In a recent comment, Hayden questioned the purpose of searching for meaning in life as opposed to (and I paraphrase) simply being. It is a good question. Do we need to know the meaning of our existence to exist? Or do we need simply need to exist to have meaning?
Why is it that good questions always seem to raise more questions than answers? I have been sitting here pondering whether I actual seek meaning in life or whether I simply live. I know I have admitted that I accept who I am becoming, but is that the same as accepting why I am here?
I think it is impossible to live a life that doesn't somehow intersect or impact others. Whether you believe you are a world unto your self or the world is your oyster, the very act of living is subject to cause and effect. Even if you are a lump that never moves, you breathe your share of air and produce your share of waste matter. Shit really does happen. And one man's shit is another man's fertilizer.
I'm not a big believer in randomness. Just look at Fibonacchi numbers. It is a number system modelled after the rate at which rabbits muliply (have babies, not do times tables). Fibonacchi numbers can be found throughout nature, including the spirals of pine cones. How random is that?
That old game called Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon involved trying to name any film actor in history and linking them somehow to Kevin Bacon, the actor. The game was a microcosm of that phenomenon of life that defies randomness and ties us somehow with everyone and everything else. Because like it or not, we are all connected somehow and in some way. So, I suppose a life may not have a point, but I believe it always has a meaning.
2 comments:
Are you trying to make a "point" here? When you spoke of pine cones, was that a fruedian association with cone heads? And why six? Why not 37? Why am I going on and on? WHY? WHY?
and why not 42, which we have been told (Douglas Adams) is the ultimate answer to everything.
I guess it all comes down to how you define meaning.
I try to live in a way that impacts others positively, or not at all. I do that for both them and me. For them because I wish them well, and for me because I usually choose not to be "all angried up inside."
If I manage to give someone else a boost does that give my life meaning? I confess I've never equated the two. Maybe I should. I just don't know.
I wondered about the whole meaning thing while I was writing my comment.
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