The Meaning of Life
Daniel Hill argues that without God, life would be meaningless.
Isn’t this how it basically works for most of us? From day to day, we focus in on the people and things that we impart meaning to and are in turn meaningful to us. In the only way that really matters from day to day to day: for all practical purposes.
In other words, meaning revolving around friendship and work and sports and the arts and the hundreds of distractions available to us in the course of, among other things, choosing one rather than another “lifestyle”.
It is perfectly possible [if you’ve got the means] to go from year to year to year and hardly give a second thought to the “overarching meaning” of it all. And, here, most will just subsume that in one or another God or spiritual plane. Let others tell us who we are, why we are, and how we should think about the “big picture”. The “little” meanings we act on, the things we enjoy doing and the interactions we have with others need be as far as it goes.
Then it’s just a matter of how long you can sustain this before “something happens” and you find yourself having to fit it all into something bigger. Like, for example, the world around you if the coronavirus explodes into the worst case scenario. And you live smack dab in the middle of one of the “hotspots”.
Yes, we may want this, but only a very small percentage of the human species actually make a concerted effort to dig – to really dig – deeper. Though, here, as philosophers, we do struggle to pull everything together so as to anchor it onto one or another “overarching” foundation.
I simply suggest this has more to do with paths we are predisposed existentially to go down. And the role that human psychology seems to play in nudging us in turn to find things we can feel certain about when the boat begins to rock.
Here, though, I suspect the real impetus is not so much what we think and feel, but what our actual sets of circumstances are. If the life we live is relatively stable and prosperous and rewarding, there is less incentive to dig deeper into why that is. Only when, for whatever reason, things start to totter or the good things start to come undone, does it seem more compelling to understand why. So, if the “little” meanings in our lives are in jeopardy, finding a bigger meaning may well be the only recourse. And that usually takes the form of a religious or a political anchor. And hardly ever a philosophical font. Not given the manner in which philosophy is pursued these days by the “serious” cadre.
Again, this would seem to be based almost entirely on how satisfying and content you are in living your life from day to day…without the need for a more substantial meaning.
After all, if your life is bursting at the seams with great experiences…great food, a great career, great sex, a great family, great distractions, great opportunities, great music etc…why call that “meaningless”?