I’m sitting in the commuter train going home. Tired and staring at the faces of other tired commuters. I, and without a doubt many of my fellow passengers, have spent the day dealing earnestly with matters that have very little real value. Most of what we do in this service economy does not leave any long term legacy; much of it will not leave an impression beyond one single day. No one should be surprised that we seek to find some significance, some higher purpose in in all this drudgery.
The nihilistic thought that ‘life’s a bitch and then you die’, for some people is just horrible. That all of this teeth gritting is just to get you and your dependents reasonably well sheltered, fed and clothed on the road to the grave. Of course anyone that has spent any length of time hungry, cold and exposed to the elements will contest that there is a great deal of point in having these items covered off. But, I am referring to the bigger picture here, once the lowest rungs in Maslow’s Hierarchy are satisfied. Is it possible that there is actually no point to this whole thing? We will all personally die and be forgotten, our species will go extinct, our sun will burn out and the universe will either become a vast cold dead place or contract back to a singularity and disappear up its own ass, so to speak. To everything there is an end, nothing lasts forever.
I don’t know if a finite existence should have a bearing on purpose. I don’t believe that mortality should rob our lives of relevance. Personally I’m not sure that I’d want immortality, if it were on offer. Actually the whole idea of a greater meaning to life is a little scary. I’m more comfortable with the ‘life is meaningless’ point of view. At least I’m not pissing around with some grand cosmic plan when I screw up…much less pressure. No matter what I do my ultimate fate is precisely the same as Shakespeare, Tolstoy, Ed Wood and Bill Gates. On one level a comforting thought, in the long run there are no winners and no losers, it makes true communists out of all of us.
I seem to have digressed. The answer to the Why question could absolutely be that there is no meaning beyond that existence. Whether you find this unpalatable, or like me are unsure as to what the preferable answer is, our preferences and most ardent beliefs are not relevant in this quest. Reason and evidence is all that we can consider. Logic must triumph over belief; unlike the religious, I will not ask anyone to suspend their incredulity. This blog is about discovering the truth, even if that truth leads me to where I fear to go. For now the biblical option may have plenty of appeal and some damn good marketing going for it, but it isn’t my first choice. Nonetheless, if this quest leads to a truth that involves a weird old guy in a white bathrobe, a flowing beard and a decidedly disturbed outlook on life, if reason or evidence points that way, then so be it.
Whether or not we have an element of the divine in us, or if we are here purely because of an incredibly unlikely series of chances, we are something special. It is true that, in the words of The Bloodhound Gang, ‘we ain't nothing but mammals’, but we do have true awareness, we can contemplate our own immortality and that of our loved ones. This is our dilemma, we can sit at the table of the gods and hold our own knowing that we will soon grow feeble and will have to slink away to die quietly before dessert is served. This is our blessing and our curse; no other earthly creature can do this, or perhaps would want to. This is why we at least want to know the reason for existence, for all our faults, this makes us noble.
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