The search for meaning.
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| Image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay |
This is a weekly column consisting of letters to my perspicacious progeny. I write letters to my grandkids — the Stickies — eventual selves to advise them and haunt them after they've become grups and/or I'm deleted.
Trigger Warning: This column rated SSC — Sexy Seasoned Citizens — Perusal by kids, callowyutes, or grups may result in a debilitating meltdown.
"If everything in the world is meaningless, what prevents you from inventing some meaning?" -Lewis Carroll
Dear Stickies and Gentlereaders,
{You're going to hell!}
Perhaps Dana, but permit me to hastily explain what I mean by the title I decided on before some of the gentle, loving members of the Westboro Baptist Church (WBC) show up and start picketing and hurling curses at me.
{Who?}
Never heard of them? You should check out their website, it's quite, um, interesting. They're the lovely people that turn up on the news occasionally carrying signs that say God Hates Fags.
For the record, I don't think God is dead, but I'm not above occasionally offering up some clickbait.
However, for all sorts of people, God is no longer factored into how they conduct their lives. In many cultures, ours for example, the rift between believers and non-believers seems to keep getting bigger; it's one of the major reasons the list of things we have in common keeps getting smaller.
Apropos of um... my strange sense of humor? The philosopher Nietzche is often blamed/credited for declaring that God's dead, however, other philosophers have done so as well. But he said it in a book he wrote called The Gay Science — which has nothing to do with anyone's sexual orientation.
But if not for the fact I'm a gentleperson and reformed (more or less) troublemaker, I'd alert the WBC and try to get 'em fired up so they have yet another abomination to deal with. They do seem to enjoy themselves. What's more fun than knowing you and yours are headed for heaven and everyone else is headed for hell?
Anyways, even the beliefs of many traditional believers have evolved and will continue to evolve over time, yet another source of discord putting pressure on all the kids that try to share the playground peacefully.
{Harumph! Do you really believe in God?}
Put me down as being a graduate of the Higher Power school, the same one the recovering drunks and druggies all went to.
{You're going to hell!}
Well, I don't think I'm going to hell, but then again, I am wrong, with disturbing regularity, about all sorts of stuff.
{You're always saying that but I still think...}
I'm more concerned about the militant atheists with psyches set on auto-sneer who condemn the higher-power people and conventionally religious souls out of hand despite how demonstrably well both views work for lots of people.
Not to mention the conventionally religious people, also under the influence of auto-sneer, who won't accept that it's possible to be virtuous, fulfilled, and reasonably content without being conventionally religious, perhaps not even believing in God.
Just because one doesn't dig where a given other is coming from doesn't mean we can't...
{Dig? Nobody uses the word dig the way you just did anymore.}
You just don't dig me.
It's quite simple. Really. It's possible to live a rich and meaningful life no matter what you believe, or don't. Just choose a meaning or three, leave everyone else alone, and carefully climb down off of that high horse before you hurt yourself.
Albert Camus was an Algerian-born French philosopher, author, dramatist, and journalist who fought for the Free French in WW2 and won the Nobel Prize in Literature at the age of 44.
He didn't believe in God, systematic philosophy, or that there was an inherent meaning to be found in the universe, but he said that since we can't help looking for God, meaning, and answers to questions the universe won't answer, we're caught in an absurd situation.
What to do?
I found a quote (unproven) attributed to him: "Should I kill myself, or have a cup of coffee?" In my semi-humble opinion, the quote, true or not, is true enough. He famously, and definitely, said that “There is only one really serious philosophical problem, and that is suicide.”
I'm vastly oversimplifying and highly unqualified to state what his answer to the coffee question would be but I'm going to do it anyway. Have a good cup of coffee and embrace what life has to offer, not despair. Look life in the eye, accept experience on its own terms, and wring all joy you can out of it.
"The struggle itself toward the heights is enough to fill a man’s heart."
Excellent advice for the hardcore absurdists, nihilists, and etceterists among us. Fill your emptiness with what happiness you can find, not despair, and stop taking your angst out on the rest of us, particularly the innocents.
Camus would likely consider me naive since I think anyone can find personal meaning, maybe even God, if they stop whining, get off their bum, and pursue whatever they think will make their life a little better — while avoiding stepping on someone else's life.
{I still think you're going to hell.}
Poppa loves you,
