The meaning of life

We need to focus on what lessens the inherent meaninglessness of life and makes it worth living

What is the meaning of life and meaningful life? The quest to find the meaning of life is as old as humankind. Since antiquity, humans have made efforts to find out a universally accepted meaning and sort out a singular purpose that life might have been designed for. Though different hypotheses and answers have been generated by different traditions, academic disciplines and philosophers, no signal account could holistically sum up the life of even two individuals, let alone the societies and the whole of humankind in all times and space. This is perhaps because human perceptions, meaning and the course of life often take an unpredictably independent course.

Biologists view life as a set of biological properties exhibited, like other living organisms, by a human being. Thus, the focus remains on the physiological well-being that sustains the attributes of life. For psychologists, the set of behavioural and underlying cognitive processes constitutes life. They see the mind as the nucleus of life and the seat of learning necessary for adaptation and survival. In the eyes of theologians, life is nothing more than a divinely dictated play. They claim it to be a predetermined project monitored by metaphysical forces. These forces are believed to assign meaning to human life.

Sociologists see it as culturally defined practices one gain through enculturation in a society. They focus on how underlying social norms and values produce predictable individual and collective behaviour as dictated by social institutions. As socially determined, they assert that optimum conformity to social norms affords meaning in someone’s life. The mystics see life in the transcendental term and assume that worldly life is purposeless for purpose. They profess asceticism, for they consider it as an ephemeral stairway to the lasting realms of eternity.

The philosophy shares the contested accounts of the questions. Centred on the cosmic and personal concepts of existence and reality, the four influential views that try to figure out the meaning of life are Subjective Naturalism, Objective Naturalism, Hybrid Naturalism and Supernaturalism. Subjective Naturalism states the meaning of a meaningful life varies for each individual and the group. This is the function of the extent of achievements of the goals that one considers important in one’s life. Objective Naturalism links a meaningful life with the physical world alone. Far from the notions of finite or infinite spiritualities, it focuses on objective values and mind-independent concrete realities. Hybrid Naturalists believe a meaningful life exists somewhere between the realms of objective and subjective naturalism. Supernaturalism contends that devotion to and relating oneself to God can afford one a meaningful life.

Nihilism, unlike the four perspectives, paints a pessimistic picture of life and defies the accepted notions of reality and existence. It instead emphasises the concepts of scientific rationalism and utilitarianism. For a layperson, life might be an erratic trek from birth to death. And a meaningful life is how far the circumstances respond to abstract personal notions. The varying interpretations testify that life lacks meaning and a singular roadmap to a meaningful life. Therefore, the two questions are not that only humans put them; life seems to have also put the same questions to humans. And, perhaps it’s mainly the humans that have to answer. How one designs life is what the answers somewhere lie in.

For clarity and practicality, the questions should not be what life is and what adds to its meaning; instead, what lessens the inherent meaninglessness of life and makes it worth living is what we need to concentrate on. Doing so would help undo the need to indulge in the intricacies and multiplicity of elucidations. Practising the values that the sages professed for centuries can help one reduce the inherent meaninglessness of life. By framing one’s life around simplicity, gratitude, patience, perseverance, compassion, humanity and selective response to self and surrounding, one can help add a definition and direction to life.

 

Published in The Express Tribune, April 2^nd, 2023.

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