Tuesday, February 24, 2009

The meaninglessness of meaning

Do you ever sit around and wonder what the meaning of life is? Yeah, me neither. Now, I do occassionally try to figure out what the meaning of my life might possible be. But, it's usually not when I'm "sitting around".
For the record, I'm pretty sure that, all guilt and humor aside, there is no meaning to my life. I'm okay with this. In fact, I think I might be disturbed to find out that there was a meaning to my life. I guess I kind of view the whole raison d'ĂȘtre thing as a bit too much like fate or at the very least, fatalistic. I mean, it would be all fine and dandy if you knew the meaning of your life was to party like it's nineteen-ninety-nine and die happy. But, what if you found out that the meaning of your life was too explore the depths of human suffering, both your own and what you would cause to practically everyone you came into contact with? It would totally suck, right?
I guess that I kind of view this whole meaning of life business a bit like religion, allbeit a bit more towards the deus ex machina end of the spectrum. In fact, the meaning of life seems a lot like the god in the mechanism.
I could go on ad nauseum about this, but I'll spare you, kind reader. Just because I don't think there is any menaing of (my) life, doesn't mean I don't think there is meaning in life. Let's see how quickly I contradict my earlier statements trying to explain my way out of this one... Our interpersonal relations give meaning to actions, they give us a context to function in and decide if something makes us happy or sad or neither, or maybe hungry. But, Eric, is there a sum of meaning that one could call the meaning of their life? Absolutely, probably, maybe not.
What do I know? I'm just some guy who doesn't think there is any meaning to (his) life, and who claims to find comfort in that. Well at least I'm explainning this idea ad absurdum, which is a way to prove to myself that I'm not as clear a communicator as I need to be to get these ideas across.