Exploring the “T’s” of life

What is the meaning of life?  I would dare not say I could answer this definitively, for sure not at the overarching level of the meaning of life for humankind as a whole, but even at the individual level, as there is no one answer, no playbook, no neat solution to an equation. Humans don’t have an obligation to define the meaning of life in universal terms, each of us will do it our way. Through this paper, I will attempt to provide some insight into how I look at the meaning of my life, i.e., my own personal significance and purpose in life.  In philosophy it is often said that you leave a course with more questions than answers, however in this case, through the various readings and lesson, I can say that I end with a little more clarity and a little more validation, which I hope to present there. The paper will briefly explore the thoughts of many authors and historical figures we read in class, as well as some we did not – each having a different level of attraction to me – thus in the conclusion I will be incorporating elements of several of them.

The focus will be largely the secular view.  Religion does offer a simple solution to the question, which, by requiring a brute force belief in an infinite entity, namely God, it offers us finite beings a way to stop looking at things with finiteness and derive our meaning from the association with God. I also usually offers us a story of a continued existence of our lives in an immaterial form, i.e., our souls. In a single sweep, this idea of life after death attacks all the classic problems of life’s meaning and with such an all-encompassing solution it is no surprise that the idea of life after death has been so uniformly embraced.  However, to attach life’s meaning to something that is entirely unprovable feels incomplete and is left for wanting.

The secular view I will use, in developing my conclusion, is that of only being concerned with our life as it is from birth to death and not considering the possibility of anything before or after.  It is the physicalist or ontological monism view of the human life also seen in the existentialist view, which, as explained by Jean-Paul Sartre¹, has the basic principle that existence precedes essence. So, the focus is sharply on the issue of being then life then death – and that’s it.   The result of this should not be mutually exclusive to the theist view, in fact it could be supplementary.  In finding purpose by only considering the life as we know it, combined with the view of afterlife for meaning as well, the result could be finding meaning both during our material and immaterial life, thus the exercise has value for all personal stances.

The futility of life

French philosopher Camus² believed that the story of Sisyphus had a symbolic message in that many of life’s specific tasks certainly feel futile, but what is more discouraging is that the sum of a person’s life efforts may seem pointless and thus utterly void of meaning. He calls life absurd as we go about continuously struggling and asking the universe about the meaning of our life, yet there is no answer to be had.  Thomas Nagel³ also says life is absurd, but from the point of view of the individual, in that there is a severe disconnect between our aspirations and reality. He says we take ourselves and lives too seriously with an elevated sense of self-importance to no end at all.  Schopenhauer⁴, in the Buddhist traditions, says life is nothing but suffering – caused by our continuous strivings, our longings which only result in temporary satisfaction and then suffering again as new wants take over – for him life is like a pendulum continuously swinging between pain and boredom.   

These writers and many others also express a dire picture of our cosmic insignificance, “To think of one’s place in the cosmos”, as Susan Wolf⁵ puts it “is to recognise the possibility of a perspective … from which one’s life is merely gratuitous.”  In a similar vein, the French philosopher Blaise Pascal⁶ wrote “When I consider the short duration of my life, swallowed up in an eternity before and after, the little space I fill engulfed in the infinite immensity of spaces whereof I know nothing, and which know nothing of me, I am terrified. The eternal silence of these infinite spaces frightens me.”

Sartre said that we pursue goals which, from a detached standpoint, we can see don’t really matter. But we continue to act as though they do. In the presence of other people, everyone insists on their own reality and thus other people tend to get in the way of our pursuit of our own goals. His famous line, “Hell is other people”⁷ means that people are always at odds with each other, yet they are always looking at each other for validation – thus another absurdity of life.

All this combined pessimism can easily lead to a severe feeling of existential angst – the overwhelming feeling of the contingency of everything around us and the shear and utter pointlessness of everything we do. All in all, at this point, we have a pretty bleak and dark view, presenting life as completely futile – from where it is difficult to see a path to meaningfulness. We will return to this and these authors a little later to explore such a path.

The beauty of life

We can all agree that life is beautiful and human life is rather amazing. Bertrand Russell⁸, who believes in the scientific approach, expresses a reverence for human capacity and the amazingness of our biology.  Ronald Dworkin⁹ argues that human beings have intrinsic value due to this awesomeness.  I will not debate whether human life has intrinsic value or not, rather the question here is, assuming it does have value, is this value a basis for life having meaning or personal significance? Shelly Kagan¹⁰ in discussing the value of a life, presupposes a neutral container theory of life as opposed to the valuable container theory – the latter which ascribes value to the life of the human being devoid of any content of experience, actions etc. I concur with Kagan in the view that meaning is derived only when there is something in the container. An analogy is a that of a mug – it is just something made of glass or clay and thus has intrinsic value as it is, but it derives meaning when it is filled with something and avails that to drink. None of this is to say that life itself has no value, but that the existence of life presents the potential for meaning, not meaning by itself.

The utility of life

G.E. Moore¹¹ believes of life has usefulness insofar that it has had a net positive contribution to the intrinsic value of the universe. Metz¹² uses this to discuss a utilitarian theory of meaningfulness.  While we will later explore our meaning as it relates to other people, to derive meaning solely based on some measure of increase in net value is not an attractive concept at all.  It also is worrisome in that the issue of commodification of human activity as highlighted by Marx, could be justified as a creator of meaningful lives. The utilitarian view also has underpinnings of an objective tallying to determine value or meaning, a generalized version of which is entirely impossible to create. Thus, I choose to reject this altogether. (Interestingly, the NBC philosophical comedy “The Good Place” mocks this with a point scoring method applied to a life at death, resulting in no soul going to the good place for over 500 years!)

The spirituality of life

There is a natural tendency to associate spirituality with religion.  However, here I use the term spirituality in a non-religious sense as to mean the essence of human beings that is beyond just our physical being. The Dalai Lama¹³ says “I believe that it is essential to appreciate our potential as human beings and recognize this importance of inner transformation…I call this the spiritual dimension in our life.”  The practice of spirituality, or mindfulness, has been written about extensively, not only by Buddhist philosophers but incorporated into modern western thought as well, as critical to creating happiness and thus meaning in our life. Wallace¹⁴ described a way of training your mind to be present in each moment – to not get lost in cacophonous, self-centered thoughts. The key to thinking, he said, is “being conscious and aware enough to choose what you pay attention to,” noticing what’s “hidden in plain sight all around us.”  Spirituality is also largely associated with detachment, which we see not only in the concept of moksa in the ancient Indian purushastras, as explained by Nath¹⁵ but also in contemporary writing such as Victor Frankl¹⁶, who says meaning can only be achieved by resisting temptations and attachment of lower pleasures of materialism and hedonism.  Al-Kindi¹⁷ describes how attachment creates sadness in our lives. There is a clear and important message in all this that living life with a sense of spirituality, mindfulness and detachment, will lead to a happier life, which definitely contributes to wellbeing.

The continuity of life

As indicated in the beginning of this paper, we are only concerned about our life as it is and not a personal afterlife. However, Scheffler¹⁸ introduces us to the concept of a collective afterlife – in the sense that human beings and the universe continues to exist after we personally cease to exist. Through a thought experiment, he demonstrates how deeply attached we are to the continued existence of humankind and the world around us that it profoundly impacts the way we life our live when we are alive – so much so that is has the effect of giving significant meaning and value to things we do in our live, in spite of knowing that these activities may be experienced by people we may never know.  This is an incredible variable in the equation of finding meaning and personal significance in our life.

The activity of life

We have now a picture of a) some value of life itself, but no meaning; b) the utter finiteness of life making it seem pointless; c) a transcendental concept of happiness and, d) a thought that the world after us still has importance to us.  The challenge now is:  do we have the ability to bring it altogether and create a meaningful life?

We need to first revisit the pessimists, as they surely cannot get off the hook this easy! Sure enough Camus offers a recommendation, urging us to live rebelliously and Nagel suggests to live with a sense of irony.   To restate in a different way – do not take life’s issues too seriously, thus tempering our sense of self-importance (Nagel) and try to rise above life’s issues, grabbing them by the horn (Camus) – both which seem like wise advice.

Secular existentialism assists us as well with its view that existence precedes essence, thus our existence is just that, but our real nature comes from our experiences during our existence. Sartre strongly defended existentialism as humanism and championed our own human nature, which condemns us to be free. On this view, our fundamental goal in life is to overcome our contingency and to become the foundation of our own being. In doing this he challenges us to live authentically and dismiss bad faith, the latter which results from living without taking freedom properly on board.  He says, “In choosing myself, I choose to be the type of being I want to be in the presence of others.”  From a pragmatic sense, complete authenticity is almost impossible to achieve, but by being mindful of it, we will be reminded to try to live with as much authenticity as possible.Sartre does assist us by providing some constraints, in that while exercising our freedom, we should not be permitted to make choices that impairs or inhibits the freedom of other – which is a fundamental tenet of living with respect for others around us. In a similar vein, Wallace advises us to not only look at the world from our own individual perspective, but from the perspective of others around us and let that guide how we behave.

So, far we have collected some good ideas on how to live our life as it pertains to our behavior, choices, attitude, and those around us, all of which is accretive to meaningfulness. But we still need to figure what do to in our lives to create meaning.

Before we go on to discussing actions, we need to think about resolving the question of cosmic insignificance, which can be a dreadful destroyer of meaningfulness of our actions. Paul Ricoeur¹⁹ offered a solution to this problem as he writes, “On a cosmic scale, our life is insignificant, yet this brief period when we appear in the world is the time in which all meaningful questions arise.”  The grandeur of the cosmos does make our life’s efforts seem irrelevant by comparison, but we nevertheless can find meaning by changing the perspective of our view.  Look at a tree through the wide-angle lens of a camera and you may see some small dark specs, switch to a zoom lens and you see those dark specs are beautiful birds, each unique and colorful and interesting. That is how our lives are – by zooming in and looking at our lives within the sphere our own experience and existence, we will be able to grasp and comprehend our own personal significance within the incomprehensible cosmic infiniteness.

This leads us to Robert Nozick²⁰, one of the most influential contemporary philosophers on the meaning of life.  As finite beings, in order to find meaning, we attach ourselves to other finite things and beings. This leads to nothing in terms of finding meaning so we continue with this regress looking for a stopping point– which only can come from an infinite being, i.e., God.  This transcendence to the infinite is Nozick’s explanation for how religion offers up God as a way to give meaning to our lives. Nozick then uses this concept to propose a limited transcendence version for our lives which does not require God in the picture.  By reaching out in our lives to things, entities, activities that have intrinsic value we continuously add meaning to our lives. Each time we do this, it is a limited transcendence and by continually attaching ourselves to value as they appear on our radar of life, we increase the overall worth of our life. The limited transcendence is an iterative approach to continue to build meaning in life, we attach ourselves to something of value, then possibly stabilize our lives and then seek something of value again.  This concept very much fits in with our zoom lens view, in which, instead of focusing too wide, you focus on yourself in the center of a circle of value that you can connect to and transcend, then you do it again.  Nozick offers up many examples of such activities, while not being prescriptive, such as involvement in political, social, community causes; family and friends; learning and trying new things, attending a Philosophy class on Tuesday night etc. The elegance of this approach is that it keeps us grounded in reality as opposed to getting bogged down or depressed by the vastness of the universe. It is a very practical, rational approach to continuously adding worthiness to your life. Sonja Lyubomirsky, through empirical studies on happiness, also comes up with a parallel conclusion to Nozick, in which happiness is created by focusing on activities that are intentional as opposed to trying to change your life circumstances.  Thus, by continuously engaging in activities that broaden the experience of life, activities similar to those proposed by Nozick, there is an overall increase in life’s happiness and meaning. We see similar conclusions by Frankl, who says that the search for meaning is found in work and in relationships (love). I will also briefly mention the Indian purushastras²² which talks of 4 spheres of activity of life.  Artha describes activities for the well-being of life, which includes our work, careers and things we do to provide for life; Kama, represent activities to satisfy the sensory pleasures of life, such as art, music, sexual pleasure; Dharma represents righteousness and principles of life and finally Moksha, representing freedom. All these are important to keep in balance for a good, meaningful life. A contemporary interpretation of this is that we need to do things in life to keep busy, to prosper as well as do things for pleasure – but with the governance of righteousness, ethics and doing good for others around us. However, to remain free, we need to not get consumed or completely attached to these materialistic activities.

The recipe for life

We now have all the pieces to create our recipe – let’s call it the Apple Pie of Life.  Just like a recipe has ingredients and actions, we can now summarize a set of how’s and what’s.

How to live a meaningful life	What to do to create meaning
Live with Intensity Live with self-awareness and awareness of others Live Authentically as much as possible with freedom of thought and choice Live with tempered self-importance and with humor Live with a sense of detachment Live with respect for others Live a righteousness life	Seek intrinsically valuable activity Continuously learn new things Engage in activity for well-being and success, work Do not ignore sensory activities Engage in activity with people – relationships Do things that leave the world slightly better Engage in activity that creates happiness flow

This is the recipe I would offer anyone seeking conversation on the meaning of life (note, I hesitate to call it advice or a playbook, as this is my take and each person’s could be different). My own daughter was recently suffering from severe existential angst and depression, and I used many of these concepts to be able to help her to not focus on the pointlessness, but to think authentically and look for activities that are of value, and not trite, to give her meaning.  I am happy to say that it helped her tremendously.

Objections?  Of course, no recipe for the meaning of life can be perfect and every construct will have objections.  One clear objection would be the lack for objectivity in determining the worth or value of the activities. My response to that is there should be no objective values, no prescription because of the fact that what is of value to one person may have completely different value to next due to different life starting points and conditions.  Each person should find value based on their own perspective and situation, however small or big that may be – it is not a competition, there are no medals.

Another objection would be the absence of some moral code because the inherent freedom message seems unchecked.  On the surface, this may seem valid, however inherent in the two sets in our recipe above is a humanistic moral code centered on the principles of respect and consideration for others around us. This is very similar to religious morality or concepts like the Golden Rule and categorical imperative, without the need of a dictum from religion – rather it is left for us to individually realize and follow them as our internal moral compass.

A third objection could be that this largely centers around activity to give meaning, but ultimately all activity is pointless as death is certain.  The response to this would be:  as it pertains to activity – we can choose no activity or to have activity.  No activity guarantees life to be meaningless. Thus, activity is the only way to create some meaning.  As Taylor²³ elegantly states about doing “At the same time, the strange meaningfulness they possess is that of the inner compulsion to be doing just what we were put here to do, and to go on doing it forever. This is the nearest we may hope to get to heaven, but the redeeming side of that fact is that we do thereby avoid a genuine hell.”

Conclusion

In crisscrossing various philosophical thought from ancient to contemporary, from East to West, I have presented a construct of a meaning of life that personally speaks to me. Nietczche²⁴ goads us to ask ourselves if we had to live our life all over again exactly as it was, would we be happy doing it?   With all due respect to Nietzsche, the binary nature of his question is incorrect – and I would rather ask myself:   During my life and near the end of my life – as I was eating or finishing my Apple Pie, would I bake it again?  Maybe tweak it a little here or there, a little less sugar, a little more cinnamon – but would I want to live my life again essentially as the same person with the opportunity to adjust as needed – if I followed the recipe, I would answer with a resounding affirmative and be happy that I have a meaningful life.

“The meaning of life is to give life meaning.” Viktor Frankl

Works Cited