0.3
February 4, 2015

The Meaning of Life: Remix.

 

woman look curious wonder

There is a quiet desperation that settles into mediocre lives like lines that settle into a face after years of repetitive expressions.

And there is this loud call to be more than mediocre.

A whole industry—actually several industries are predicated on the historic and ever reverberating echo to “follow your dreams.”

Nowhere else is this more true than the infinite pursuit to find one’s soul mate. As soon as the echoes fade you can hear the conversations that are happening in café’s, chat rooms, in office cubicles, between mothers and daughters, and between bros…

“Forget about her bro, there are plenty of fish in the sea. She was a bitch anyway. You are awesome.”

“Nah, girl you are too smart and beautiful to be single forever.”

These might just be consolatory phrases. They might be true. But being beautiful, smart, or rich doesn’t automatically gain you entry into a life that is all beer and skittles (or whatever your version of the promise land is).

In fact, ugly, stupid, and poor people get married all the time. They find each other and breed. So you can rattle off your pedigree like a person trying to convince HR you are right for the job, but that doesn’t mean you will get it. And even if you do it doesn’t mean you will lock in the kind of job security Alex Trebek has enjoyed for god knows how long. (He might be a robot).

Here’s the thing that life coaches aren’t going to say to you: counselors offering to fix you won’t even mention it. The “get your ex back” websites won’t dare to even allude to it.

In fact, it is a pretty risky thing to say at all.

Here goes: life is totally random and it doesn’t mean a damn thing.

Let that soak in.

The way your parents met, f*cked, and then had you…totally random.

The color of your skin or where you were born…also random.

The job you got, the boyfriend you kept or broke up with, the person you chose to marry…all f*cking random.

Why is it that my mother should spend her whole life eating right and taking care of herself only to die of cancer at age 57, but my granddad smoked, drank, and went through three wives and lived to 92?

It is just pure chaos.

There is no reason for millions of single people to be crying themselves to sleep at night, feeling bad about themselves, and then wondering where their “other half is.” There is no reason to devote our lives to the search for happiness.

Someone once asked the Dalai Lama what surprises him most. This was his response:

“Man, because he sacrifices his health in order to make money. Then he sacrifices money to recuperate his health. And then he is so anxious about the future that he does not enjoy the present; the result being that he does not live in the present or the future; he lives as if he is never going to die, and then he dies having never really lived.”

We are all batman. We are all the joker. And most of us can wrap our minds around the quantum idea that we are everything and the space in between. #mindf*ck

So, what is the point of going on living then? Why should we follow our dream or build our character by “stepping out of the comfort zone”?

Well, life doesn’t mean anything but the meaning we give it.

The only way to be in a relationship with another human is by being dependent on them. There is no way around it. Our behaviors effect each other.

Humans are sensory beings. We are wired to configure random input into symbol, then connecting symbols into algorithms, and in a god-like gesture we create the grandest structures of all—beliefs.

When you look at it like this, the Law of Attraction and the whole manifestation gig isn’t a big puzzle. It is actually made up of three simple pieces: First, you feel something which is alchemical. Second, patterns of alchemical reactions are then translated into schemas and those schemas crystalize into beliefs. Finally, those beliefs drive two primary behavior patterns—gravitate towards pleasure or avoid pain.

And before I’m done, I have another bone to pick: Why is it that we have decided the “way the truth and the life” is to look inside of ourselves for answers? Isn’t that just a little narrow-sighted? It isn’t one or the other.

If we just masturbated our way through life—mentally or literally—then what is the use of relationships?

So if you were to put this all into spin cycle this is what comes out in the wash: we can’t live without each other. We need murderers and people to do wrong so that there can be campaigns for do gooders, coalitions for morality, and reality shows.

Your thoughts are just thoughts. They are also structures contributing to a grand design. You get to decide how you fit into it and what you want out of it. Sure, your shot at the top may be one in a million, but you don’t need to live at the top of the mountain. There is less oxygen there anyway.

Just stop complaining and do what is important to you.

Live.

**

Relephant:

Alan Watts: The Meaning of Life.

The Meaning of Life, According to the Dalai Lama. 

Einstein on the Meaning of Life. 

 

 

Author: Rebekah McClaskey

Editor: Renée Picard

Photo: Nikole Handel at Flickr 

Leave a Thoughtful Comment
X

Read 0 comments and reply

Top Contributors Latest

Rebekah Freedom  |  Contribution: 13,790