I spent the first three
decades
of
my life
starting from when I was old enough to
think
for myself independently, trying to figure out / wondering what the
meaning of life was. And I was certain there was a meaning of life.
There had to be. Yet much to my chagrin I didn't find it, leaving me at
a standstill and getting nowhere with the question "What is the meaning
of life?". Gradually I realized it may just be possible there simply
wasn't one, however unlikely it sounded. But in spite of that (maybe
even because of it) I looked at how I could bring meaning to
my life
ie how I could make
my life
meaningful:
painting,
community service
etc all of which just re-enforced the
idea
that unless I added it, there was no meaning of life. And so I renewed
my drive to find it. But I didn't - no matter where or how long I
looked. I pressed on, continuing looking, looking - not so much to
adding meaning, but for the meaning of life itself.
Unbeknownst to me, that realization turned out to be jaw-droppingly
accurate: there is no meaning of life (there is no meaning of anything
else, for that matter) except for whatever meaning we invent and assign
to life and to anything and everything we say means
something. That's wild: we search for the meaning of life when in
actuality there is none.
Life is empty and
meaningless, and it's empty and meaningless that it's empty and
meaningless.
Oh, Wow!
When I was
a boy,
time seemed to pass very, very slowly - indeed, much slower than it
seems to pass today. Our summer vacations from school seemed to last
for-ever. Six weeks seemed to last for never-ending years. In contrast,
I moved into
Cowboy Cottage
intending to stay here temporarily for two months or so - three, tops,
before moving into a bigger place. That was nearly twenty one years ago
today. Yet it seems like barely a week has passed since then.
Now that
life is almost over,
passing as it is at an incredible speed (or so it would seem) and
accelerating, I look at what's possible in the time I have left. It
doesn't mean anything that
life is almost over.
What it does afford me however, is a space, an opening in front of me,
unconstrained by meaning, and into which I can invent ie create. I
create by creating, not "in order to" create. And when I create,
I create from nothing. If I created from something,
that's not creating anything. That's changing something. I myself am
less inclined to create things. Le musée du Louvre
would be a lot emptier if we didn't create things. Look: there's
nothing wrong with creating wonderful things which enrich
our collective future.
Civilizations are measured by them. But
speaking for myself,
ideas
will be my legacy /
ideas
will be my
my enriched future.
Ideas
will be my legacy not things. It's
a future
that's never loomed so large before.
The future
that's never loomed so large before, is one that's almost now,
a future
that calls me to live out of my own choosing, of my own creating.
What's been shown to be untrue is that unless you
discover
the meaning of life, it's not possible to live life fulfilled. Knowing
that life has no meaning unless I bring meaning to life, doesn't
constrain what's possible for
my future.
It's fait accompli that life has no meaning, the knowing
of which leaves me free to
discover
for myself that there's an opening, a
platform
on which to stand and create a fulfilling life of my own design and
choosing. So if you look for the meaning of life and you can't find it,
that's it: there isn't one. What's not new is you can't find the
meaning of life. What is new is you'll create it for yourself - for
sure.
