This has been very confusing to me since life is and has always been mysterious. I meant if one has unlocked the meaning of life, I wonder how will one behave? What would one be thinking about? What could one do? What could one not do? I mean, to start with, why would one need to know the meaning of life in the first place?
You see, for me, to impose or try to juxtapose my view on life is such an idlic and stupid move. For one: I have only experienced this life for a quarter of century. Many have I not been experienced nor see. So, I feel horribly unqualified to explain myself (and those of you readers) the meaning of life. I mean I can try to come up with an idea on the topic, disregarding how little my experience is then proceed to ramble to you what I feel about life itself. But that wouldn’t make a universally acceptable reasoning behind my idea of life. So I guess this will just be a personal view that only sensible for me and me only.
To start with, I present you: a fear. I have this fear that I have not really lived. Again I am not even sure how one is supposed to live. But you know, seeing how vast the world is, and how diverse the people living on it, it seems like I will always miss something out.
I guess even if I live for as long as human can, I won’t have enough time to experience the very vast world and to meet the ever growing number of people. Granted we have full access to the world in our hand this very second. Heck, even if I wanted to, I can now pretend that I’m driving on a San Fransisco street. But again, pretending is totally different that actually living it and be there.
So I think if the meaning of life is to experience it all, it’s then an utter nonsense.
Like, we don’t have all the time. We don’t have all the energy. And we don’t have all the resources to go see the world and meet all the people. Right, Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk probably can~ but I don’t think it’s something they’re doing right now. Moreover, if you think about it — even the richest, the most-famous, the ablest-to-travel around still has (or need) a home. They still need a place somewhere for them to settle. So to travel once in a while seems fun, but to keep on moving to explore the world seems draining and a̶p̶p̶a̶r̶e̶n̶t̶l̶y̶ seemingly impractical.
So instead, can that be enough for us to live just here and now? By here I meant where-ever you are right now — be it an office, or a room, or even a jail.
I remembered that note from a buddhist on life: just be. That there is no life but the present — which the more I think about, the clearer that it is very much true. That being said: whatever you’re experiencing right on this second is a life on its own. Be it bored, be it tired, be it sad, be it happy, be it in love, be it confused, be it dissatisfied. But then again, if we just live the present, how can we ensure we live a better life in the future? Do we need to think about the future?
We want to feel enough in the now, but at the same time crave for an assurance that we’ll get better later. This contradicts my previous points where people want to settle — because apparently we want a change, for the better if I may add.
So we want a bit of consistency, and yet want some fluidity. It occurs to me that this nature, that we want a bit of both world, implies that we don’t have the ability to feel enough. Things might change later as I get older, I expect. May be the wiser a man became, the easier for them to feel enough.
May be I’m here to simply share this never-ending loop of wanting a consistency then wanting a change. May be if it’s possible I can help others ease their way running down that loop. May be I’m here to just merely survive. May be I’m here to write down all these confusing thing. May be I’m here to learn a bit of everything, and grow become a better person from there. May be, just may be, I’m here to suffer this mysterious question of meaning of life — but since I question it together with others, Imight as well just have to build a mutually-profitting relationship with others. May be the meaning is every bit of those I mentioned. May be the meaning is all those I mentioned. May be life has no meaning — that we should just do whatever we want with our limited time and energy. I’m afraid the meaning of life is the freedom to think, do and be whatever we want. To explore every possible mystery and question — like what I just did in this post.
This prompt was a product of “Designing your life idea #1: Connect the dots” by Bill Burnett on ideas.ted.com where I was asked to write around a page about what I think is the meaning of life.
