Gabe Massine (jambogabe) wrote, @ 2006-08-02 22:31:00

One of the things I’ve realized is that I am very unsure of so many things. I was talking to a friend of mine not too long ago and she was asking me questions about God and life and evolution and stuff like that, and asking me what I believe. Well, I didn’t have good answers for her on any of her questions. My responses basically came down to “I’m not really sure.” After I had several such responses to her questions, she commented that I didn’t seem to be very sure about very much. Lol. Well, it got me thinking and she is right. There was a time, or times, in my life, where I have felt very certain about a lot of things in life, in what I believed, etc. But for some reason, that has mostly changed. You could ask me a question about something, and I would have many thoughts on the subject, but I would likely be non-committal on espousing one particular belief/opinion, because frankly I’m just not sure.

I don’t know what this means either. It seems like in life most people are so sure of so many things, what they believe. In contrast, I’m NOT so sure of so many things. Granted, there are some things I’m quite certain of. For example, ask me what my opinion of Bush is and I am quite convinced he is an idiot. I guess there are many more things I’m quite certain of. But when it comes to larger questions, philosophical/metaphysical/political questions, I’m not certain about nearly as much.

So, that brings me back to my question, what is the meaning of life? From what I wrote above, the simple answer would be “I’m not too sure.” But I will write some of my thoughts lately… Perhaps the meaning of life is to discover for yourself what the meaning of life is for you. That’s very relativistic in some ways, in that there is no absolute meaning of life, (for example, following God or something like that). Now, that doesn’t mean that my meaning of life may be to kill innocent children, and that’s ok or something… Hardly. But maybe each individual has a different sort of purpose in life, a different path, and to find that path and to live it is what is meaningful. For one person, that might be a devout faith in God. For another person it might be a dedication to Buddhist teachings. Another person might be an atheist who is dedicated to social justice issues. Another it might be to be a great mother or father… I guess what these all have in common is that there is a certain element of service to the world community on some level. I don’t think someone’s meaning of life would be to become as rich and powerful as possible. That’s twisted and does nothing for the greater good of humanity.

So, perhaps the meaning of life is to find out why you are here. The meaning of life is to find out what the meaning of life is… That’s a bit paradoxical I suppose.

But maybe there is something deeper than that. Most of the examples I gave are occupational, like jobs. That may be too specific. Maybe something broader is what I said about contributing to the human community. But even beyond that, another thought crosses my mind which is similar yet different to everything I’ve said so far. Maybe the meaning of life is to search for truth. That’s rather nebulous, I guess. Maybe we are supposed to be constantly searching for meaning, understanding, truth, and then to take some action from what we find, as we grow as a human being?

Hmm. That raises a lot of questions in my mind though. I don’t think I’ll go into them now.

Well, like I said at the beginning, I’m really not sure what the meaning of life is. I often wonder if I will ever really know. Maybe that is one of those things you can never completely understand. You can spend a lifetime searching for this truth, along the way continuously growing as a human being and getting closer to the answers you seek, but you will never actually get there completely.

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