01.25.06

The two most common questions that make me twitch are really just two different versions of the same non-question that has undoubtedly spawned far too many late-night pseudo-philosophic sessions of verbal masturbation between caffeinated college students who like to think of themselves as deeply profound. These two questions are, in their simplest terms: Why are we here? and What is the meaning of Life?
       There is no answer to either question, because we are not here for a purpose; we -- by which I refer to humanity collectively -- are the result of a massive biological accident, a random cosmic improbability that inexplicably developed a sense of self-awareness. This self-awareness in turn prompts us to seek out our origins; we know we are here, so we want to know how we got here. Apparently, "billions of years of evolution" is an insufficient answer; as so many religious robots have said, "there must be more."
       Unfortunately, just because one claims that "there must be more" doesn't mean that there is; the simple fact remains, there isn't anything more. Humans will look for "order" in otherwise random systems -- will create "order" when they can't find it -- without ever realizing that the notions of "order" and "chaos" are entirely arbitrary. Without a human intellect to classify a certain arrangement as "ordered" or "chaotic," the arrangement simply exists as it does.
       The only appropriate answer to the question of "why we are here" is simply that the Earth hasn't been able to fully cleanse its system yet of us yet. Unlike any other living organism on this planet, humans as a species do not adapt to their environment; they adapt their environment to suit their needs. They create climate-controlled condos, bulldoze miles of forest to pave the planet, stripmine mountains and construct stripmalls, all the while draining every natural resource offered by the planet.
       The ultimate irony that goes unrealized by so many of the barely-conscious among us is that the human animal evolved within the conditions of the Earth. By the laws of natural selection, our earliest ancestors existed in a given environment; those fit to survive in that environment lived long enough to procreate, and those unfit to survive did not. Eventually, the human species evolved into an optimal form based on the conditions in which it evolved.
       Our species is thus the product of a certain set of environmental provisions in which it initially came about. But we are now changing those conditions, causing profound climatic changes to our own environment and altering the very functioning of the planet on which we exist. Yet we still exist in the same form, and the inescapable conclusion to this tragic comedy of errors is that, eventually, we will no longer be suited to exist in the environment that we've created. And we are going to go extinct because of it.
       The search for a universal "meaning of Life" is even less productive, because it implies that meaning is imposed by an outside force. Because we have adequately established that there is no god -- and therefore no conscious outside force -- we must face the truth that there is no universal meaning. The individual is responsible for creating meaning in his own life, and that meaning must be enough because it is all that exists.
       Subsequently, there are two kinds of meaning that the individual can create: personal meaning, and affective meaning. The first brand of meaning -- personal meaning -- is built from the passions of the individual; I derive personal meaning from the relationship that I've cultivated with my wife, from the sense of accomplishment that I achieve through my writing.
       I entertain no illusions about the nature of my relationship with my wife. When that which lights the flame of self-awareness flickers out and expires within us both, we will be gone and our bodies will dissolve back into molecular matter that will be distributed once more into the cosmic ether. Our children will grow and have children, who will have children, who will have children; but eventually, every one of us will meet the same inevitable end.
       I also harbor no delusions that my writing will be eternal or in any way universally meaningful; I know that once the paper on which the words are printed desolves, my writing will be lost. But I still achieve a sense of fulfillment in creating "order" out of "chaos." Such an end may not provide meaning to someone else, but it does, inexplicably, for me; and in this way, personal meaning is relative to the individual. It is that which gives the individual a reason to persist as a living organism, and I find those reasons in my relationship and my writing.
       Naturally, such a philosophy will result in one of two outcomes -- either the individual will collapse under the realization that there is no external endowment of meaning and arrive at abject nihilism by erroneously determining that nothing means anything; or the individual will assume the personal responsibility of creating internal meaning out of his own life by fulfilling the personal causes that give him reason to persist.
       Ultimately -- some may say bleakly -- these two outcomes are qualitatively identical; with no exterior gauge of meaning, an acceptance of external meaninglessness is equal to the individually created relative meaning. The individual who determines that creating meaning is ultimately futile and thus not worth attempting is no better or worse than the individual who determines that creating meaning is personally fulfilling and thus worth attempting.
       I suppose it qualifies as irony, then, that my realization of this truth has led me, personally, to the outcome of taking personal responsibility for creating internal meaning out of my own life. Since this short tenure is all that is, I have decided to create all the meaning that I can in order to feel individually fulfilled; I will have no second chance or eternal afterlife in which to get it right.
       The second brand of meaning -- affective meaning -- is built from the outward contributions that the individual makes. To me, at least, affective meaning can be achieved in my life in only two ways -- firstly and most importantly, the betterment of the planet; and secondly, the betterment of the human condition.
       Most importantly, we have to stop pretending that we supercede the Earth, because we are only temporary tenants at best; the Earth existed for billions of years before we evolved on it, and will continue to exist for billions of years after we go extinct. Our only chance of extending our fleeting visit is to undo some of the massive damage that we have wreaked on the environment that spawned us so that we may help the planet revert back in the direction of the conditions that gave rise to our species in the first place.
       If we destroy the planet, there will be no human condition, because we will cease to exist. Thus, the betterment of the planet invariably serves the betterment of the human condition. When I refer to the betterment of the human condition, however, I am not referring to the comfort of human beings. I am talking about the social conditions that some of our members are forced to endure for utterly unjustified reasons. We have to end inequality in all forms in order to create a uniform standard of life; we must bring to an end all of the discriminations that oppress various members of our species, because we are all humans, all identical.


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