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Selling my Soul
Life is Function
I have found it. After years of searching in entirely the wrong places I have found the meaning of life.
It was where I should always have looked for it. In that small book with thin pages that I keep by my side, in that wonderful book that I should always treasure. It was there all along.
I long to share it with you.
Here it is, from page 308 of the Collins Little Gem Dictionary, 1985 edition :-
LIFE
noun active principle of existence in animals and plants, animate existence; time of its lasting; history of such existence; way of living; vigour, vivacity. (plural lives)
There it is in all its glory. The meaning of life.
Were you expecting something else? Were you expecting something that makes you feel good? Why? Has there been anything in your life to give you cause to expect there to be more to life than meets the eye?
I am perfectly happy with this as an explanation of the meaning of life. Animate existence. That sums it up splendidly.
To some people though being true is not enough, things have to feel right as well. It is a strange way of looking at the Universe. To me the truth is beautiful, and it feels right because it is the truth. Putting things the other way around is quite simply absurd.
An idea is either right or wrong. If it is wrong that is simply the end of it. It does not matter how many clever people might have believed it in the past, it doesn't matter how good it makes people feel today, it does not matter how much comfort an untruth may give suffering people in the future. Truth is truth, anything else is not.
Our lives are finite. We only have time for a limited number of things. I have heard people say that life is too short to stuff a mushroom or too short to drink poor wine, it is certainly too short to waste believing in things that are wrong.
In 1859 mankind first became aware of the most profound fact of our existence. That revelation was incompatible with all previous ideas about the place of man in the Universe. That was a pity. But lighting every candle on the planet, killing and cremating every goat or flying a billion prayer flags will not change anything. Religions are wrong.
There is no meaning or purpose to your life. To mine, or to the lives of any living thing. We have no spirit. We have no soul. We have no destiny.
We exist because our parents thrived and succeeded in life, at least to the point of our conception or birth. That doesn't seem much of a claim, but that is only one tiny fraction of the story. The same is true of their parents, and theirs, and theirs. Not back to some sheep herder in Babylon 5,000 years ago, but back a million times further, to the first replicating molecules.
That is the meaning of life.
Life is because it can. There is no element of the future in your life. You were formed by the past. Your life-force has survived billions of generations, you may be dead before the day is out. Destiny is the trend that historians view with hindsight.
Look at the lines drawn above. You cannot help your brain from trying to interpret the lines as a shape. But there is more than one shape there, is that bottom right corner at the front of a cube, or at the back? Your brain cannot decide which meaning to give it, and it certainly cannot decide that it has no meaning. Actually it isn't even lines, it is a image drawn from a file containing information about pixels of colour (and most of it is transparent!) Our brains will always find meanings, even where there are none. |
life n. (pl. lives)
1 the condition which distinguishes active animals and plants from inorganic matter, including the capacity for growth, functional activity, and continual change preceding death.
2 a living things and their activity (insect life; is there life on Mars?).
b human presence or activity (no sign of life).
3 a the period during which life lasts, or the period from birth to the present time or from the present time to death (have done it all my life; will regret it all my life; life membership).
b the duration of a thing's existence or of its ability to function; validity, efficacy, etc. (the battery has a life of two years).
4 a a person's state of existence as a living individual (sacrificed their lives; took many lives).
b a living person (many lives were lost).
5 a an individual's occupation, actions, or fortunes; the manner of one's existence (that would make life easy; start a new life).
b a particular aspect of this (love life; private life).
6 the active part of existence; the business and pleasures of the world (travel is the best way to see life).
7 man's earthly or supposed future existence (this life and the next).
8 a energy, liveliness, animation (full of life; put some life into it!).
b an animating influence (was the life of the party).
9 the living, esp. nude, form or model (taken from the life).
10 a written account of a person's life; a biography.
11 colloq. a sentence of imprisonment for life (they were all serving life).
12 a chance; a fresh start (cats have nine lives; gave the player three lives).
[Old English lif, from Germanic]