Last updated on May 14th,1999
Copyright (C) 1998/1999 by Nada AbiSamra.
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| Is There A Meaning To Life? |
“So go on and
indulge yourself… That’s right! Take off your shoes,
put your feet
up, lean back and just enjoy the melody” (The Offspring)
The melody you’re going to savor
is life. But everyone adds his
own flavor to it. There are
people who don’t care whether
they live or not. Others who
dedicate their life in search of power
and materialism, and finally
those who worship abstraction as
spiritual entities. As for
me… we’ll get to it, don’t be so eager! (I
would like to remind you that
this is a kind of reflection on the
meaning of life, so it’s very
subjective).
The different meanings people
give to life will now unfold
beneath our eyes. So free your
mind of any prejudice… and think
as objectively as you can.
Think about those who do not
think about life. Their existence is
pointless. They live without
knowing why, and they don’t care to
know why! The craziest thing
about those persons is that they
don’t even give a boost of
energy in their refection to get
somewhere. Bernard Fontenelle
said “ don’t take life too
seriously, you’ll never get
out of it alive “. What in mankind's
name made him say that? Well,
Mr. Fontenelle, I hate to be the
one to remind you but you’ve
got just one these ‘unserious’ lives
to live… don’t want to take
it seriously because you know that in a
way or another you’re going
to die?? Well kill yourself… commit
suicide… why are you still
torturing yourself in this life when you
can easily finish it and stop
wondering!! Come on… a zombie
would be happier to exist!
Not even a wisp of consciousness in
their minds. “the heaviest
of all burdens is to exist without living”
said Victor Hugo. This existence,
they live it contenting
themselves with what they have,
and not wishing to go farther
ahead. Because those people
do not try to even think about their
human condition, they aren’t
worth analyzing. It’s nearly
impossible to learn anything
from them.
The people we just neglected
don’t have any meaning for their
life. But live in this world,
some men who have, rather than a
meaning, a goal that defines
it.
Think about those who have a
material goal in their lives. Money,
cars, women… those people are
psychologically sick!! Who said
that? Why is that? First… I
did say that. Second… I’ll try to explain
it in the clearest kind of
ways. Let’s take an example. Mr. X loves
money (I chose money but this
example is true for all materials).
He says that we (mankind) are
here to make as much money as we
possibly can. This is the meaning
of our presence. Well this fellow
here is easily contradicted.
Why..? well, because millions of years
ago, when men were still living
in tribes, before the time of the
discovery of fire… money didn’t
exist! (neither did all other
materials created by men).
So for him… men have been wandering
earth for ages waiting for
money to be created! Nonsense!!
This is for the ones that are
attached to material goals. But the
ones that are like Mr. Y are
even more …..
Think about those who are like
Mr. Y… a man who is a bit
paranoia. I mean by that: he
always asks himself about “ what
will people say if I do that?”.
This kind of person is, maybe, the
poorest kind, personality speaking.
I’m not saying that we
shouldn’t at least take others'
opinions, but we certainly don’t have
to put our life in their hands.
Some people (and I say out loud
that the majority of the Lebanese
population, adults and kids,
are like that! And that outrages
me!!!) can’t take any decision,
any step… anything without
asking themselves “what will people
say if…?”. That question is
the proof of such poor personality (for
me a person with personality
is not necessarily a person who can
scream out loud and who can
express himself, but one who is
convinced by his ideas and
is ready to defend them with any argument)
and big dependency. These persons
don’t have any meaning to their life…
because they don’t even have
one! Their life is controlled by others’ sayings.
Until now the meanings we analyzed
are meaningful! But the
situation to come is the less
liked by the majority of people but
certainly the craziest of all.
Think about those who live their
life according to the saying “live
your day as if it were your
last”. I just love that sentence… it has
so much sense and is so ‘plenty
of life’. It makes you profit the
maximum from life (in fact
you’ve got just one!). Luckily, nowadays,
youngsters are more and more
attracted by that saying. I say
luckily because this saying
makes you have so much fun and
enjoy every moment and situations,
however sad it is, in your
one and only life. This sentence
is very nice… but it’s certainly not
the conclusion of my analysis!
“Why?” you will ask me. Well…
easy question easy answer.
This saying is very beautiful but it gives
no meaning to life. Sadly,
men don’t have the same luck. Some
are born poor, others rich…
some are clever, others dumb… some
can’t afford having fun, others
can but are educated not to… To
have fun is a purpose of life…
but not its meaning. It’s just a way
of forgetting that we are here
for no reason and try to profit from an
existence we do not understand.
To have fun is good… to be
happy is even better… but it
still doesn’t give a meaning to us
being here. We know what to
do with life but we don’t know why.
The “why?” question is the initiator
of several different beliefs.
All of them spiritual… all
of them trying to explain life in their
own way.
Think about those who believe
in the fact that "the reason of life is to find
yourself". These ones, I find
them particularly amusing. If the point in life,
is to ‘find’ oneself, what
has one been doing until this point in
time? ‘Not knowing’ oneself
? Pretty impossible… It’s the first
thing anyone learns. After
that has been accomplished, we
find it a bit easier to interact
with others, and understand them.
For someone to tell me that
they’ve only just ‘discovered’
themselves, I tend to wonder
what exactly they’ve been doing for
all the years they’ve been
around… I understand that people, all of
a sudden, can recognize a new
side to themselves. It was always
there though , they just weren’t
giving it much thought and/or
priority to understand it.
Besides, even if people really did all
of a sudden, ’discover’ themselves,
how is THAT the point of life ?
Perhaps it may be a significant
development in their life, but
that’s not the point of life.
If everyone understood the point to
life as being born, living,
discovering themselves, then dying, wouldn't
this be a rather arrogant and
self-centered pointless world? I think it
would.
We’ve just analyzed different
meanings given by mankind to life.
I know I forgot a lot of them,
but these are mainly the ones that
actually came through my mind.
But there’s still something
missing! Let’s see… I talked
about those who don’t care about
life, those who try to discover
themselves, the materialists and the ones
who profit from life. I’m sure
I forgot something important.
Oh yes! Of course… My opinion
about life.
Well, after analyzing all these
meanings of life, I discovered
something. You may not share
my opinion : I found out that men
have been trying to give a
meaning to life because they were
afraid of its absurdity. I
know it seems easy to say “there’s no
meaning to life, so it’s absurd”…
you’ll say I’m one of those zombies
we analyzed at the beginning.
Well I’m not. Because for me, life
is absurd, but its meaning
isn’t. One’s quest for the meaning of
the one and only thing that
gives him the chance to be someone
isn’t, and will never be, over.
There’s no real meaning to life. But
the quest for a meaning to
life is the meaning of it.