THE MEANING OF LIFE

Apparently, a dog is satisfied with a juicy bone and a soft couch; a cow with a fresh green pasture and a dry bed of straw. However, it seems that we need more than a good cup of coffee, a full stomach, and a roof over our head. The late and esteemed rabbi, Abraham Heschel, had claimed that our needs also include finding understanding and meaning:

·       It’s not enough for me to be able to say ‘I am’; I want to know who I am and in relation to whom I live. It is not enough for me to ask questions; I want to know how to answer the one question that seems to encompass everything I face: What am I here for?

King Solomon had understood the importance of this question. His life represented a wisdom-quest to discover the meaning of life. In the Book of Ecclesiastes, he had explained his quest:

·       And I applied my heart to seek and to search out by wisdom all that is done under heaven. It is an unhappy business that God has given to the children of man to be busy with. I have seen everything that is done under the sun, and behold, all is vanity [or “incomprehensible”] and a striving after wind. What is crooked cannot be made straight, and what is lacking cannot be counted. I said in my heart, “I have acquired great wisdom, surpassing all who were over Jerusalem before me, and my heart has had great experience of wisdom and knowledge.” And I applied my heart to know wisdom and to know madness and folly. I perceived that this also is but a striving after wind. (Ecclesiastes 1:13-17)

Solomon tried to understand life from every angle, even from the perspective of “madness and folly.” But nothing was able to give him the understanding he sought. What he found instead was that his search for wisdom was like trying to grasp the wind, an impossible undertaking. Sadly for Solomon, he was unable to grasp the meaning of life. He therefore rejected his toilsome wisdom-quest:

• For in much wisdom is much vexation, and he who increases knowledge increases sorrow. (Ecclesiastes 1:18)

In contrast, many today believe that there is no meaning of life apart from what we create for ourselves. A friend just wrote me about the meaning he has created for his life – a striving to better himself. Sounds reasonable? Perhaps only because we have heard this so often and in so many ways, like “Be all you can be” or “We need to realize our full potential.”

But why? Answers are lacking. We live in a wisdom- and answer-adverse world. Peace is sought at the expense of serious thought. However, I think that certain questions should be examined before we take costly plunge:

·       Isn’t this to be self-obsessed, and who wants to obsess on the self? This can become quite depressing. Instead, it might be better to be other-centered.

·       Isn’t this performance-oriented? Do we really want our value as a person to hinge on our accomplishments?

·       If accomplishments are our aim, will we become jealous of our neighbor who has more accomplishments than we have? Are we going to obsessively compare ourselves with others?

·       And what if we fail? Are we going to become depressed because we have failed to become all that we can be?

·       The taller we are the harder we fall. Attainment is only temporary. Is this focus good psychological insurance for us when we begin to age, slow down, and lose our faculties?

·       Doesn’t this orientation also place a lot of extra weight and demands on our flimsy shoulders?

Today, there is a renewed interest in the ancient Stoics, who had claimed that our nature requires us to live virtuously, centered on the needs of others. While I endorse this emphasis, I wonder whether virtue and other-centeredness becomes a contradiction in terms if we are living virtuously primarily in order to satisfy our own nature?

Stoicism fails to address Solomon’s dilemma. His search had become so oppressive because his wisdom was unable to penetrate the curtain into the next life. As far as he could tell, life ended with death:

• The wise person has his eyes in his head, but the fool walks in darkness. And yet I perceived that the same event happens to all of them. Then I said in my heart, “What happens to the fool will happen to me also. Why then have I been so very wise?” And I said in my heart that this also is vanity. For of the wise as of the fool there is no enduring remembrance, seeing that in the days to come all will have been long forgotten. How the wise dies just like the fool! So I hated life, because what is done under the sun was grievous to me, for all is vanity [or “incomprehensible”] and a striving after wind. (Ecclesiastes 2:14-17) 

If life ends at death, virtue meaningless. Let me try to illustrate. If I lived in Poland during the Nazi occupation and decided to hide Jews in my basement, how could I answer my wife and kids who would protest:

·       You are placing all of our lives in danger because YOU want to satisfy you darned nature by acting virtuously. It’s all about YOU and not about us. It comes down to the fact that you are not virtuous but selfish.

Unless there is a blissful eternal life, my family’s protest would be right on. However, if there is an eternal life of bliss, then the loss of this life is a small price to pay.