We are born, we live, we die. Most likely that is what the vast majority of lives consist of.
Is your life relevant?
This article is for my “navel gazer” friends. Yes, you know who you are!
Since my wife passed away (16 years ago), I’ve off and on spent a fair amount of time thinking about the meaning of life. What’s the point of living?
A friend sent a video of an extremely interesting entrepreneur.
Donald Phillips has many, many interesting things to say in the video. Near the end of the video his comments, about after you die, triggered me to contemplate this topic.
A key thing that Donald said is that for most of us, all we leave behind is our name. I’m proud that my family (the Wright’s) have over five hundred years of building a respectable family name (basically 1,000 years if you allow for a few hundred years of lack of data). So if I can enhance that name, then I’m “good”.
“Forbidden Power” is part of my legacy. Not everyone is responsible for making a movie. Paul Kyriazi said that without me the movie would never have been made. It’s not a great movie, but at least it won 36 awards. A nice piece of crystal sitting on my fireplace mantel attests to one of those awards.
Perhaps my photography will live on and people will appreciate that beauty for years to come?
Perhaps I’ll write a book? Books have been one of the best ways to create a lasting legacy, but of course only one in a million (billion?) books is actually historically noteworthy.
Personally I see nothing wrong with not leaving a legacy. Just live a good life, enjoy yourself, don’t be an asshole.
What will you do? Will you tend to Mother Earth to leave this a better place for our children to live? Will you advance human society?
During the summer of 2020 riots, my best friend was still teaching college at least a little bit. The whole question of "black lives matter" or "all lives matter" was bouncing around the campus. He asked his students whether their lives mattered, and they all felt that they did. He argued, "No, your lives don't matter and neither does mine."
His idea was that most of us don't do anything in life that really matters. Few people make a huge impact on the world, and most of them make a negative impact. He wanted to argue against the whole self-esteem mindset that all of us are unique and precious. He's a Baptist deacon, and he believes that all people are loved by God, but he also wanted to argue against what he sees as a self-centered, conceited view that society often has.
I argued with him that I believe that my life matters and his life matters. My point is not that every life matters but that every life matters for those who make their lives matter. We can make our lives matter by doing the right things. We can produce more than we consume. We can act justly towards one another. We can support real justice within our society. We can show kindness and generosity without enabling self-destruction or manipulation. One of my big messages to people at the time was that if they wanted their lives to matter, they needed to get off their asses and make their lives matter. Most of us won't make major impacts on the world, but most societies function because many regular people work to make things work. The big impacts would never happen if regular people making small, positive impacts didn't spend their lives working to keep society functioning.
While "mattering" isn't exactly the question that you asked, I believe that mattering is related to the question of "meaning of life." In some respects, the meaning of life may be a more spiritual question than the question of mattering. When I hear someone say "meaning of life," I get the impression of a much fuzzier concept than just mattering. I'm generally better at the less fuzzy concepts.
I believe that the strongest, healthiest, most stable societies are built on the traditional family. By that, I mean man and woman as husband and wife. They are raising their own biological children or children that they have adopted from outside themselves. They stay together until one of them passes. This ideal makes the happiest, healthiest societies and individuals.
Plenty of people don't achieve this ideal. Plenty of people make stupid marriages that don't last. Plenty of people end up not providing the most stable homes for their children. I don't say these things to attack these people. I've also failed to build that life for myself. I understand that some people aren't made for marriage. They are better off single. I wasn't one of those people. My being a lifelong bachelor is a failure on my part. Other people aren't a fit for this life because they aren't heterosexual. I don't know whether some of them should be heterosexual. That's a complicated question. I don't say these things to attack these people. I'm just aware of more deviations today from what is healthiest for any society.
We tend to celebrate people who find occupations that are a great fit for them. For everyone to find an occupation that is a great fit and will bring them fulfillment is wonderful. I'm just skeptical of whether that situation is really common for the human condition. I suspect that many people today and throughout the millennia have done work that wasn't at all fulfilling. They did what they did to put food on the table, clothes on their backs, and roofs over their heads. That doesn't mean that they lived lives that didn't matter or lives that didn't have a meaning.
When I was in church, the cliche answer to the meaning of life was in serving Jesus. I'm happy for people who find all the meaning that they need in that idea. From a purely theological point of view based on The Bible, I intellectually accept that answer. I've met people who are completely sincere in that answer. On a more practical level, I was never able to make that work for me. Many people who talk the most about finding meaning in Jesus seem to be more fixated on themselves and seem to see Jesus as an extension of themselves. I was in church long enough to know that the Bible says that they are supposed to be extensions of Jesus instead of the other way around.
I appreciate the simplicity in the mindset of "take care of your needs; have a good time; don't be an asshole." I haven't been able to make that idea work for me either.
Hopefully I will have inspired a few to gaze , at least occasionally, at their novels and stop giving a fuck about the perpetual silliness that's always present. 😝