On the Meaning of Life

I have saved this question for last because it is really the most introspective of any question. How someone views the meaning of life and their purpose in it will drive who they are and how they determine their actions. I do not subscribe to a belief system that tells me why we are here, so I must define this for myself. People like to lump together all atheists in regard to this topic, but the term atheist is purely a negative: it only tells you that we do not subscribe to the handful of theistic belief systems that have originated over the years. It does not tell you that we may follow any of the limitless naturalistic belief systems that exist now or that we are still forming. Religious zealots will say that we do not believe in anything, but this is completely untrue. We believe in many things, but most of us like to have a bit of evidence to rationalize these beliefs. I, personally, believe in the power of the human spirit (e.g. drive, determination, will to win) to accomplish anything, in the scientific method as our best hope of finding truth, and (most importantly) in myself to do what I have set out to do. I believe in my own resolve as way to hold true to the identity I would like to cultivate. In order to determine that identity, I must have a well-defined purpose for my life. I do not ask anyone to follow this purpose, but I do hope to influence someone to think as critically about their world view. Let the exploration begin:

Our mere existence in the universe is the result of millions of fortunate (and unfortunate) events: the death of stars in which cooked the atoms now present in our bodies, the orbit of the Earth at the right distance from a long-living star, the abundance of life-giving elements on Earth, and preserving actions of our ancestors that led to the eventual creation of us. But this series of events hasn't stopped there; it led us to become who we are today, and it won't stop as we become a little older, a little wiser, and a little different tomorrow. Dr. Albert Einstein argued that everything is fixed in time (of course the other Doctor would disagree) because it has necessarily been determined by the events that preceded it. An infinity of events happened at the right time in the right place to put you where you are now. Your parents, and their parents, and their parents (and so on, ad infinitum) acted in such a manner that resulted in your life. They acted in such a way as to ensure their own survival (or just got lucky enough to get there) and that of their progeny. With all of this life, there must be some meaning to it all, right? Of course. Those who have gone before you have lived so that you can live. They respected their lives enough to preserve it. Consciously or not, the one thing they all shared is that they lived, and their lives gave rise to this great community of life we see today. With that in mind, it would seem that the only purpose to life is just that, to live. Life is, in and of itself, the means to its own end.

If that is the case, then we must redefine the question: what does it mean to live?

Here I must offer a personal opinion for context: my greatest fear is doing the same thing for the rest of my life. When I think of an old man in a small town, who has lived there his entire life working at a single profession since boyhood, I can't help thinking that all those years were wasted. Thinking of all the amazing things this world has to offer makes me tremble in awe. For me, stagnation is death. A great anxiety wells up in me unless I am constantly growing with, learning from, and experiencing the world around me. For me to cherish and respect my life, I need not only to protect it, but to nurture it and help it grow. As I mentioned in my essay On Fatherhood, so much of who we are comes from our experiences. To avoid those opportunities to grow is to miss out on a piece of life. The genetics that determine part of who I am are already set, so missing formative experiences is missing everything that defines my life. There is so much happening in this world at every moment that we can never run out of moments to experience, but we will also never experience even the slightest fraction of everything there is. With that in mind, I am always pushing to see, feel, hear, and know as much of the world as I can. Ayn Rand may have had delusional views of a selfish utopia, but she got a lot right, especially that of the respect for life. If nothing else, the one thing to cherish in life is life itself. Nothing is possible without it, but it is so short and fragile that it requires the utmost attention and care. For me, to live fully is to seek out and capture every breath of every moment because every moment I live defines me. We the living are those who take command of our lives in complete respect, resplendence, and awe.