning.
(1) I met the most important people in my life by pure accident, in random places where I’ve never been before. It was an accident that I was in those places at those particular moments. I bumped into one of my future best friends in a newsroom where I ended up by accident, only because the person in our university that was in charge with assigning internships to students had made the decision to send me in that particular place. I met another of my best friends on a social platform similar to Facebook. It only happened because one day I got a message from a complete stranger and I decided not to ignore it.
I found another one of my future best friends in a squalid dorm room (and, funny enough, my friend has texted me to ask me how I am just as I’m writing this paragraph). And so forth… The main idea is that I got myself some great friends only because I decided to act on those little accidents and to stay in touch with each and every person that gave off an interesting vibe. And so we got to know each other better and ultimately became best friends.
(2) I gained interest in journalism by pure accident, simply because we were poor and my only way of traveling was through the TV in the living room. I figured out that I could probably use my talent at writing, my curiosity (as you can imagine, I was always that kid in the room who was always curious about everything and everyone) and my passion for storytelling & people to become a journalist.
I wanted to become a journalist because I wanted to see more of the world. I wanted to see more than what it was meant for me to see, from the place I was at. And so it became my career, which is currently spanning for almost a decade. Writing has always been my biggest passion since I can remember, but it has also opened golden windows to the world and new doors of knowledge and opportunity.
(3) I gained interest in superheroes, comics, and SF novels by pure accident, just because Christopher, a super-duper exotic & terribly smart American guy that I was very fond of at the time (and that I met — yes, you guessed it! — by accident) introduced me. Later on, all those things led me to become interested in astrophysics, astronomy and all kind of science & tech-related stuff. The passion for the stars in the night sky was always there, I always had it, but Chris most definitely amplified that, too. Almost a decade later, the interest is still there.
(4) I started to draw my little “legion” of cute little monsters and robots by accident, because when I first came to this city I was feeling really lonely, I had no friends, no people to turn to, no nothing. I was just like one of those stray dogs, left outside alone, in the pouring rain. So I started to draw those little guys to keep me company just because I read an interview with an artist and he said to try it. For a few years, they were the only friends that I had.
(5) I have this deep love and respect for nature, animals, people and everything in between by accident, simply because I’ve spent most of my childhood and teen years in the countryside, where I’ve seen my mom, my dad and my grandparents showing a great deal of respect to nature and to animals. And to other people, too. I am the person that I am today because of them. I have no merit in that, whatsoever.
(6) I learnt Italian by accident, when I was 4 or 5, and I speak it at a native level to this day, simply because my favorite cartoons weren’t dubbed, so I had to make some sense out of what the characters were saying. Since then Italian has become my favorite language in the whole world and it even helped me land some great gigs. An accident that led to other accidents.
(7) If we’re friends, well, chances are that by now I’ve probably annoyed you multiple times with my favorite songs from Pink Floyd, Marillion or Tom Waits. While Pink wasn’t an accident, the others were. I discovered Tom’s music by mere accident, only because Radu & Cristina, two lovely friends of mine, were big fans. As for Marillion, one night I was going through somebody’s Facebook and so I bumped into a song called “Sugar Mice”. I was intrigued by the unusual combo of words and so I decided to act on that little accident and gave it a listen. And so forth…
I just let “life” happen. I enjoy that. Life has this awesome tendency to show itself at moments you don’t expect it, and — as result — you are presented with a chance to act on it and make it your own. This way you can give it “meaning”.
So, you see, you are not lost. You simply didn’t look yet.
Answer 1: The “meaning” of life lies in the decision to act on those little accidents that life throws at you: you can either decide to do nothing about them, to neglect them. Or you can decide to give them meaning (this is how you can get yourself some great friends, by the way).
It doesn’t have to be sad and you most definitely don’t have to feel lost. Our lives lack a purpose or a meaning and that’s just how things are. Just think about this: top mathematicians still argue about the fact that if math was created by the human brain, then humans would actually have to exist prior to it. If they don’t know the answer to that, do you really know the answer to much more complex questions, such as: “What is the meaning of life?” or “What is the purpose of my existence?”
What is the meaning of that fancy meal you had in that classy restaurant? What is the meaning of the 50 millions people that died in Word War II? What is the meaning of those stupidly expensive clothes you bought and that now you can’t show off in front of your shallow friends because you’re quarantined at home? What is the meaning of the lives of those millions and millions of innocent children that are dying in Syria?
Exactly. There is no meaning whatsoever.
If you spent your time observing the world over decades and decades you would see that no matter how much concrete we humans throw down, no matter how many gadgets we invent, no matter how many stupid distractions we create… wherever there is a chance for life, something will appear. Something will grow out of nothingness. From that tiny flower in the small crack in the pavement of a gray city, to the wildlife living behind the hypermarkets where humans neglect allows other creatures to make a home, survive, evolve.
So, in a way, if you are really dead-set on the idea of finding a meaning despite the fact that life has no intrinsic meaning whatsoever… maybe the meaning of life is life.
So maybe you could give some meaning to your life if you started, for example, to care more about reducing your impact on other species. I know that maybe you’ll think this is stupid, but most days I try my best to remove even the tiniest insects from a dew laden windscreen before turning on the wipes in the morning. And I most definitely won’t kill that mosquito who annoys the hell out of me, I will always try to catch it and take it outside.
“Why the fuck do you do that if no life has meaning?”, you’ll ask. Well, I do it because my belief is that 250,000,000 years ago we too were critters scurrying around, trying to survive just like our animal brothers & sisters today and instead of looking for life elsewhere, on other planets, in other worlds, we should first embrace life here, learn to communicate with it, learn to respect it and cast out sights on taking life into the Universe and letting evolution take its course. It’s only after we do that that we will find life in the Universe in forms we can’t even imagine.
Answer 2: The “meaning of life” is life itself.
Try to make the most of your time here and you’ll be just fine. And try not to squander those little accidents that life throws at you. Act on every and each of them. If life throws at you an interesting person, pursue that person, turn her/him into a friend. You never know how she/he will impact your life. You never know the places a random encounter can and will take you.
Accept that every life matters, no matter how small. Get out of your head. Your brain is almost useless, go out, move, walk, get rained on, find people like yourself, do stuff that you love, get your heart engaged — that’s where & when the real thinking is done. Create something. Build something. Get with people. Find the others. Find your tribe, the people that are just like you. Those are simple things that you can do and that could help you to stop feeling lost.
And, the most important: try not to hurt the people you meet on your path. Never ever hurt the people you meet on your path. Oh, and stop using adjectives. Cut adjectives from your daily speech: ugly (“he is so ugly”)… stupid (“she is so stupid”)… useless (“he is so useless”)… unlikable (“you are so unlikable”)… unkempt (“she’s so unkempt”)… and so on. Who cares? Who are you to judge or decide? Ban judgements from your speech. Start using more verbs. Verbs are good. Adjectives are bad. Start exercising your “meaning” muscles. It’s a process that will make you sore… but that soreness is meaningful.
In conclusion:
- Choose to act on accidents that life throws at you. Every time you act on a little randomness, on a little accident that life throws at you, you own it, and by doing so you give it meaning.
- Respect all life, even the tiniest bug has the same right as you to be here.
- Get out of your head.
- Create something, build something.
- Stop using adjectives.
- Find the others. Find the ones that are similar to you. You won’t find meaning as long as you spend your time with people that you don’t have much in common with. Find the others.
- Stay true to yourself, to your values, develop a sense of personal integrity. Your time here is limited, so do whatever you feel like doing, don’t cave into the demands or expectations of others. If you do so, you’ll miss the others.
Do that and you’ll be just fine. Do that and you won’t be just another sugar mouse in the rain.
Life might be purposeless. But you don’t have to be.
