Posts
 |
| Still life with will-o-the-wisp and snake: Heindrich. |
We looked at the quest for power or leadership, and saw that it was a chimera. It must always end in frustration and disappointment. So too with wealth, fame, and the pursuit of knowledge of the academic sort.
But we have not exhausted all possibilities yet.
Many seek fulfillment in marrying and raising children—the family values bit. “That must be what it’s all about,” as Bob Dylan once sang. Interestingly, though, the Bible does not validate this; and the Bible is right. If your own life is meaningless except for producing a new life or lives, then those lives in turn must also be meaningless—one has simply created an infinite regression.
 |
| Chimera, Ukraine |
Others seek meaning in art and the creation of art. I do believe art can lead to meaning or the recovery of meaning on a personal level. It has this great value. But there is still, it seems, something vain about devoting one’s life to the creation of art. The truth is that there is more fine art in the world than any person can possibly fully appreciate in one lifetime. There is therefore no objective value in creating more unless, by chance, you can do it better than anyone who has come before. This is not likely. One should create or appreciate art for personal benefit, as a kind of spiritual medicine, but it is off track to make aesthetics the essence of one’s life.
So—should one devote one’s life to works of charity? Not a bad thing, surely, but again, not the core value. If all you are doing with your life is making another life more pleasant, you run into the same infinite regression as with having children. If your life is otherwise meaningless, then so is that life. Nor does an omnipotent and compassionate God, assuming you believe, really need someone like you to fix his creation for him.
The meaning of life must, if only by elimination, by elimination, be this: establishing a relationship with that God.
 |
| Still life with carrot and jackass. |
No comments:
Post a Comment