Meaning of Life

For most of human existence, life's meaning was very simple - Survival. The only thing we cared about was just surviving. If you look closely at how your body reacts, every reflex we have is set up for 1 mission- To survive.

Then humans did something remarkable. They elevated themselves to the top of the food chain with the use of technology and tools. They went from being extremely vulnerable to now sitting at the top! Imagine a naked human being without any tools in the middle of a jungle. We are one of the weakest and softest creatures. So many animals would easily kill us.

But if you take that same human being, put him in a group, and give him basic technology like steel, a spear, or a knife, then he goes from the bottom of the food chain to the top. Humans went through so much but they somehow survived. They went through ice ages, droughts, and famines, but they somehow reached the top. Now begins the most interesting part and it begs the question - 'Now what?'

An organism whose only interest was to survive, has for the first time in history, a guaranteed survival! The average human being finds himself in a world now where there is almost no danger. Getting a meal is the easiest thing right now, getting home from work is not problematic at all, majority of infectious diseases have a solution.

The minute mankind's existence became more or less guaranteed, the problem shifted from survival to meaning. We now find ourselves fighting a whole new issue that never occurred to our ancient forefathers - Meaning.

Now you cannot find the meaning of life. Basically, humanity found itself in a crisis that emerged out of its own success. The number of suicides per year is 703,000 worldwide and men's numbers are twice that of women. How many animals kill themselves? Extremely few, because all they want to do is to survive. For humans, it was super hard to win the battle for survival but it is 10 times harder to win the battle for meaning!  There is no specific answer to the meaning of life because what is meaningful for me, might be completely useless to you.

I'd like to end by saying I do not know the meaning of life but all I know is that the greatest people think of their lives as a story they want to tell the world. They take charge of their life and see their life as a tale to be written. They try to put as much control over their story as they can.

If you can just survive, learn how to fail graciously, and have an attitude of solving each problem on your own, you're on a good path. Live for something bigger than you. Live for others and do stuff for your family. Do something that does not harm anyone but benefits the people around you.

- Jon Danaher

See you next week.

© 2023 Kunal Dutt.