I read a couple of articles this morning that led me toward a short re-consideration of this question, which will necessarily involve some gross generalizations. The long version sprawls over my entire web site.
There was an article in the New York Times called, “In a New Generation of College Students, Many Opt for the Life Examined.” It was about the large increase in the number of students majoring in philosophy, and their reasons—most of which were practical. The last line in the article is a quote from one of the students: “That whole deep existential torment,” she said. “It’s good for getting girlfriends.” So it all comes down to that, eh?
Then later I read an article at wired.com, called, “Sex and Financial Risk Linked in Brain,” which closed with this quote from the movie, “Scarface:” “In this country, you gotta make the money first. Then when you get the money, you get the power. Then when you get the power, then you get the women.”
If you put these two articles together, it would seem that the meaning of life is to find the perfect mate—or lots of perfect mates—whether through philosophy, money, or some other strategy. As some of you know, for the early decades of my life I was trying to find sex—it didn’t have to be perfect—which included finding a few “mates” along the way, and could, I suppose, be considered a variant of this same “meaning.”
Let me see if I can put the question in a larger context.
We have only two choices in life: to act or not to act. If we don’t act, we are in fact choosing death—which will find us sooner or later anyway—because we have to act to maintain the body. Given that action is required to survive, what guides our actions?
I think most people act without wondering why. Their actions are the result of their personal evolution within the larger streams of evolution: biological and cultural. They accept the urges of biology without question, along with the local cultural definition of how to satisfy these. “Theirs is not to wonder why, theirs is but to do or die.” But then some of us are stuck with that question, “Why?” Why do one thing or another?
I used to think that one of my major motivations for action was to find freedom, but the more I learned about evolution in all its forms, the more I realized that “freedom” in any absolute sense, is not available. We can be relatively free from certain kinds of restraint: physical, economic, social, etc.; and from the restrictions imposed by ignorance. I have pursued freedom in all these realms to one degree or another, but there is always room for improvement.
The next question is, why pursue even relative freedom, or anything else? The Dalai Lama says that everyone wants to be happy, so perhaps we pursue our various goals because we think they will make us happy. Perhaps all our actions are motivated by the desire for happiness. But what is happiness? People can be made happy by anything from killing their enemies to nursing a baby.
If we look at the kinds of rewards that are built into us by evolution, there seem to be two clusters. One set involves maintenance activities for the physical structure of the organism: eating, drinking, and staying warm. The other set involves social activities: reproduction, cooperation, and competition. Pursuit of any of these in the extreme can have regrettable consequences, with the possible exception of cooperation.
I’ve been listening to and watching a lot of Ted talks since I discovered them, and though some of them might be considered to be directed toward enhancing one’s competitive edge, most emphasize cooperation. In some cases, it’s put in terms of making the world a better place, which often involves the pressure of solving problems that threaten us all. Global warming threatens our survival, and reversing it requires global co-operation on education, poverty, trade, energy production, human rights, etc. The rewards for these activities—the satisfaction and fulfillment of improving the lives of others—aren’t always mentioned explicitly, but are at least implicit in most of these talks.
So, while life has no meaning in absolute terms, each of us who looks for it will evolve toward a personal answer to the question. There is no way to free ourselves from evolution, biological and social; but the more we learn, the more our meaning is shaped by that learning. Our efforts have effects.
It seems that an answer that involves helping others is a pretty safe bet. (I hope this has been helpful ;o)
What’s the Meaning of This!
