What is the Ultimate Nature of Existence?

Finding meaning among meaninglessness

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What is the Ultimate Nature of Existence?

What does it mean to be alive? This is clearly a deeply spiritual and perhaps psychological question, of which of course I have no definitive answer. (No one does.) Science gets us as close as we can physiologically: Simply put, there was a Big Bang billions of years ago; planets and stars crashed into and apart from each other; the Earth was formed and orbited a sun and had a moon orbiting it itself; the “right” elements developed over time creating single-cell microorganisms; these  evolved over millions and millions of years into multicellular organisms and, eventually, to water and then land creatures; at last we had bipedal animals, and, roughly two million years ago some early form of pseudo-humans and 250,000 years ago (roughly) what we would identify as our modern human form.

Of course Science—boy have we learned this over the past couple years!—can only tell us so much. The Big Bang, of course, is only a theory. Science gives us, through evidence and educated theory, the best conclusion we can grasp at any given time. In a century from now, we’ll certainly know much, much more than we do now about Deep History. We can’t know more than we know at any given moment. (Obvious, right?)

And yet evolution and biology and adaptation and natural selection only describe our collective physical journey. Culture, politics, spirituality, the rise of “civilization” and agrarian farming 10,000 years ago (roughly) post-Ice Age explain other phenomena, such as man’s deep need for survival, art, tradition, symbolism, tribalism, the great search for meaning.

This search, clearly, never ends. It will surely be the same in roughly 4.5 billion years, when our sun explodes and swallows Earth in its wake. Who knows what technology we’ll possess by then and what that technology might be able to do…or prevent. Perhaps by then Earth will have already been destroyed. Even if that were the case, though, maybe a new “Earth” would rise from its apocalyptic ashes. Why not? It’s all biology and fundamental elements swirling in a dark misty haze. Or perhaps by then man will have disappeared for all intents and purposes and have merged with robots. (Not unlikely, even in half a million years or less.) Or maybe by then we’ll have colonized Mars or Jupiter or some other planet.

Either way, we don’t live then, in some imagined, problematic future. We live here. Now. At the tail end of the year 2022. (Reminds me of “2001: A Space Odyssey.”)

So what does it mean to me to be alive?

I see things from a scientific and existentialist point of view. (In the vein of Albert Camus.) I don’t think life has any inherent meaning or purpose. Why would it? I don’t buy the theory of a God. I am of no religion. Neither am I judgmental of religious people. Though religions as a whole often harm more than they help (this is mostly true historically), individuals who believe in God often seem happier, better people, and more thoughtful, kind, and less selfish than others, generally speaking.

People sometimes like to say (who believe in God): Ok, so you believe in The Big Bang; well, what came BEFORE the Big Bang? It’s a good and fair question, and we have no solid answer. And whatever came before it, what came before THAT; ad infinitum. What was the first original “thing” or source? And how that that First Cause occur itself? It’s a mystery. To me it seems confusing even if you add in God. So God is the first source? Well: Apply your own logic: Where did GOD come from? Thin air? Where did air itself come from? Space? Where did the concept of God come from to begin with? (Human culture.)

In the end I think it’s simply beyond our capacity to cognitively grasp. It’s like advanced Calculus for those of us who are terrible at math. (I am bad, I mean really bad at math.) I refer to myself as “agnostic” though I lean closer to atheist, yet still see myself as being “spiritual” and believing in a Higher Power. I’m just not totally comfortable calling that thing “God.” (Unless God simply means The Great Unknown, versus Jesus or Mohammed, or Buddha, etc.)

I don’t see any issues with understanding life as having no inherent meaning. In fact, this idea excites me. It means we each get to create our OWN meaning. As in the Buddhist tradition, I also don’t believe in a “self.” There is no “self” for us to “find,” as Western culture so obsessively talks about. We just simply “are.” We exist. We’re a random, lucky fluke of cosmic transcendence. The Universe accidently rolled the cosmic dice and we arrived. Cosmic gambling, we might call it.

Why do we feel there has to be “meaning” inherent in life, intrinsic to our existence? From a Jungian perspective, it seems patently obvious that our unconscious creates ideas and symbols and myths and wants to discover “why” we’re here. But maybe the simplest answer is: We’re just here. Period. Hard-stop. There’s no greater reason or meaning or purpose. We simply occurred and continue to carry on. We’re a fascinating “blip.” For most of Deep History we didn’t exist. For a fraction of a second we have existed. One day we will again cease to exist. From pre-birth to post-death: The opening and closing of consciousness. (I would bring up the Nabokov “Speak, Memory” quote but I’ve overused it already.)

Morality does not require religion. Neither does having faith in yourself or in something outside yourself. Neither does acquiring deep, profound meaning during your short stint on this Earth. I see things less from the Christian point of view (adding to your life: church; family; love) and more from the Eastern Buddhist perspective: Unravelling things from “The Self” which have been placed on and inside and over and around us all since birth. Learning, in other words, to Let Go. Learning to Accept Things As They Are. Learning to free oneself from Ego Capture and Fear. Accepting the reality of Death one-hundred-percent.

It’s okay—it’s in fact brilliant—that we die. I will die. My father will die. My mother. My cat. My friends. All of us have and will die. That is okay. And gorgeous, really. It means we have a finite amount of time on this planet, breathing this fine air, living, eating, fucking, surviving, working, traveling, loving, etc.

Don’t waste it. It may be inherently meaningless, but that doesn’t mean it’s unimportant. Find your own heart and soul. Unravel from all the delusions and seductions around you. Find your inner peace, inner created meaning.

Let go and allow yourself to be born, exist, and crumble beautifully into lovely black silence.