What Is The Meaning Of Life?

What is the meaning of life?

What is the meaning of life? Our lives are everything to us in a literal sense. Well, our usual perception is that the universe is everything in that the universe is what contains existence, but how can we experience existence without sight, smell and especially conscious thought (in that we as humans are able to comprehend these experiences)? Without our experience there is no existence in that we don’t perceive it, our own existence is integral to our understanding of existence. Whilst this may seem obvious, it begs other questions such as: must life and existence co-exist, or does existence exist to be experienced and if it does, why does it and why does any of it matter? Does the universe need us? Do we have a purpose?

What point am I trying to make from this? Well, this battle to comprehend these things and conjure up answers will often distract us from the true answer as to what the meaning of life actually is. In this struggle many of us will often turn to the idea of a deeper consciousness that’s responsible for our experiences, most commonly known as ‘God’ or ‘a God’, but to reach the true answer of what the meaning of our lives are, we first must disprove the existence of God logically, or at least give the idea far less credibility than is widely assumed. God as an idea isn’t inconceivable; I just consider it unlikely considering the nature of existence. If God is (and I presume he would be) concerned with our existence, whether that be by interest, sentimentality or even responsibility, why do we exist with such a separateness to him? I’m not asking God to descend from the sky to have a chat, I just wonder why we would live in a universe where we can’t access or perceive it’s most fundamental element, and more logically, why we would not coexist with this entity if they are a being that is consciously concerned with us? The general religious perception is that we live to then join our creator, but why are we not always with our creator from the beginning of our existence? Why do we live a temporary existence to then go and live eternally with our creator? It would make much more sense (in a universe with God) to live eternally with him always in his realm of existence. If we do live eternally after we die on Earth, we should logically live eternally genuinely and not experience death or birth; why should our existence start if it never ends? Shouldn’t it just always be? It should just never start, it doesn’t logically make sense.

There’s also the classic cosmological argument that questions who created God in the case that he created us. If God was also created, the question is then begged of who created that creator. By this logic something must have not been created, something must exist eternally; something must have always been there. Either there is a superior creator at the top of pyramid who was never created or the universe itself has always been there and is the whole of existence. I personally find the latter easier to believe because it’s founded on ideas we already understand. I accept that the reason the universe exists may be due to something we’re unable to understand, but why should I give myself to an idea that is more logically insecure? Well, you could also suggest that the eternal element is an eternal chain of creators, but that’s a whole other debate. So, assuming the universe is just everything eternally, there is no ultimate cosmological reason that we exist, no higher purpose granted by a higher being, no definite answer that can be given to us. This is because nothing has caused the universe and therefore there is no purpose for it or our individual lives.

So what is the reality and what does it mean for us? We are born into this universe by natural occurrence; we exist temporarily and die, returning to our state of non-existence much like before we were born. There are no sensations or experiences outside the limitations of our temporary existence. But how does this tell us the meaning of life? Shouldn’t we be further from the answer than we’ve ever been at this point? This is where I pitch the idea I formulated at a very deep 3am amongst other deep 3am’s: existential inflation. Much like money, the more that there is of it, its value decreases because it’s limitation is what keeps us striving for it. Considering this, if everyone had endless money, money would have no value, and if we all existed infinitely, would our existence truly have any value? Wouldn’t we get to point where we’ve met everyone we can meet, done everything we can or want to do? There would be no point in endless existence because we’d simply get tired of our own existence. In this sense, our temporary existence defines us in the best possible way; we arrive here, develop, think, feel, learn, experience the magic of existence and then someone else gets a go, with an entirely new mix of other people that also get a go that are involved randomly in their lives. We don’t need to mask our existence is elaborate supernatural concepts to make it seem worth it, we just need to comprehend the beautiful value of our existence that its temporary nature gives us.

The meaning of life is our own natural finite experience, without the idea of an outside entity to hold our hand through the struggle of existential comprehension. But this doesn’t bring us to an answer 100%, the fact we exist temporarily and naturally is a fact, but it isn’t really a meaning; it doesn’t tell us exactly what to do with our lives or why we’re doing these things. So here’s the answer: we self-invent our purpose. If there’s no supernatural authority or guidance to respond to, all we have is our own authority, after all, doesn’t it make sense and feel natural that we lead our own (they’re literally ours) lives? As we established right at the start, our own conscious minds are just as essential as the universe is to our experience, so why do we look deeper into the universe for answers and not into ourselves? A caterpillar or a sheep doesn’t have any inherent meaning or purpose, they just naturally exist. People (especially children) will ask if animals ‘go to heaven’ when they question God, because they struggle to comprehend that they’re that purposeful. They don’t have meaning because they can’t comprehend their own meaning, whereas we can, which gives us our meaning. There are so many common misconceptions as to why we exist just because we can think of them, so many wrong ideas just because we can think of ideas. We want purpose because we can look in the mirror and think ‘that’s me’, we can understand our existence so we want answers, but the answers are all inside. Inside you. What do you want to do with your life? Who do you want to be? What do you enjoy? Life is literally what you make of it, so go out and do that. God isn’t meaning, it just fills the gap as an answer. I hope I’ve convinced you. This is how I live my life.

We live our lives swayed to the idea that we’re here for the universe or to serve it in some way, but the ultimate truth is in fact that it is here for us.