On the Meaning of Life

I read this article from The Atlantic this past week with some interest. It speaks about "secular evolution" of galaxies. The term secular, in this context, seems to speak more to a micro/macro distinction than how the word is often used in society, i.e. religious/secular distinctions. The thrust of the article is that the writer finds meaning, or happiness, in not focusing on the big picture, but on the small; not on the larger context, but on the everyday minutiae and tasks.

This answer reminded me very much of Voltaire's proclamation at the end of "Candide," that we should simply "cultivate our gardens." There's a sense that trying to answer the big questions - about meaning, life, and reality - do not lead to any happiness; but rather, lead to perpetual dissatisfaction and eventual despair. The existentialists come to this conclusion and then essentially extrapolate it for their entire philosophical answer to the big question - there's no point.

This has long been the concern of philosophy, and a debate - about what constitutes meaning, and the meaning of life - ever since Socrate proclaimed that "the unexamined life is not worth living." Voltaire, through "Candide," obviously offers a refutation of that particular philosophical take. In my own reading, the character Gus, in my favorite novel, "The River Why," sardonically declares that "the examined life ain't worth chub." All this speaks to the concern we have on the importance of critical examination of one's own life.

Socrates' status in philosophy is unquestioned (for good reason), so its often disjarring and often seen as original to go against his stated premise of the worth of the examined and unexamined life. Yet, though the author of The Atlantic piece linked above makes no mention of existentialists or Voltaire or many others, the idea proposed to focus on the small to the exclusion of the big has been around for awhile in opposition to Socrates' platitude.

For me, there seems to be a small disconnect between the discussions. Candide's response to the suffering in the world and making sense, Gus's frustration with the examination of his life, the above author's acquired peace in focusing on smaller questions in life all have to do with seeking happiness. Socrates' statement is more about meaning, and makes no promises about happiness. Candide, Gus, and the author all seem to have answered an underlying premise that is undiscussed - that the meaning of life is happiness, or to find happiness. Socrates was discussing what gave life value, and answered that one must examine it. Does this constitute his answer to what the meaning of life is? For Voltaire, the examination is not important because it too often leads to unhappiness. Is that his answer?

In college, I was in a class where we had to answer, in a paper, what the meaning of life was. As I recall, I argued that one had to first determine if life had meaning, and concluded that it was impossible to tell, but an individual could find such meaning by finding what the meaning was for their individual life (I was big into Bertrand Russell at the time). Now, the lawyer in me wants to say that we first need to define "meaning," or else there is no way to think about this question in, no pun intended, a meaningful way. Without doing so, its impossible to consider whether Socrates, Voltaire, and the above author are even thinking about the same question.

What is meaning? What is happiness? And what is their relationship to each other. A question for someone smarter than me. I'm just going to go examine my garden.

"You will never be happy if you continue to search for what happiness consists of. You will never live if you are looking for the meaning of life." - Albert Camus

"Plato says that the unexamined life is not worth living. But what if the examined life turns out to be a clunker as well?" - Kurt Vonnegut, Wampeters, Foma and Granfallons

"The Ultimate Answer to Life, The Universe and Everything is...42!" - Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy