Written ten years ago. With minor edits/updates.
What is life? Happening in between birth and death? No no.
Why was I born? What is my purpose? What is the meaning of my life? Who am I? These questions are extremely important to ponder upon. Doesn’t matter if I fail to answer these questions, yet I must try everything I can. Hard earned breads are usually delicious and precious. I will learn not to waste it. Struggles and sacrifices in finding are what actually adds meaning to it.
As I grew up, I heard people say, we are the sons and daughters of God, we are the product of our parents’ love. Or only time can say(?). Previous karma or reincarnation or so many philosophies yet no meaning in it. When we do not know the present meaning, we try seeking comfort in previous karma? Did we have a previous life at all? Who knew about it? Let us first try to find the present-living.
If we go looking for meaning, some gurus or self proclaimed teachers will come down from the mountain top with the meaning of life. If someone like a Guru or teacher is able to give us the meaning of life, the whole purpose of meaning is defeated. If it could simply be handed to us, it would lose its meaning.
We waste so much time and resources in pursuit of seeking meaning from external comforts. When our inner beings cannot find a meaning to our own life, how is it possible an external agent could do that? The meaning that we find seeking is the references and reflections of someone else’s life. We learn lessons and experiences from others but we don’t find meaning in our own lives from others. We gotta find it ourselves through struggles and sacrifices. The whole universe resides inside of us and that meaning must come from within. Everything that has meaning is the result of struggle and sacrifice and is worth fighting for.
Even if we did find one, will the meaning be meaningful at all? We find life precious because we are not able to find a meaning in it. There is no end and if we are able to find that end, the purpose of life will be found and lose its meaning. This is some sort of paradox of life. Buddhism does not even promise us a meaning. It speaks of Nirvana, which is not an answer we find but the ending of the craving that made us ask in the first place. Science, on its side, promises us no meaning either. It tells us how we came to be here, never why. Meaning of life has a strength to confuse both religion and science, yet we love finding it. Finding meaning to life itself is actually the meaning of our lives. When Science failed to find the meaning of life, when religion failed to find it, we create our own meaning of life in this universe and that is going to be a distant mirage.
And here I contradict myself, I know. If we create our own meaning, how can it be a mirage at the same time? Maybe both are true. The meaning is real enough to walk towards and never solid enough to arrive at. I do not know how to settle this, and I am no longer sure it is meant to be settled.
And how do we comfort ourselves? If we are to die someday, is the meaning of life necessary at all?
Maybe that is the wrong question to ask. Death does not make the search useless, death is what makes the search possible at all. A life with no ending would have all the time in the world and no reason to spend it. Because our days are counted, every struggle costs us something, and whatever costs us something carries meaning.
So I will not wait for the answer to arrive before I begin living. I will keep struggling, keep sacrificing, keep walking towards the mirage, knowing well that I may never reach it. Reason why we must live our lives like there is no tomorrow. place within it.
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