My friend asked me - "What's the meaning of life?"
Updated: Mar 20, 2022
My immediate, punchy, instagram-friendly response was - "Whatever we make it".
I'd like though, to take a minute to elaborate.
All we ever really have is our experience of the present moment.
We can each be experiencing the same environment, the same scene, and our inner experience can differ wildly - for obvious mental and physical reasons. There is truth in that present moment though, for sure. It can be recorded and independently observed. Even then though, the observer is affected by their own present moment. Looking at footage from now immediately after would garner a very different response to observing footage from now in 200 years time. We would see things differently; perspective would change.
But there we are - all we really have is our collective experience of the present moment - and this is a very buddhist mindset - and pretty well undeniable logic.
This then, is life. It's observable like a fledgling microbial retrieved by Voyager III in 3,000 years time and returned to Earth.
What's the meaning? What's the meaning of life? Well meaning is an internal experience attributed to a thing. What does Aston Villa football club "mean" to you? Let's not get into family and regional politics.
What's the meaning of life to you then?
The meaning of life collectively can therefore only ever be our collective attribution of our internal experience onto life. What we think, what we say, what we do, what we create, what we move.
The meaning of life therefore, I would say, can only be, 'what we make it'.
This is reconcilable with monotheistic religious believers who would say that the man in the sky, you know, God, might have something to say about that.
These people, the one's that I created in my image or by whatever fable of bone and dust, are creating or making the meaning of life?? They hold the key?? It's about them, and not me??
Well, I can get into my thoughts on God v The Man in the Sky at another point, but for now I think we can all agree that we each have the power of god, and can I add that god to me is like sheep. There is no plural in written form, and so the plural is the same as the singular.
