We have evolved through the ranks of our ancestors, outsmarting the predators of the world, developing
systems of material and nutritional exchange, creating
health practices and building incomprehensibly advanced technologies
to facilitate longevity, safety and efficiency. We have
reached the top of this world, and yet, a great many of us see
nothing from it. As our awareness has progressed alongside
everything else, we have found ourselves outgrowing more comfortable,
shortsighted narratives of life and moving into a realm in which
there appears to be no clear narrative or reason at all, but
rather, an absurdity and meaninglessness underpinning everything. This is perhaps one of, if not
the greatest contemporary issues of humankind. Finding
motivation and a sense of meaning in a period of time in which existence
has revealed to be, or at least revealed to appear to be,
meaningless. Arguably, motivation to live and live meaningfully
cannot be founded on the idea that life is a universally
meaningful or ultimately resolvable thing, if one finds
that, at its core, it isn’t. Motivation, rather, must go beneath
the banal clichés of traditional ideals of happiness, success,
and grand meaning and address the very real, bleak nature of our
reality. There is in fact no one size-fits-all prescription
or cheat-sheet or instruction manual to life.
And there is likely no ultimate circumstance, idea, or thing that
will make life’s uncertainty, pain, and chaos go away. Realizing
and accepting this is likely the first step. Only then can
we consider what might actually be real and enduring.
In his novel, Breakfast of Champions, American author, Kurt
Vonnegut writes about an imaginary conversation between two
yeast cells. He writes, “They were discussing the possible
purposes of life as they ate sugar and suffocated in their own
excrement. Because of their limited intelligence, they never
came close to guessing that they were making champagne." In this
little allegory, Vonnegut alludes to the idea that with a
limited intelligence, like our own, comes a limited ability to
see the larger picture of which we are truly a part of. In this
metaphor, the yeast cells are making champagne, something
relatively insignificant, but rather nice nonetheless, which is
perhaps a pleasant thought. However, by the same token, it could
also be something not so nice. The point is, we are all, in
essence, merely passengers to this thing and don’t know what we
are working towards or why or if it is even any good for us or
about us. We could all be aggressively and competitively working
towards something worse than this, or indifferent to us. Or
perhaps not. The only real, honest conclusion is that we don’t
know. At first, this idea of not knowing what we
are all doing might make things feel absurd and meaningless,
and that’s fair. However, the following step is to perhaps
realize that this permits us to no longer be subservient to
some specific grand meaning or template of life. That we don’t
have to, nor should we expect to discover or join in on someone
else’s ultimate answer or way of living, nor attend to some
future ideal or afterlife, but rather, live based on what
we can do and know right now. To attempt to follow our own barometers
of meaning and believe in the only thing we have any
evidence to believe in at all, our self and its relationship with
this little sliver of time and space.
Some of the greatest minds in history have believed and
empirically found that we appear to all have layers or processes
of the self that, if circumstances are sufficient and effort is
directed towards it, can lead to a true or higher self. A self-
realization of personal purpose and meaning. This idea was
proposed by popular psychologist Abraham Maslow in his pyramid
of needs, which is a 5 tier pyramid diagram that illustrates the
order and balance of human needs, starting at material and
physiological needs, like food, water and safety, and then
moving into psychological needs like love and esteem, and then
finally into what Maslow coined as self-actualization, or living
according to one’s true self and their full potential. Somewhat
similarly, this was also eluded to by renowned psychologist,
Carl Jung with his concept of indivuation, which suggests that
there is a ring of outer layers surrounding our true self,
consisting of our outward, artificial social personas, our
unconscious hidden layers, being what Jung referred to as our
shadows and animus/anima, and then a core, true self buried
underneath it all, which, when one goes through the process of
uncovering and realizing it into conscious expression, a sense
of completeness, harmony, and vitality is experienced. These
concepts, along with others unmentioned, suggest that we each
have a sort of core self and source of meaning and interest.
Things we actually want and should do with our life. None of
which have much to do with happiness or perfection or fame or
wealth or anything of the sort. The thing we are motivated by,
therefor, must not be merely to impress others, nor achieve
anything according to any societal ideals, fore everyone has
their own unique, complicated source of motivation that leads to
distinctive outputs of meaning and feelings that feeling is
worth feeling at all. There are certainly shared, common ideas
and methods of life worth considering, but one must attempt to
take the input of information, and consider critically how it
might reflect on themselves, before assuming it.
The mass of disillusioned individuals that are in
circumstances that could permit them to perhaps be otherwise,
are likely not so because life is meaningless, but because they
willingly let themselves be pulled from their own, distracted
and tempted by the idea that somehow, through enough surplus
money and stuff and achievement of this and that according to
other people’s ideas and constructions, life could be made
completely happy and perfect and certain. However, no matter
what one does, no one can do this. What one can seem to do,
however, is follow, discover, and create a personal
meaningfulness out of the absurdity and chaos that endures that
fact that life can never be such a thing. The acceptance and realization of one’s
self and the creation of personal meaning is unfathomably
difficult to process and understand, let alone do. It is
perhaps the true challenge of modern human existence. However,
it is perhaps the only worthy, possible one. An arduous process
one must work and fight for unto the lights go out.
We are all incredibly strange, scared and some amount
dissolute, even the kindest and most charismatic person in the
world, at a close enough distance. And from a far enough
distance, none of us matter at all. And so, however cliché it
may be, we really are all in this thing together, whatever it
is. We all need each other’s words, and music, and art, and
ideas, and hands of effort, and eyes of honesty to help us
through it. Not because life is some perfect, happy, easy,
winnable thing. Not because anyone knows what they are doing or
what’s going on. But because it isn’t and because we don’t.
We are perhaps the only stop on this evolutionary train
that is outside the tunnel of darkness, able to take the
material of everything and make it into something beautiful or
helpful or interesting. To understand and create what meaning
can even truly mean. And to do so just because we can. Because
the universe, for some reason, gave us a blank page to write on.