Q & A

Q: What is the meaning of life?

A: I don't know if I have answered this question before, but I think I have. Either way, I think it is worthwhile to answer it again.

Life has no meaning. This is because there is no God. There is no afterlife. There is no Big Daddy in the sky watching over us all. This reality is more than most people can bear, but I live with it on a daily basis.

Peopl accuse me of being a nihilist, but I am not a nihilist. Nihilists believe in nothing, and there are things I believe in. I believe in the world that exists. Even though there is no God to create order, order emerges spontaneously from our lives. This is true in biology, economics, chemistry, mathematics, and if the quantum people are correct, physics. Behind all of it is chaos. Order emerges from the chaos.

If there is anything we have that is close to a God, it is this self-ordering principle in the universe. This is natural selection in evolution. This is the invisible hand of the market. I read a lot of science, and this self-ordering keeps popping up again and again.

Life is without meaning, but it is not without consequence. This is why my philosophy and worldview revolve around the outcomes of various strategies. For instance, I can't say that communism is superior to libertarianism in any transcendant sense. I can say that communism can never bring about either equality or human flourishing relative to capitalism. The historical evidence demonstrates this again and again.

In terms of living your life, this life without meaning presents certain problems and difficulties. For the existentialists such as Nietzsche and Sartre, this death of God was a big deal. Yet, we seem to live in their post-God world with few if any philosophical difficulties. The fact is that religion gave us prescribed meanings for life. Without religion, we are free to live our lives as we see fit. For Nietzsche and Sartre, this was just too much which is why they both found admiration in totalitarian systems of government.

The reality is that you are free. You are free to live in the way you choose. Some choices are made for us because of circumstances. Other choices are made for us by consequences. For instance, the quadriplegic can never choose to be a star basketball player. Circumstances prevent this. Similarly, you can't be both a bodybuilder and a world class marathoner since one cancels out the other. This is the product of consequences. When we make choices, we also make other choices as a result of the original choice.

People don't all make the same choices, so this is why everyone is different. This is why we have so much flourishing in our free societies. This is why I champion individualism. The civilization we inhabit is the spontaneous order that emerges from all these self-directed beings doing their own thing. Trying to impose some order either through religion or government goes against this human flourishing. This is why I am a secularist and a libertarian. I see freedom as being integral to my own flourishing but also the freedom of others as being integral to my flourishing. I am never going to cure cancer, but I want the man or woman who does to have the freedom to pull it off.

This brings it all back to the personal. If life has no meaning and I am free to choose how to live, how should I then live? I can't answer this for you. For some people this freedom is more than they can bear. They become depressed, self-destructive, and suicidal. For others, it is the liberation they need to be what they want to be. This would be Nietzsche's Superman. The fact is that we are all Supermen and Superwomen as we determine our own values, our own choices, and our own destinies. If you have the courage to live with this unfettered freedom, the world belongs to you. You will enjoy life, and you will find happiness. If you lack this courage, you will remain either in delusion or despair.

For me, it all comes down to projects. I pursue projects. It may be my job. It may be a sink full of dishes. It may be a blog post. But I create meaning in my life by doing things. Idleness leads to despair because it makes you contemplate things that simply aren't real. Idleness leads to regret over past failures and mistakes. Idleness leads to daydreams that will never materialize. Idleness leads to asking pointless questions such as the meaning of life. All of these things are a substitute fantasy life as opposed to the real life that you have.

If I have any advice for people suffering from existential angst, here it is. Be active. Stop thinking and start doing. This seems like a counsel to escape akin to telling someone to crawl into a bottle of liquor. But it isn't. Remember, order emerges spontaneously in existence. When you start doing things, this order will emerge for you. Sloth was the old word for depression. Inactivity produces depression and despair. When you do things, this darkness peels away.

Happy people are people of action. You get this insight from Aristotle. Happiness is kinetic. It is the byproduct of your meaningful activity. This is why truly happy people are robust and extremely busy people. They are always doing. This activity is what separates Aristotle from other philosophers of his day because all those other thinkers proffered philosophies of sloth. Sloth is death.

If you want meaning in life, the short answer is to get off your ass and go out and make it.

Posted in: