There are days, like today, when I think about the meaning of life and more specifically, whether my life has meaning.
It’s a question that many people all the way back through time have considered. Wikipedia lists a myriad answers that people have come up with throughout history.
I thought about this when I was younger — but still of “childbearing age”, as my brother would say — and felt a level of despair. My brother said that I was feeling that way because I hadn’t fulfilled my biological purpose.
According to James Watson, in response to a question from Richard Dawkins, we aren’t here for anything.
“We’re just the products of evolution,” he said. We are here — breathing, eating, fucking — so that our genes can reproduce.
On days like these, stoicism is the one philosophy that has come in handy. Or how I interpret stoicism, anyway.
I ask myself, “Is it relevant to ask if life has meaning?” Perhaps it does, perhaps it doesn’t. But does it matter either way?
Sometimes I think the antidote to despair is accepting that life may have no meaning, but being determined to live it anyway. To the best of my ability.
