Author: omnigrey

The Meaning of Life, Made to Order

Hello, my friend! I’m so glad you found me! After all, I wrote this specifically for you…

And let’s be clear, it wasn’t very easy for us to find each other, was it? I honestly have no idea how these words got to you, but I’m sooo happy they did!

It really, truly makes me happy that you’re reading this because I’ve been struggling lately. Have you been struggling too? It kind of feels like we’ve all been struggling a bit these days.

I lost a dear friend recently and since then every day has been hard. But yo! We only just met so I don’t wanna bring you down with my troubles. I’m only mentioning it because I’ve noticed it’s the times when I’m feeling a little down that I start to question life’s meaning.

So anyway, I’ve been questioning it a lot lately. And I think I’ve got some pretty good ideas which is why I wanted to share them with you. Now, I’m not claiming I found the meaning of life, but I do feel like I’m onto something here.

I guess the first question is, does life have meaning at all? Maybe the nihilists are right and all of this is meaningless. That’s definitely possible! Just as a mental exercise, let’s start with the assumption that there is a deeper meaning to life.

But wait! What if there IS a deeper meaning to life, but it’s so complicated that mere humans like you and me could never understand it?

Bee Here Now

As an analogy, take the honeybee. The bee plays such an important role in our ecosystem; it’s a vital pollinator, it’s an insect at the foundation of our food chain, plus it makes delicious honey!

Seriously though, the global market value of honey is currently roughly $9 billion and the honey industry supports countless businesses and cottage industries… so the world benefits in a myriad of ways from the honeybee.

But as far as we know, the bee has ZERO awareness of this! The bee has no idea of its tremendous value! All it knows is to go flower-to-flower, collecting pollen and bringing it back to the hive. It is beyond the bee’s capacity to understand its role in the universe. Why should it be any different with us?

So we must do what we do!

We make art, we decipher nature’s mysteries through science, we invent technology, we test the limits of anatomy through sports, and we create culture. Humanity is greater than the sum of its parts. The cultural legacies we create for ourselves and future generations are as vital to human existence as honey is for the bees.

Even though we get our own benefits from humanity’s creations, there could still be an even deeper meaning for our existence, but like the honey bee it may simply be beyond our capacity for understanding. And we may never have that capacity. And we need to accept that.

Maybe we just need to get over ourselves. Nothing personal, but maybe we aren’t the center of the universe. Maybe our role is to be a stepping stone for a higher level of consciousness. Perhaps our role is even less than that. I don’t know.

Whatever the case, I really do hope someday a deeper meaning of life will reveal itself to us. I like to think there are broader implications for our actions. In the meantime, we can still keep trying to find a deeper meaning for ourselves. Don’t you think so?

Maybe the meaning of life is self-perpetuating. Like, the meaning of life can only be found in the search for the meaning of life itself; the purpose is found in the pursuit… not the goal. In fact, maybe because of our limited capacity for understanding we can continue to seek and refine the meaning of life, but we can never fully comprehend it. In this case life is for seeking… for trying to be the bee that understands the process of pollination even if it will never be possible for that bee to fully understand the process of pollination.

Or maybe it’s even more basic than that. Maybe the meaning of life is to live it. Life is a self-fulfilling prophecy with its meaning baked in to the very act of living itself. To paraphrase Rainer Marie Rilke, perhaps we are not meant to answer life’s questions… perhaps we are meant to “live the questions” and in doing so find our own personal reason(s) to exist.

The meaning of life is to live it

Maybe the meaning of life is to live it and learn its (often hard) lessons so you can gain wisdom. The goal is to constantly improve yourself on every level. Because in the end, true wisdom always teaches you to be more compassionate and do what is right. So perhaps the meaning of life is simply to refine yourself and become a better person. On your own path.

And then, what if we have individual meanings of life that are interconnected in ways we can’t understand?

I really like that, don’t you? The idea that the meaning of life is individualized and also interdependent at the same time? Each of us must find our own, personal meaning within life and then the higher purpose of human life is the interweaving of all of our individual life pursuits.

Because I think deep down all people want to be a part of something greater than themselves. I know I do. Don’t you? The good news is… you and I already are a part of something greater. We just don’t always realize it.

As individuals, humans are weak… we are not terribly fast, we are not terribly strong, and we don’t have fangs or claws. But as a whole humanity is massively dominant within our environment. Our only real limitation is the vacuum that surrounds us.

Here on Earth we are overachievers (maybe even a little too much so). The same way the bees’ contribution to our world extends beyond the global community of honeybees, we are a component of nature that is far greater than the sum of its parts.

What I am about to say can be applied to all human pursuits (science, philosophy, technology, etc), but for now let’s look at one specific human pursuit… Art.

Art and Hive Culture

Part of what makes art so powerful is the fact that a piece of art can have different meanings for different people. An artist will create a work of art and then a person receiving the piece of art will ascribe meanings to the work that the artist never intended.

But —and this is the important part— that doesn’t make the art-receiver’s own personal meaning any less important or valid. No way! You can be profoundly inspired by a meaning you found in a piece of art that the artist never intended and that inspiration could literally change your life! In other words, once art has been produced and released to the public, the creator’s intent really doesn’t matter. That’s why even “found art” can be art… it doesn’t even need a creator!

Within art, the receiver always outranks the creator.

And this same the-receiver-outranks-the-creator principle applies to pretty much everything we do because humans are meaning-making machines. The meanings we make shape our lives. We’re made of the meanings we draw from our culture, our history, our family, our friends, and our own personal life path… this is undeniable. We attribute meaning to things and then that meaning takes on a life of its own.

Which means with our profound abilities of awareness, we have the power to shift our collective perspective. I’m saying, forget LOOKING for the meaning of life…. we have the power to CREATE our own meaning of life!

If we want to.

Get More With Honey

So what do you and I need to do?

We need to pursue flow states. A “flow state” is a “mental state in which a person performing some activity is fully immersed in a feeling of energized focus, full involvement, and enjoyment in the process of the activity.” (Source: Wikipedia). Being in a flow state is commonly known as “being in the zone”.

I know you’ve been there. We’ve all been in the zone at some point in our lives. That’s a flow state and it’s where you want to be as often as possible.

There are a bazillion different ways you can get into a flow state… creating art, playing sports, cooking dinner, doing a crossword puzzle, some people even find flow in their work. But no matter which path you take to get into a flow state you have to do something that’s meaningful to you. And when you do something personally meaningful and get yourself into a flow state, it creates output… a sculpture, a personal best, a delicious meal, a completed crossword, a published research paper.

And with that, you contribute your own little piece of meaning to our collective deeper meaning. And that’s true even if it feels like nobody benefits from it but you yourself. It’s even true no matter how insignificant your contribution is. Because the butterfly effect is real! You have no idea how much the small things you do contribute to the universe!!

Maybe all you’re doing is getting into a flow state by cooking dinner. But maybe the food you bought to cook that dinner helps the farmer put his child through college. And maybe eventually that farmer’s adult child will go on to contribute a major breakthrough for humanity. And maybe all this will happen long after you’re dead and gone. And you won’t even realize how important your contribution was! Just making dinner.

From here, even meaninglessness can have meaning. Purpose pulled up by its own bootstraps!

Take that, nihilists!

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Stardust Prayer

I am the stardust
Collapsed particles of the universe
Breathed to life by the Endless
Eternal, unknowable
Forever to question
Forever to wander
Seeking the journey
For the sake of the journey

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