Why do we constantly seek meaning in our lives?
What an ambiguous question.
Why are you asking me this question? Who are you anyway? Why should you care? These were all questions that started to spark in my mind as I came back to reality and realized that I was two minutes deep into an undeveloped conversation with Becca, who apparently was a member of the university’s Christian club.
Just two minutes earlier I was enjoying my kindergarden like sack lunch of cupped fruit, peanut butter crackers, and apple juice box to top it off, while contemplating the future headache I was about to endure in my existentialism philosophy class. As I was pondering the significance of Nietzsche’s argument for humanities cultural collapse through the Death of God, I was interrupted by Becca, who looked like she just stepped straight out from an evangelical square dance.
Becca sat down on the rocky bench next to me and politely asked me my name. Instinctively I knew that she wanted something from me, just by the awkward way she approached me, sitting down next to with a concerned but comforting look on her face.
Should I give her a fake name or a real name? I thought to myself, ah heck, I’ll be nice today; so I introduced myself back to her, intrigued and annoyed simultaneously.
She told me about the Christian club, and I sheepishly told her that I am agnostic at the moment and am not really interested in joining the club at this time. I thought she would leave me alone after being disappointed with my answer, however she persisted in asking me, “What do I believe in?” and “how were you raised, religiously speaking?”
I was over this conversation, not because I was angry at Becca trying to persuade me to join her cause, but I was just sick in general of thinking about these questions in the first place because it just seems so pointless. Granted, my existentialism class probably has been rubbing off on me, but I am honestly sick of looking at myself as some divine being with a “purpose,”or that I was put on this earth to conquer something “remarkable.”All I want is to be apart of this world as a sea otter or dandelion is a part of this world. I just want to be. No expectations. No sameness; just a dynamic serious of actions which no real meaning is based upon.
Don’t mistake me for an apathetic, because that is not at all what I am implying, but rather just to be comfortable and content in realizing that I am here, now, and that is all that matters.
And finally, to answer Becca’s last question before she exited our odd but short conversation, she asked me, “what does your life mean?” I thought about it for a moment, hesitated, and then responded that I do not really want to assign meaning to my life because now, I do not feel the need to, I’m here, what else is there?
Maybe Nietzsche is temporarily clouding my sanity, or maybe for the first time I am just comfortable and actually humbled by the thought that, essentially, life is just a serious of action with no purpose, meaning, or intention.
Like this:
Like Loading...
