Without death, life would be meaningless. Ironically, it is also death that eats away at whatever meaning we can find in life.
Death - that looming, black specter that swallows time, effort and purpose. Death, that nepenthe, that sweet sleep that inhales our life and its work and yet always has appetite for more.
I think we are all, to some deep degree, nihilists. That is to say, we all know that death is as inevitable, so the saying goes, in this world nothing can be said to be certain, except death and taxes. Whatever castles we fashion in the sands of life are doomed to crumble in the ever-rising tides of time. But, strangely, very few of us wander the streets with signs declaring life's futility.
Very few of us imagine the world beyond the bubble of the surrounding century of our existence. Very few of us stare death in the face, fixating on his slow, unstoppable approach. It would seem that in order to function at all, we as human beings must ignore death, must file away our fear and fascination with it. Those who do not are caught like deer in headlights: they cannot enjoy or employ those few moments on life's stage. Others, however, are so good at repressing their fear and the very reality of death's inevitability that they, too, squander life like it were inexhaustible. There is undoubtedly a balance, then, between the two extremes.
Does life have meaning? The question occupies and has occupied most of philosophy since its inception. Most of us, however, simply assume that there is meaning, or the possibility of meaning - why else would we go on living? Without purpose, human self-consciousness is perhaps the universe's greatest absurdity, its cruelest and coldest joke. So what is this purpose? That is the million dollar question. Religion claims answers, as do other isms, but often purpose is self-constructed.
I believe the most important question I would like to raise is whether or not self-constructed purpose is inherently meaningful. Perhaps assuming it is, perhaps deluding ourselves that it has meaning is the only way for our species to continue functioning as we have. Perhaps we cannot face the absurdity of our existence without meaning or purpose, and intentionally avoid thoughts of it altogether. Perhaps a false sense of meaning is a mere evolutionary product designed to perpetuate our genes - a defense mechanism against suicide, indifference and other Darwinian atrocities. Being conscious of our evolution, are we greater than it? That too is a difficult question with far-reaching ramifications.
I think the core of the question of self-imbued purpose and meaning is actually a question of our authority. If we claim that we imbue true meaning, we necessarily claim the authority required to imbue it. What is that authority? Does it even exist? Such existential questions will plague us, I believe, until the end of time. I will, however, attempt to answer them here.
Let us approach the problem from a purely physical standpoint. As humans, we are a mere arrangement of atoms and molecules, a system of chemical substances with the fluke ability to speak the language of the universe - reason. Disregarding the possibility of a soul, we are nothing more than this - chemicals. What, then, can be our basis for asserting meaning and purpose over other chemicals, molecules and atoms?
Furthermore, what basis have we to assert purpose and meaning over the universe as a whole? Any such attempt is ludicrous. Only something inherently transcendent over the material universe would have such authority to imbue into it meaning. It is ridiculous to think that if something would validate itself, something else must give to it its meaning. A tree, for instance, gives its leaves meaning in a larger ecological context. Those leaves, apart from the tree, are useless, directionless, absurd. Their very existence is achieved with their purpose in the greater scheme of the tree in mind.
Similarly, the tree does not assert meaning over the universe. If anything, the universe gives the tree meaning. The only plausible deduction from the physical realms, therefore, is to trace our meaning and purpose back to a larger construct - evolution, perhaps, biological or cosmic. Our purpose might be to pass our genes with selective pressures toward some more developed life form, or, in a cosmic context, to aid the development of stars.
There is something unsatisfying about such solutions, however, because again, even though our purpose can be traced to a larger construct, the existential dilemma repeats for that larger construct. It is a fractal, extending infinitely smaller and infinitely larger simultaneously.
Some of us may be content to see the immediate context of our existence and its purpose within that context. Such an approach, I think, would be a sad surrender to the problem without really attempting to solve it - as in calculus, understanding vaguely the concept of limits but giving up before actually differentiating or integrating. So let us approach the limit.
Is there a final purpose? Is there an original purpose? The gears in a watch do not turn without a spring. The boxcars never jostle their neighbors forward without an engine at their head. Two mirrors facing each other do not reflect infinitely an image unless that image existed somewhere in the past. The first domino does fall spontaneously.
I don't think it's far-fetched to assert that there is a meaning and purpose to our lives and this universe, a shove to that first domino - but it would have to exist outside this realm or it would itself require a cause - that finds itself another domino in a chain still without a beginning. If meaning and purpose exists, that is where we will find it.
What is it? That answer is yours to decide.
Jonathan Warkentine is a College freshman from Almaty, Kazakhstan.
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