Life's Meaning

Much thought has been dedicated to answering the question "What is the meaning of life?"

We can never fully answer this question, though this does not mean we should stop trying to, for life ultimately has meaning.  The drive to live, and to perpetuate life, is so powerful and so profound that life must be meaningful.

My sense of it is that life's meaning is rooted in its cyclic nature.  As seasons change and return again and again, so too is life constantly re-born and never vanquished.  If there is one truth evident again and again it is that every ending is but a new beginning.  Though we are mortal, if this truth is all encompassing, and I believe it is, our death is but a new beginning as well.  In my mind, the idea of metamorphosis helps understand this notion.  We are all catepillars upon the earth.  However, like a catepillar who cannot understand what it is like to be a butterfly and soar, so too can we not comprehend what awaits us beyond death's door.

Within this idea of the cyclic nature of life lies a further truth: everything is connected.  We are all one, but are often so focused on self that we lose our connection with other.  This is a survival mechanism.  We must learn to distinguish and protect our "selves" from the threats of this world.  However, we are evolving to a point where this alienation of our selves will fade and the connectivity of everything in this world, in this universe, will open to us.  In fact, neurotheologists have studied the brain activity of those who claim to experience transcendental spiritual experiences.  Their findings show that the area of the brain responsible for distinguishing self from other is inactive during these moments of transendence, meaning that those experiencing this state are not filtering their experiences through the usually dominant lens of selfness.  Once we fully understand and embrace our connectedness, much of the darkness on this world will vanish as the sun of our compassion rises.  More on this in a later blog.

For now, let's think about what makes our individual lives meaningful.  We all search for meaning in our own lives.  However, it is important to understand that meaning, on an individual level, is not found but created.  If we want lives of meaning, we must create them.  We must become the people we need to be to live lives of personal meaning.  If we value artistic expression, we should create and appreciate art.  If we love others, we should live lives of service and compassion.  Our actions create meaning in our lives.  Our lives mean whatever we create.  Creativity, in the sense of building meaning and connection within our lives, is our birthright as human beings.  Thus, be open to discovery, but also understand your responsibility to live a life of meaning and creativity.  

Faith

I have faith in the idea that nothing ever ends, that every ending is but a new beginning.  This faith rests on the notion of cyclic metamorphosis.  Each year, as winter settles upon the soul of the earth, our world seems to slip into permanent slumber.  However, without fail, spring arrives and the world is born again.  In fall the leaves descend from the trees and become the earth from which new shoots of growth emerge.  Our lives also have seasons which emerge from the one before and fade into the one that follows.  It is often difficult to accept change, as it is difficult to accept the times when nothing seems to change - when we seem to be stuck in what Dr. Seuss calls "the waiting place."  However, after years of experience I now have faith that change will eventually arrive as a new beginning presents itself.

Last year was one filled with loss that sorely tested my faith.  In the end, however, my faith in new beginnings was strengthened by nearly incomprehensible endings.  Some people I loved have moved beyond the horizon of their mortality.

I think of the idea of horizons often.  In our life we never reach any that we strive towards, as they remain elusive and flee before us.  The journey, thus, supersedes the destination, if one strives for horizons.  However, at the end of our mortal lives we move the beyond the horizon into "the undiscovered country." 

As a caterpillar cannot comprehend the flight that awaits her as she begins spinning the silk of her cocoon, so too is it impossible for us to grasp  the new beginning awaiting us beyond our mortal lives.  Thus, we must have faith.  And living within this faith, we must strive each day to live for each other.

Perhaps we shall not pass this way again, and must do now what we can.  Or perhaps we shall pass this way again - an infinite number of times in an infinite number of ways.  If nothing ever ultimately ends, truth is an infinite circle of possibility. Thus, any small act of kindness we give each other, we shall receive unto ourselves again, and again, and again.

We live within the gift and curse of each moment, but as the future becomes the present, and the present the past, my faith that every ending is but a new beginning becomes stronger.  As a teacher I cling to this faith each June as I see my much loved students graduate :)