To Find the Meaning

By Mrs King

As a child, I accepted my life and the world around me. I accepted Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny and the fact that if you cut a worm in two, you would have two perfectly happy whole worms. I believed my parents were the smartest people in the world and that they would never be wrong about anything.

As I grew, I often felt a sense of greatness about the world. This soon turned into a sense of wonder and then eventually became a sense of vast confusion and un-knowingness. I was around fourteen the first time I felt the complete and encompassing perplexities about my version of reality.

I remember the day clearly. It was sometime in April and I was riding with my dad to his work. I helped him while I was off track of school and got paid four dollars an hour. (To my fourteen years, four dollars an hour for eight hours a day was a huge amount of money.) It was around seven in the morning, the sun was new to the day and the earth had the sort of sparkle you find only in a priceless piece of art.

I remember, as we followed the endless road, how I gazed upward and saw the immense sky with it's never-ending light. For the first time in my life, I felt the complete mystifying greatness. What was the world I knew as home, the reality I so truly believed in, and the comfort I knew only as a child knows the comfort of a mother's love? What is the meaning of life? I know the sun has many purposes, as the moon and the stars. The rain and the clouds all serve a purpose. I am sure I have a purpose to live, but what was the purpose of it all? What was the master plan? What was the meaning of all of these things, of the world, of life, of existence?

I pondered the meaning, sometimes to near madness.

As a fourteen-year-old, the horrifying way that I questioned my life was overwhelming. I had no one to ask, for I knew no one knew the answer. I read poetry by Edgar Allen Poe, which offered no solace, only deepened the pit of despair. In one of his works, he states "all that we see or seem, is but a dream within a dream."

This led me to question dreams vs. reality.

A logical person might look into it scientifically, a puzzle meant to be solved if only the correct sequence of events were to fall into place. An artist might see life as an abstract piece of expression, not to be questioned or understood, only accepted. A religious person might see life as a divine plan, not to be questioned or comprehended, only appreciated.

There are many ways an individual might try to cope with the confusing plan of existence. In a video titled the meaning of life the different perspectives are examined and placed into categories. The first is Aesthetic. By taking an aesthetic point of understanding one finds peace in experience and enjoyment from life. The second way of coping is with an ethical standpoint. This would give one a sense of peace from duty, doing the right thing, following a set road and sacrifice. The third is a religious stance where one finds meaning through inward, personal commitment, not attainable from rational thought and logical exploration.

The paradox is this; which one is the true meaning? Is there a God, and if so, which religion has the true God? What do atheists believe to be the meaning of life? "The atheist's conception of humanity is nobler than the theist's. In his view, life has no purpose or protector, requiring the atheist to live with greater courage than the believer. (Robinson 32)."

In an opposing view, taken from a video titled The Gathering the main character states that Jesus Christ has filled the emptiness in his heart and calmed his sense of meaningless.

Which is true? I believe it is a matter of opinion, perspective and personal preference. But, that is only what I believe.

I think Sigmund Freud says it best in Civilization and its Discontents when he states: The fateful question for the human species seems to me to be whether and to what extent their cultural development will succeed in mastering the disturbance of their communal life by the human instinct of aggression and self-destruction . . .One thing only do I know for certain and that is that man's judgments of the value follow directly his wishes for happiness -- that, accordingly, they are an attempt to support his illusions with arguments. (Civilization 92)

Again, what is the purpose of existence, the meaning of life and the reason we and all living things live? In a classroom study, I asked seventeen people to write one sentence of what they believe to be the meaning of life. The results were exactly what I expected. From seventeen people I received seventeen different answers. This example and all of the research I have found backs my opinion up with a fact, the fact being that there are many different perceptions on the meaning of life without a way to prove a single one of them.

As I grew into an adult, I realized that Santa Claus was only a myth, the Easter bunny was an illusion and if I cut a worm into two pieces, I would have one worm, cut in two pieces. I realized that simply because my parents were human, they may be wrong in life as most people are. Most important, I learned that my life, my existence and my consciousness were subject to opinion. That looking at my life artistically, I see it as something that I cannot understand, I cannot question. I can, however, accept it as a work of art and hope that one day the mocking bird will return and I might have a better understanding about the meaning of Me, and all existence.