Today we'll talk about a lightweight topic: the meaning of life. I'm writing this as my submission for the January 2026 IndieWeb Carnival.
What is the meaning of life? I would imagine many posts will make the joke that the actual answer is absolutely and undisputedly the number 42, and they might not be that wrong at that. But first...
Perhaps landing on a definitive answer for the "meaning" of life is a bit hard, and we should instead start by looking at what gives me, personally, a sense of meaning. I find it in creating things, in active participation in what's going on around me (living with intent, even though I don't always manage it), in caring for my family and those around me. I also find meaning in trying to unravel all the traps we set for ourselves in our own minds.
(Quite serendipitously) I'm currently reading "Man's Search for Meaning" by Viktor Frankl, where he retells a bit of his brutal experience as a concentration camp inmate. He was a psychotherapist and spent much of his time there observing others around him and how some would sink into hopeless depression (quite understandable), whilst other amazing individuals seemed to thrive (as much as one would expect under those terrible circumstances).
I'm still not done with the book, but what I'm getting so far is that the thing that all those who "thrived" had in common was that they had a deep sense of meaning. Be it with religion or caring for others, they all had a "why". He says (and I agree) that having a sense of meaning is essential for humans to grow and flourish.
Now, coming back to the actual question of the "meaning of life".
I think that when people ask "what's the meaning of life" they instead usually mean more "what's the goal", what's the point of it all. The distinction is subtle, but it makes all the difference! The word "meaning" here is something that makes an action worth doing, while "goal" points to a sort of loop that one must close in order to get something.
What is the goal then? I don't know, of course.
It's funny how we assume that "life needs to have a goal". I've often heard people question what the reason for it all is, but it's not that normal to hear someone questioning whether there's any goal to begin with.
After all... why should there be? A butterfly has no goal. There's no action it's doing that's specifically oriented towards something grander than just surviving. Nor does a flower have any goal, nor does a cloud, or a bird, or a river. Nothing in the natural world is doing anything but dancing to the tune of life.
I think that we, modern humans, tend to confound "goal" and "meaning" all the time. I imagine that in olden days these were very much in parallel: our goal and meaning were given to us by taking care of those around us, surviving, finding food, and, in general, looking out for our "in group".
However, nowadays we're not happy with that. Our "ceiling" is much, much higher, and so we naturally stretch our ambitions and set our "goals" to go beyond what's in front of us. We set ludicrous goals like chasing admiration from everyone on planet Earth, or constantly being materially productive, or any myriad of other things I'm sure you can easily think of. As our culture dictates, many of us are obsessed with being ambitious, and we end up sinking as much time and effort as we can into it. But will it pay off?
This reminds me of the story of the Fisherman and the Businessman (it's a short read if you want to check it out, I'll wait). In it, a businessman is trying to convince a fisherman not to be so lazy, telling him he shouldn't spend all his time off at home with his family, and that instead he should use it all to make loads of money and buy a fleet and become a fishing magnate. After the whole explanation the fisherman asks "why", to which the businessman answers "well of course, so you can later spend time with your family".
...
Goals are not always so "big" or well-defined as "making a ton of money". We set a "goal" anytime we want something to be other than what it is.
For example, which is something I've mentioned quite a couple of times lately: my son. He's just a kid, and yet I sometimes want him to behave in ways that are just not natural to who he is and where he's at right now. Sometimes this inability frustrates me tremendously, even to the point of anger. I'm sure the same happens on his side whenever I ask him to do something he doesn't want to do.
Another example: we have a very nice, smart, all-around awesome dog, but sometimes when he's very excited he jumps on people to greet them. It's getting better, but every time he does this I find myself getting frustrated.
Maintaining any single one of these smaller goals is not that hard, but it becomes a titanic effort when we're trying to hold up thousands of them, always vigilant, all constantly weighing us down. And the problem is that the more we have, the more we tend to want to pick up!
Though yeah. We haven't yet addressed the question of the "goal of life". I would say there isn't any. Maybe an acceptable goal would be "personal/spiritual growth", but that's basically just setting a "meaning", so it's moot.
...
Now that we've established that goals are where the friction comes from, let's look at "meaning". Meaning can be anything really! The number 42, for instance, is a perfect answer; it also has no meaning, and yet it has all the meaning in the world for some people.
Yesterday evening before bed my son asked me a question which I think is very pertinent to this.
"Dad, do you play"?
"What do you mean with 'play,' son? Like play the flute"?
"Well you know, play, have fun" (at which point he did the cutest little jig I've ever seen)
Ha. Do I play? It made me realize that I definitely don't play as much as I thought, not nearly as much as I would like! I spend a lot of my time worrying about maintaining these goals I've set for myself, and every day I pick up more of them.
But instead of spending so much time on my goals, on trying to "bend nature to my will", why not spend it on things that truly give me a sense of meaning? Let me use a mundane example: weeds.
I live in a tropical climate where plants grow really (really) fast, especially weeds. I spend considerable time walking through my garden, plucking weeds and throwing them away. As I do so, I know it's a futile effort because in just a few weeks the weeds will come back again. My wife and my in-laws always ask me why I waste time plucking them by hand rather than using the lawnmower. The truth is that I enjoy the act of cleaning the garden; it gives me meaning even though the goal is basically unreachable. For me, weeding the garden is pure "play".
Playing with my son gives me meaning, and teaching him things. There's no inherent goal to this.
Being with my family, spending time outside, writing on my blog, creating things, solving puzzles-these are all things that give me meaning, but they don't really have an end in and of themselves.
It might seem that I'm arguing that the meaning of life is just seeking pleasure, but that's not truly it. Pleasure in itself is just a goal; I doubt that pleasure alone can provide a substantial amount of meaning to anyone.
So, the meaning of life is to find and do things that give you meaning. The meaning of life is to play! Or as Kurt Vonnegut excellently said in this lecture (highly, HIGHLY recommended):
We are here on Earth to fart around, and don’t let anybody tell you any different
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A better, harder question would be "what IS meaning". Well, that's probably up to each of us to discover.