On meaning...

 

Round and round the mulberry bush

There have been many times in the past when I have questioned the purpose of existence and the meaning of life. Lately, a feeling of discontent has been insidiously creeping up inside my mind and I am beginning to wonder if there is any purpose (other than the biological one) or meaning to life?  These ideas and thoughts fermenting in the depths of my mind have bubbled to the surface, helped by the global catastrophe of 2020 (the COVID-19 pandemic of course) and a book I finished reading recently (Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind by Yuval Noah Harari). Maybe, one ought to start with a different question, why do we as a species grapple with the question of existence? People would rush to attribute our uniqueness and separation from the rest of the animals to answer such a question because we are the only species conscious of our mortality, our intellect sets us apart…yet we are animals, we are governed by biology, we are just like the animals we are setting ourselves apart from. I find this dilemma fascinating, our emotions are products of biochemical reactions and we have the similar physiology as the mammals on this planet, yet we have gone past the biological evolution. There is an aspect of our evolution that is social, technological and as the book suggested in the future we might evolve alongside machines, maybe like cyborgs, or in tandem with artificial intelligence. This however doesn’t answer the question of our need to ascribe meaning to our existence. 

I think recently, people have (and so have I) been suffering from a loss of time and space, feeling somehow discombobulated…there was an article talking about how the pandemic had made people feel as if they have lost their sense of direction, or chronological order of time. More so because we can’t tell what could happen in a week, in my perspective things are the same as they were in March of 2020, it seems we are going in loops…Does that put the questions of existence at bay for now, since right now, it is more important just to exist, survive this pandemic? Or are these questions more relevant now than ever, since this is an existential crisis in the literal sense…I don’t have answers to the questions, and I hope to see the light at the end of the tunnel to reflect more on this.

“All men live enveloped in whale lines. All are born with halters round their necks; but it is only when caught in the swift, sudden turn of death, that mortals realize the silent, subtle, ever-present perils of life. And if you be a philosopher, though seated in the whaleboat, you would not at heart feel one whit more of terror, than though seated before your evening fire with a poker, and not a harpoon, by your side.”

-Herman Melville