Meaning of existence?
That’s a question that many philosophers, mystics, weird
and crazy people, with nothing else to do, asked for many, many years.
My answer is perhaps a little depressing. Life has no meaning, nothing in life has any
value, all is appearance it has no existence, all is a temporary, the play of light.
Appropriately, my philosophical view is called existential nihilism.
Nihilism (/ˈnaɪ.ᵻlɪzəm/ or /ˈniː.ᵻlɪzəm/; from the Latin nihil, nothing) is a philosophical doctrine that suggests the lack of belief in one or more reputedly meaningful aspects of life. Most commonly, nihilism is presented in the form of existential nihilism, which argues that life is without objective meaning, purpose, or intrinsic value. Moral nihilists assert that there is no inherent morality, and that accepted moral values are abstractly contrived. Nihilism may also take epistemological, ontological, or metaphysical forms, meaning respectively that, in some aspect, knowledge is not possible, or reality does not actually exist. - Wikipedia
If you witty enough, you may ask...
What would be the point of living if life has no meaning?
Well, that is the serious question and this is precisely what Albert Camus
described in his famous work, The Myth of Sisyphus. He said, “There is only one really serious philosophical problem, and that is
suicide.”
You may hate this philosophy because you feel it is true and that deep subconscious feeling is terrifying you. You want to hold on to hope believing deep down that there is something more to life. That's why you turn out toward New Age Spirituality which somehow makes everything easy.
Do you feel that you are alive but you are not living at all? Do you feel that everything is fake? Fake status, fake news, fake governments, fake people... fake world?
And you yourself, do you know that you are also a lie? If you really think about it, which I have no doubt you do, but if you do, you may see your position, you may conclude that things around you are happening spontaneously without your intention. And to get that it's very depressing, isn't it?
I agree, it's extremely melancholy to realize that you have no intrinsic value at all, that you are essentially meaningless.
It's very disillusioning to get that no matter what you might accomplish, it disappears like smoke in the air; that no matter what service you might attempt to perform, it's like an insignificant grain of sand upon an infinite beach.
Are you saving money? Are you coloring your hair? Are you fighting to save planet? Does it matter? It's all insignificant in the end. If not today, then tomorrow. If not tomorrow then in a hundred years, then in a thousand, million, billion. The universe don't even notice you.
You have a millions of judgments, this is good, that's bad, this should
happen, that shouldn't happen. Existence has no beginning and no end, it is an
infinite imagination, it's just going, moving on. All the "good," "bad,"
"right," "wrong", "hopes" and "regrets" etc. is supplied by you, my friend.
Life doesn't care about any of this. Whatever you or I might ever do to make a difference in a little corner of our world is meaningless and empty. In fact, all is emptiness, everything is completely fake, you are just like a character in a video game, or like a robot in a machine factory, pondering what its meaning is.
All the meaning of life, world and yourself is supplied by your
imagination
Before you get too depressed, let’s consider Nietzsche’s approach towards meaning of life. Like Camus, he thought that life is devoid of intrinsic meaning. But he thought you could give it a kind of meaning by embracing illusion. That's what you have to learn from artists, according to Nietzsche.
But here is a twist my friend, that Nietzsche and Camus did not see it. If nothing matters, if life has no meaning and everything is illusion without existence then neither anything else matters. Your fears, worries and anxiety do not matter at all. You see, upon this realization, something happens.
The fact that nothing matters is actually a source of great liberation. It's very freeing to realize that nothing matters at all, because that whole weight of trying to make life "make sense" or "go the right way" or "look like this" drops away.
In its place comes reality, things exactly as they are, with no meaning at all in the usual sense and yet incredibly stupid and beautiful at the same time, the very life forever shining...
The question of meaning is a trick
You cannot find a meaning of something that does not exist. Accept that or just like Sisyphus,
continue enjoying to push a boulder up a mountain only to have it roll to the
bottom again and again.
The 20 years of spiritual searching, practicing and studying have left a deep influence on my psychological makeup. I see that everyone wants more of life. Everyone strives for something. Probably these wants help them feel alive.
It is so plain and so obvious and so simple. All what you know, what you see, what you understand is a lie. Your sense of presence is the first lie, just imagination, everything else is built on it: the feeling of "I", ego, personality, perception, universe, the world, nations, relationships... love, hate, desire, passion, anger, greed, lust...
Living in the world and seeing the falseness of everything is a great courage. But, laziness, pride and cowardice are the main characteristics of mankind. In order to awaken, first of all the mankind must realize its state of deep sleep.
You want fame, you want to be liked, to be admired. Nothing less, but the long
term relationship like a businessmen, investors, used to cutting your losses -
in a consumer's world you live. Everything for you is an "investment," and you
want the guarantees. You really want to fall in a great love, but only if
you're loved back. When you don't love anymore, you hate.
Don Juan asked me: "Could you love forever, beyond death? Without the slightest reinforcement - nothing in return? Could you love without investment, for the piss of it? You'll never know what it's like to love like that, relentlessly. Do you really want to die without knowing?"
"Before I die, I have to know what it's like to love" I replied.
He said, "You mean there are still so many women you want to fuck."
- Carlos Castaneda
Oh well, my friend, that's it, you and I have just run out of time.
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