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Modern life is so complicated. There are so many things that we have to juggle, and it feels like there is just not enough time to accomplish everything we want to. In the end, as much as we manage to achieve in this world, we still end up with the dreadful sense that life is meaningless.
❓ Does Life Have Meaning?
The reason for our current crisis of meaning includes religion and science. In the past, our lives were believed to be given by God, and thus meant to be used to serve God. We should live by the laws of holy books, which contain stories that are passed down through thousands of years. With the modern decline of faith in these religions, the meaning associated with them also fades.
"God is dead. God remains dead. And we have killed him."
- Friedrich Nietzsche
Nietzsche did not kill God, but he summarized the vibe that was already in the air at the time, and put it so eloquently in these exact words. Natural science has shown us that many (but not all) things can be reduced and explained by fundamental principles.
The issue today is that we go to university to find meaning in our lives, but professors teach us that everything can be deconstructed. As culture and religion is picked apart, everything becomes meaningless.
So it seems life the reason we hate our lives is because we are pointlessly grasping for meaning in an inherently meaningless universe. But the story of life is not all that sad, because if we frame it in a different way, we actually have the power to create our own destiny.
🐉 What Stories Can Teach Us
Even if God is dead, religious stories aren't all useless. Because the unique thing about ancient stories is that as they are passed down, the unnecessary parts will be stripped out, and only the essential parts left in.
Ancient stories are absurd, but they capture the distilled essence of what life is about. This is why fictional stories are more real than real, they're hyper realistic. They speak to us not in specific ways, but in general ways that could apply to all of our different lives. Because all the fluff is excluded, and only the important stuff remains. It's not real the way scientific truth is real, but it's real in the a different way (like the kind of real pain that a PTSD person feels when they recall a traumatic incident, even though the memory only exists psychologically in her head and it's not objectively "real" or happening now).
For example, in almost all creation stories, there first exists some chaos, and God would build order out of the chaos (maybe some chaotic dragon exists, and God would slay it). This speaks to our fundamental human desire to have order and stability, and is probably why many still hold onto religion nowadays.
Truth is boring. No one would listen to boring descriptions of everyday chores, I wouldn't want to hear how you wash dishes, I've already got that mastered.
Good stories describe someone going into unexplored territory where there is chaos, and they somehow overcome that chaos and establish order. They have to undergo so much difficulty to show us how to face chaos in our own lives. We learn just by listening to their stories. My brain is quite bad at memorisation, so it's also easier for me to have stories by which I can hang pieces of information on, and link the lessons I've learned together.
Take a look at Disney's Frozen storyline: Elsa has magical ice powers that she can't control and accidentally injures her sister Anna. Their parents bring them to be healed by stone troll doctors. Years later, Elsa accidentally reveals her powers to the nation and runs away to live in an ice castle. Some things happen with Olaf the talking snowman, a self-conscious reindeer that has an IQ higher than most viewers, and a crisis solved by sisterly love.
Every sentence of that summary is nonsense, but we're sitting there thinking "Hey, no problem, this all makes sense". We watch Frozen and we're all so interested in whether or not Elsa learns to control her ice powers. So it seems that psychologically, we all seem to naturally gravitate towards and celebrate growth, whether or not they are tangible or fictional.
💝 The Meaning of Life
There is no one-size-fits-all approach to life. The same hot water that softens a carrot will harden an egg. We're all randomly thrown onto a large field, and we can walk in any direction we want to get out of the field. You can take any direction you want to lead a meaningful life, but the 3 sources of meaning that we can distill out of all these ancient stories is:
- ⚔️ Growth
- 🎉 Personal recognition
- 🐕🦺 Service
⚔️ Growth
Noble characters in ancient stories often go through a hero's journey:
- Paradise lost: The hero starts out in a familiar explored environment, and is suddenly thrust into unexplored chaotic territory (e.g. her mother gets Alzheimer's, a war is starting, a natural disaster).
- Chaos: The hero then goes through profound character transformation and learns new ways to psychologically cope, and ultimately solve the problem by bringing order to a chaotic environment.
- Paradise regained: The hero then comes out the other end, somewhat damaged, but having significant growth. They are fulfilled and lead meaningful lives.
In order to grow, we need to step out of our comfort zones, which means experiencing some pain. If we have nothing to do, we get depressed, anxious, and fidgety. Retired people stop their professional growth, get anxious, and then go find new burdens through their hobbies or family. We are beasts of burden, that all of us needs to choose a load to bear in order for us to be happy and healthy.
Meaning doesn't come from attaining a goal. That just opens up a new problem of finding a new goal. Meaning comes from striving towards a goal, that gives us motivation.
I find it quite comforting that we require some amount of meaningful pain and burden to have a fulfilled life (of course, pointless pain should be avoided). So this is the pattern of life. We should think of ourselves as beings that constantly travel between order and chaos. The more times we do this, the more we discover and aim for something worthwhile, and the more fulfilled our lives might become.
Let us all endeavour to slay the dragons in our lives.
🎉 Personal Recognition
In stories, the hero is often misunderstood, ostracised, and cast out. After returning from the hero's journey, they are celebrated by family, friends, society, and even by God himself.
Humans are deeply social creatures, and recognition for our efforts gets us feeling warm and fuzzy inside. The problem is that it's easy to know when things are bad, but it's really hard to recognize when things are going well.
One of the keys to any good relationship is to notice when someone does something you want them to do more of, then specifically recognize and tell them that was really good. It's not manipulative, because you genuinely liked it, and even if it's manipulative it won't work because people can usually sniff out the manipulation. Reward is intensely useful to modify behaviour. But again, the problem is that we only notice when things are going wrong, and we use threats and punishment to modify behaviour instead of rewards.
So in order to live a meaningful/fulfilled life, we need to set around us relationships (not necessarily romantic) with people who understand us, and who mutually recognizes each other's efforts. We feel good when we are understood, when our friends know that we are honest, responsible fellows that act in their best interests.
Find for ourselves a merry band of hobbits who will sing each other's merits.
🐕🦺 Service
The hero often does something in service of others, whether it be as small as helping those in need, or as large as changing the socio-political background of the nation.
We are all at peace largely due to the fact that we have access to all these amenities around us. It would be wrong to say that we are peaceful people, because we would easily turn violent if we were hungry, cold, and without shelter.
It seems like people would sleep better if the things they did alleviated suffering, or generated new sources of pleasure. We are not inherently selfish as many would like to think, some of our most meaningful moments come when we transcend our ego and are in service of others or the planet.
I wouldn't find entertaining someone else to be meaningful, but I do find dentistry and teaching to be extremely meaningful. It's all about knowing yourself and choosing the service that makes you tick, based on your personality.
Wherever possible, I would be glad to procure healing potions to help my neighbour.
🌏 Pursue Meaning, Not Short-term Pleasure
Previously we said that a meaningful life comes from striving towards a goal, but what type of goal should that be? If the goal was only to alleviate pain, it would be reasonable to pursue after short-term pleasure (most commonly through drugs and alcohol).
The human psyche is blessed (or cursed) with the ability to think into the future. Including the very long-term future. This is why some of us are willing to increase our short-term pain in exchange for money, in hopes that this money is a contract with time, promising us stability and security in the future.
It's all right to think that happiness is the meaning of life, but what happens when we're unhappy? Happiness is a great side effect, and we should accept it when it comes around us. The problem comes when trying to aim for it, because it is fleeting and unpredictable. After a while, our happiness levels always normalize and return to baseline. It is better to seek meaning rather than happiness.
"And if happiness is the purpose of life, what happens when you're unhappy? Then you're a failure."
- Jordan B. Peterson
Conclusion
- 🐉 Try our hardest to slay the dragon in our lives
- 🎉 Find a merry band of hobbits who will sing each other's merits.
- 🐕🦺 Wherever possible, procure healing potions to help your neighbour.
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