The search begins

This is a blog about the search for the meaning of life, how others through history have looked for that purpose and how I myself will attempt to find it.

I would like to begin by offering a little background about myself and the situation that I find myself in that has caused me to begin this search for meaning.

Like countless others I am not in a rush to get to the office this morning. Unlike many others I am partly responsible for the fact that I have no office to hurry to. In October 2008 I left my job to travel the world. This was not the first time that I had set off on a lengthy voyage of discovery and I hope that it will not be the last.

My decision to abandon what now seems like a perfectly good job, even after Lehman Brothers had collapsed and at a time when most of us knew that we would be subjected to many hard months ahead in economic terms, was motivated by a desire to live in the moment. What I mean by this is not that I wanted to abandon myself to a whirlwind of life threatening activities but rather that I wished to appreciate where I was in life and for a few months to stop striving to be allowed access to the next rung on the ladder of life.

Society has set us off on a crazy race, a bizarre chase from one goal to the next, education, onto the first rungs of the career ladder, into the maze of consumption that is western existence, rent, mortgages, marriage, babies, more education and on and on, as if we're dashing at full tilt towards some finish line at which point we will achieve that elusive goal: happiness. But if there is a finish line it is the only true inevitable - death.

Surely contentment must be found in the living, in the doing, because I don't believe for one moment that there is a magic formulation of achievements and experiences that, when taken together, will allow us to laze back on our laurels, gaze upon our works and be forever insulated from future worry or strife.

The tidal wave of life and time just keeps on rolling in, through us and past us, going and going until we're gone. If it is all a mad dash for the sake of dashing then what is the point? Why do we keep sprinting onwards?

It is ironic that my wish to call time led me to plan an eight month journey, much of which would be spent getting from one place to the next or planning how to get there, but at the time it seemed to make a lot of sense. And so I took off to flit about the globe from Namibia to New Zealand, Vanuatu to Vietnam, Hong Kong to India and when I returned I found myself unemployed and rather broke. Don't get me wrong, it was wonderful to fill my greedy eyes with new sight upon glorious new sight and to enjoy the feeling of sunshine on my skin and the freedom to go anywhere or stay anywhere that I landed (within the limits of visa regulations and my bank balance) but now that I have returned these experiences are not sufficient to sustain me and I am still searching.

Once the pressures to live within the confines of society's expectations seemed to be killing my appreciation of the joys of life, now not having the means to enjoy all that that society offers is having a very negative impact upon my mood.

Thus, I have decided to seek the elusive, subjective, perhaps impossible to find, meaning of life. I expect that this search will lead me to conclude one of several hypotheses.

1. The Beatles had it right and that 'All you need is love'.

2. The journey is the destination, or the search itself gives meaning.

3. There is no purpose, we are but collections of cells with the unfortunate ability to ponder our existence and the future masters of the earth will be simpler creatures born without this affliction.

4. Someone will eventually employ me and I will be sufficiently distracted to conclude that contributing to society infuses life with meaning, or at least I will write that I have concluded this as I no longer have the time and energy to continue searching for the meaning of my existence.

The search begins...