A quick search by Google using the phrase 'the meaning of life' returns 89,900,000 results. This may take longer than I had initially thought. The first result directs me to the Wikipedia entry for the meaning of life, which, due to its length and the scope of detail that it contains, I will return to tomorrow. The second result is another Wikipedia entry, this time for Monty Python's Meaning of Life. The following entry also refers to Monty Python's irreverent take on our life's work and I have to say that I find it heartening that, from the outset, comedy should play such an important role in this search for meaning.
From there on in I begin to turn up what I was afraid of finding - distinctly Yoda-esque discussions of the spiritual nature of existence. It is not that I disagree with the idea that the quest to discover the purpose of our being is a spiritual one, instead it is the 'deep' language that is used throughout that sends a shiver down my spine.
A quick scan of the first page of Google's results reveals questions such as: why are we here? Is there a God or isn't there? What is our destination? On the following page I find: Love gives meaning to our lives - as do friendship, or art, or faith in God. (Hmmm, another mention of God, I may have to get used to this). And then this gem from the New York Times: Cutting calories makes a monkey miserable. Ha ha. What???? Brilliant.
Getting back to my 'God' issue. If I am going to continue this search for the meaning of life I believe that I may have to accept that there will inevitably be much discussion of God, faith and spirituality. If I am to delve much deeper into the research that others have conducted on this subject I will have to be open to considering these issues.
I plough on and seeing an entry for the meaning of life in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy I decide that sinking my teeth into this little beut can be a prize for dipping my toes into entries that just wreak of spirituality and Yoda-speak...
And so http://aristotle.net/~diogenes/meaning1.htm. It doesn't seem quite as airy fairy as I feared and asks the surfer why they want to know the meaning of life, sending them to various other pages if they're (for example) depressed; keen to prove their intellectual prowess by disagreeing with whatever answers the site provides; or if they don't actually care about the meaning of life but were surfing the web and ended up there. For those who do not fall into any of these categories and are interested in exploring the meaning of existence four chapters follow.
The first chapter says that when we ask what life means we are really saying that we want to know what it's for. What purpose does it serve? I couldn't agree more - what the hell's it all about anyway?
It then uses two words that I had certainly not expected to find on such a page: scientific research. Indeed it says that scientific research provides much information about the link between consciousness and the brain but that it still cannot explain what consciousness is. (This is actually very interesting).
And then all of a sudden the discussion shifts onto what I consider less solid territory and claims that consciousness is a universal property of matter and that matter is a property of consciousness (I'm not too sure about this). In fact, it claims, matter sprang from consciousness and the big bang was caused by a word pinging around in some sort of mind and then exploding into the creation story. (Oh God, does this mean that myself and the entirety of my existence are the product of another being's or non-being's imagination - has my life been the daydream of a deity? Does he or she find this amusing?).
Onto chapter two, which can be summarized as: the first consciousness had lots of thoughts, each of these thoughts had more thoughts and so on and so forth. In order to allow all of the thoughts to have as many thoughts as they wanted to, the first guy created earth and all that we know as life - are you still with me?
Now it gets a bit hairy: 'We are still in contact with the original mind because we are made of it, we sprang from it, and because time has no meaning outside the physical universe, our past, present, and future exist together as an infinite vanity of possibilities within that larger moment'. Phew.
I must admit that I've always been a bit of a sucker for any discussion of the nature of time, I find it fascinating that time keeps ticking on, that we grow, change, age and that we accept that (if not the wrinkles and middle age spread) as a given. Not that I am suggesting that time can be halted, but perhaps the idea that time is a comic book through which we move, becoming conscious of one frame at a time does make some sense.
The essence of the third chapter is that we choose our own version of reality. The idea that we are in control of how we are each effected by what life throws up is something that I've been trying to get to grips with for some time. I am a great believer in the power of the mind, that said, I'm also very much conscious of the frailty of our mental health and I can't help thinking that madness is the greatest defense against the hardest of life's experiences. This begs the question - if you're not conscious of experiencing life or if you've allowed your brain to loose its grip on reality, can your life still have meaning? I would like to think that all lives are meaningful and have a purpose, even if we're never aware of having fulfilled this. Nevertheless, developing control of our mental faculties is certainly something to give greater thought to.
Finally, chapter four, which is entitled So What? This chapter states that life is a school that we should all learn from before we pass into larger realities and that the mistakes that we make here will not be held against us forever. It concludes by saying that developments in technology have resulted in alienation from ourselves and from each other and that we must each seek the truth within ourselves.
Oh dear, it's all gone very you-will-find-peace-in-the-trees-my-son-seek-the-truth. But I must open my mind a little... certainly, many of us have lost touch with nature and many others feel very isolated without the support of local communities, but we are also more free now to express ourselves in whatever way we wish than were past generations. Furthermore, technology has enabled us to communicate with new communities across far flung distances and to search for the meaning of life without getting out of bed. I would like to think that the developed world, while flawed, is not all bad and that you've got to work with what you're given.
The next search result provided by Google is themeaningoflife.org and because this is already a rather long post I will summarize very briefly the contents of this site. themeaningoflife.org claims to help us to understand the meaning of life by providing a 'generic template for the significant experiences that make each life unique'. This involves 44 aspects of human experience, from working to survive to finding mates, expelling waste (literally and metaphorically), failing, loving, losing, breaking rules, changing states of consciousness and opening to new depths. What I got from it more than anything else was a sense that life is a crazy mish-mosh of experiences, some good, some bad, that we can choose to learn from before we die and people remember who we were or what we left behind.
According to the site's creator, each week around 1500 people are attracted to the site, most of whom bounce off after reading the first few of the 44 aspects. About 100 people every week read all 44 entries. Clearly I'm not the only one searching for the meaning of life from my living room.
So, what have I learned so far?
a) if I'm going to get anywhere with this search I'm going to have to accept that this is a spiritual as much as a philosophical journey. This may involve reading spiritual texts or even discussing God or gods without wincing.
b) gaining control of one's mental faculties and developing the power of the mind to overcome adversity and gain greater enjoyment from life is positive and may lead to a more meaningful existence. To further this end I will begin once more to practice yoga, something that I had to give up several years ago due to injury and I might even (I'm not sure that I want to say this aloud, or even whisper it. I'm wincing again and this really has to stop) look into some form of meditation. (There I said it. Yikes.)
c) getting closer to nature may lead to a greater appreciation of life. I live in an apartment in the city so my efforts to involve myself with nature will have to begin by growing plants on my balcony, which I did do and enjoyed until they all drowned and I ran out of money to replace them - money can be found or cuttings made.
d) lots of similar stuff happens to most of us but each of us have different experiences. As this blog progresses I may have to go 'into the field' to speak to others about their own interpretations of the meaning of life and about what they think about the ramblings of others, which will be discussed in future posts.
e) cutting calories makes a monkey miserable.
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