Tag Archive for: Meaning of Life

The Meaning of Life

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When I was young, I had a deep need to understand the meaning of life. It consumed me. A knot inside that HAD to be untangled. Why was I alive? Why was I me?

I believed if I thought about it hard enough, I would figure it out. (Hubris, that!) I knew the answer was out there somewhere.

Adults did not seem particularly concerned about the meaning of life. How crazy was that? What could be more important? But one idea scared me more than realizing that everyone wasn’t going around absorbed by this great mystery—the fear that when I grew up, I would be like them. In my diary, I wrote my adult self a stern message, admonishing her/me against settling for complaisant acceptance.

I read a lot in this quest. Alan Watts was a great inspiration and guide, giving me difficult concepts to chew on, such as the mind being like an onion—you peel layer after layer, thinking you are getting to the core, only to find there is no core, only more layers until there is . . . nothing.

I hated that. There had to be a core, a “me.” And there had to be a meaning, despite Watt’s cryptic conclusion, “This is it.”

Many people follow an ideology that journalist Derek Thompson calls “workism,” a belief that work provides one’s sense of identity and purpose. As a former police person, I get it. You put on more than clothes with a uniform; you put on an identify. Retiring, many are unable to find a center to hold onto when that layer peels off. What happens when children go off to live their own life? When a parent dies? A spouse?

Who am I, if I am not a [cop, nurse, entrepreneur, doctor, builder, artist, spouse, parent, friend, etc.]? 

I thought I had escaped that trap in my retirement because even during my law enforcement career and the one that followed, I knew my real and true self was not that work (although I did it wholeheartedly).

You see, I was a writer. All this other stuff was what I did, but not who I was.

And then I retired. I still wrote, but I wasn’t as consumed with it as I had been. How could that be if that was my true self and life’s purpose?

I was free now to pursue my art on my own terms. But strangely, other things started to take my attention, things I found I loved too. This surprised me. It challenged my perception of myself.

Who was I now? I was still determined to find out, because the answer to that question seemed entwined with the meaning of life. We need to be who we truly are. Right?

I did a lot of things. I redefined myself as an artist, a martial artist, a teacher, a very humble gardener.

But I knew I was none of these things . . . or I was all of them.

Elusive, this meaning-of-life thing. Is it an onion, after all? Are the peels just what we do?

What if I die without finding it?

What if I get old and stop doing?

In my mind, I jump ahead:

I am old. I am still. I look out on my garden and the stack of books I have written, the paintings I have painted. Remember the children I have taught. My friends are gone. Family gone, except for the young who are living their own lives.

Old. Forgotten. Maybe I am in a place where they put old people who stop doing. Now what? Who am I? Are only memories left?  Is that why old people are still?

What was my life about? Did it mean anything? Am I worthy of it if I just sit here?

Wait.

Is it possible that there is no one-size-fits-all? That the meaning of life is not the things we do, not the breakthrough understanding, not something we find at all, but something we . . .

create?

Well then.

Maybe I will create a meaning right here in this moment, a meaning to breathing in and breathing out. A meaning to smiling at the cranky woman on a walker who hogs the hallway every morning. A meaning to inhaling the turned earth of the rose bed outside my window or the taste of fresh-from-the-oven bread. Maybe just remembering. What is writing at all but remembering? In the moment we pen, the moment we write about has already passed.

So maybe I will scratch out a few words with my arthritic, age-splotched hands, words on a napkin bound for the trash bin. Or maybe words that might touch another someday, a fellow human seeker looking for who they are and . . .

the meaning of life.

T.K. writes about what moves her, following a flight path of curiosity, reflection, and imagination. Read more about her at TKThorne.com.

The Meaning of Life

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The Meaning of Life by Debra H. Goldstein

One of
the first songs I remember learning as a child was Que Sera Sera – What Will Be
Will Be. I always accepted it as the explanation for life. Today, three
things made me reflect upon its application to what some may term “the long
run.”

I
received word a friend died last night. She was ninety-eight. The person who
called hastened to note my friend lived a good life. That’s true, but I doubt
in retrospect my friend would have fully agreed. She took pride in the
education she received from Northwestern, in a time when women often didn’t
have an opportunity to receive a college degree; the job she landed out of
school; her marriage to the love of her life; her children and her
grandchildren; and the volunteer activities that let her use her mind to
advance the causes she loved.  But, there
also was dismay that marriage meant the end of her professional career;
volunteer activities filled her time but weren’t considered as important as
moves for her husband’s profession nor could they conflict with the ideology of
his company; unable to do anything, she watched her oldest daughter fight, win,
fight and lose a battle with cancer; and for the past two years, a series of
strokes robbed her of her ability to read and then the detailed brain function
she cherished.  

Perusing
Facebook today, I came across an article about scientist David Goodall, who
recently celebrated his hundred and fourth birthday by blowing out his candles
and expressing his special birthday wish is to die. Believing he has lived long
enough, Goodall plans to effectuate his wish in Switzerland, where euthanasia
is permitted, in May. Some question why a man of his stature who devoted his
life to science started a GoFundMe campaign to pay for his and a helper’s
travel expenses, but he notes he isn’t happy watching his body deteriorate and
would be glad to die with dignity in his native Australia, but the laws don’t
permit it. He acknowledges that at his age, even without euthanasia, his time
is limited, but he doesn’t want to continue going downhill becoming more
dependent on others while allowing nature to take its course.

An
article discussing choosing between self-publishing and traditional publishing
surprisingly made me reflect on this topic, too. The article, written by a
writer who I am familiar with, noted that she began her career traditionally
published, but that nearing age eighty and with a following of her works, she’s
opted for self-publishing because of the timetables involved with dealing with
agents, editors, and publishing house schedules. She made me think of the
cartoon/joke that periodically goes around about the golden years when she
observed she can no longer get around easily, do radio interviews because of
her hearing loss, or spend years waiting for her books to become final
products.

Perhaps
because I am significantly younger, I understand the frustration delays,
infirmities, and losses generate, but I can’t help but wonder why?  What purpose, perhaps unknown to them or the
rest of us, exists for their continued existence? I believe life is cyclic with
moments of joy and of sorrow, with good and with bad, but does its meaning
change at different points over the long run? Is What Will Be Will Be too simplistic? I don’t know. But as I observe
different people’s reactions, I wonder. 
Do you?

The Meaning of Life by Debra H. Goldstein

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The Meaning of Life by Debra H. Goldstein
Recently I’ve been giving a lot of thought to the meaning of life and its other alternative. This isn’t a new topic for me to explore. I first started thinking about it shortly after my fiftieth birthday when I woke one morning to find my arms had turned to flab and I had become my mother. The thoughts were generated by a discussion with a friend who was in the last stages of cancer. She was questioning what purpose living in her debilitated state had and whether after we die, we are remembered or the life we lived fades away.
I couldn’t answer her questions. I was too focused on reaching outside my comfort zone to find ways to ease her journey. When she died, I decided her purpose was the seed of herself planted in others through charitable doing, mentoring, and touching people at the right time. Her nourishment of others left ideas, feelings, and values to reseed the next generation.
Time went on and I didn’t spend much time dwelling on the meaning of life. I was too busy enjoying the life cycle events that constantly were occurring in the lives of my friends and my own family. Trips to visit and cuddle new babies, writing events, the coming of age Bar Mitzvah ceremony of a nephew, graduations from pre-school through professional school, and the joy of watching my daughter walk down the aisle to be with the man she has chosen to spend the rest of her life with consumed my waking hours. Why dwell on life and death when so many things were going on?
I was attending a writer’s conference being held on a property in Disneyworld when I glanced down at my smartphone and noticed an email entitled “OMG.” Above “OMG” was an endless string of responding e-mails. A friend who was a wife, mother, respected professional, devoted kayaker, and person who was taking me out for a birthday lunch the next week had had a cerebral bleed and died within minutes the night before. Everyone, including me, was in shock that this young and healthy vibrant woman was gone. No “why” made sense.
My other friends and I went on living. At one of the other planned lunch celebrations for my birthday, one of our lunch bunch mentioned she was celebrating her 25th wedding anniversary. Knowing she had married a much older man and that part of his proposal had been he would be hers for at least twenty-five years, we asked what he had given her for their special anniversary. The answer: the promise of trying for another twenty-five years as wonderful as the first. Last week, our lunch bunch held our breath when this man who never gets sick was hospitalized with pneumonia and a low blood count. We all feared he wouldn’t be able to keep his promise. Happily, his positive response to medical treatment has given them the opportunity to share many more years together.
In Jewish tradition, between Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, it is decided who shall live and who shall die. At the time of Yom Kippur, one’s fate hopefully is inscribed in the book of life. I don’t know how or why the final decision is made. I cannot venture a guess as to our true purpose in living or if there is an existential meaning of life, but I do know I value every moment of it that I share with my family, friends, and those individuals I will meet in the future.
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P.S.  I try to keep my personal blog “It’s Not Always a Mystery” – http://debrahgoldstein.wordpress.com or found through my website, www.DebraHGoldstein.com by clicking DHG’s Blog – separate from what I post on The Stiletto Gang, but the reaction to the recent posting of The Meaning of Life convinced me that it might be an interesting piece to share The Stiletto Gang’s readers, too.  After all, we are all searching for The Meaning of Life. I look forward to hearing your personal reactions to this post.  Debra