The Meaning of Life
I sit here contemplating writing this out, and say to myself, ‘I love these moments of little realisations’. And then I realise that what I am calling little is one of the most existential questions possible, and consider how absurd I am.
I’m not sure why this was the topic of my between-sleep-and-wake consciousness this morning. I had been thinking it had been a while since I had been able to write anything down, with work and life feeling so busy, a virus faffing about in my system that didn’t want to clear. And then my brain starts on this as I lolled, delaying getting out of bed on a winter-cold Canberra morning.
It came so simply; ‘The meaning of life is to witness’. The word ‘witness’, not being a literal word, was more a feeling. Other words could go there that bear a similar meaning, such as perceive or notice or observe. Yet it had an active feel to it, a participatory aspect, such that ‘experience’ may be better suited, maybe even ‘learn’ (but learn what?).
As quantum physics indicates in any case, observation is not passive:
What we observe is not nature itself, but nature exposed to our method of questioning.
Werner Heisenberg
Any perception is filtered through our own particular array of lenses, our worldview, our way of understanding things. Anything that doesn’t neatly fit through one of our lenses risks not being seen at all, or being perceived in a distorted way so that it appears to fit. So we find that ‘witnessing’ is not so simple a thing at all, and this lovely notion of the purpose of life becomes instantly complex.
The first complication is the matter of these lenses, a good metaphor to engage for this than the more nebulous concepts of worldview or way of understanding. We might ask, where do lenses come from and how do we identify them? The trouble is when we are seeing through a lens, we can’t see the lens itself. It is very hard to know it is there. The first step to recognising a lens is of course knowing that lenses exist and that we all certainly have them.
Then we can think how when we see through a lens, that there are things that happen and exist beyond the scope of that lens that we cannot see. We might realise that some of those things would occur close to or right at the edge of that lens. We might notice that those things are uncomfortable because they are close to or at the limits of what we consider part of our ‘reality’.
We might notice we have a tendency to steer our perception back towards the safe centre of our lens when we encounter such a disturbance. Perhaps we might even find ourselves getting irritated, or angry, and lashing out. Perhaps we can instead practice attending to that disturbing thing we perceive. Curiosity rather than dismissal. Opening rather than closing.
Some of these lens edges are quite explicit and identifiable. Racism, misogyny, white supremacy, homophobia, speciesism, and all similar bigotries that draw a rigid line between self and ‘other’ is an indicator of a lens. Some are more subtle, and might be indicated by self-talk or ideas that involve a ‘should’. ‘I should be smarter than this’, or ‘I shouldn’t feel this way’, for example. Or one of my favourites; ‘I should know by now how to operate my own face’ when I suddenly bite my cheek.
While we have personal lenses, there are also deeply embedded cultural lenses. These are especially tricky, because we see them echoed back to us continuously by those around us, from close family and friends to leaders and larger cultural figures. I believe one of those lenses is that we are, as humans, largely stable and static in terms of ‘who we are’. And this, my friends, is utter bullshit. However, when we grow up steeped in such a perspective, and see it confirmed everywhere, believing it may as well be the same as truth. To defy that truth and believe in one’s capacity to fundamentally change, is intrinsically ostracising. Us typically social creatures are not terribly fond of that.
Nor are we fond of feeling uncertain. It is comforting, and certainly less effortful, to feel sure in our way of knowing and seeing and not going to the trouble of updating our lenses. Redirecting our perception back towards the middle with a fizzle of fear directing us firmly, keeping us in the known reality. It might feel stable and righteous, or we can convince ourselves it does.
Critically, it probably feels safe, and it asks less of us (in the immediate term at least; the long term is a very different story). It is not difficult to see why easy would be a default. Have you looked at the state of the world? How easy is it to survive right now, simply to have enough resources to feed and transport oneself and loved ones, to stay housed, to do all the day-to-day things one needs to do to maintain these things. To not be overcome by despair at the ugliest ugliness of what people can do and get away with.
Ugh! It’s almost as though having the capacity to investigate the limits of our lenses is undesirable in the current cultural structure. A system that depends on conformity and people fitting into set roles. How terribly inconvenient were we to all start changing and evolving all over the place?
It’s fair to say that some people probably can’t prioritise such musings, such as those dodging genocidal bombs and artillery, or those unsure where they will sleep tonight, or those in the acute stages of trauma recovery. But there’s plenty of people who can, at least to some degree.
If, as my wandering musing half-awake-asleep consciousness says ‘the purpose of life is to witness’, then the extension of that is to examine the edges of our own perception, and clear away or expand as many limits as we reasonably can. Find our own shoulds and taken-for-granteds and put them under the microscope. See if we can notice those moments of redirection away from something uncomfortable, and consider what lens it might signify. What is that edge that we might not be comfortable running up against? Why is it uncomfortable?
Fundamentally, we can start challenging the idea that we are unchanging and are not meant to change in terms of who we are, and what we believe. Life is change, because life is a process. We are a process of life. If we won’t change, we are not living, and if we are not living, we are certainly not meeting the meaning of life. Whatever it is. To me, that seems kind of important.
It’s worth noting that this is a very different way of functioning to the ‘usual’. Consequently, practice is necessary, and doing so with another or others is ideal. This is one of the reasons psychotherapies exist, at least in my reckoning. It provides a space where we can find those learned rigid beliefs, and those ingrained lenses, and receive assistance in easing ourself towards, and hopefully beyond, our own limits.
I believe we are a living process moving from limited towards limitlessness. The beauty of a finite world is that there is always a limit to overcome. Life, thus, cannot be anything but eternal, and the Universe cannot be anything but ever-expanding. And we are a process of that eternal, ever-expanding Consciousness. Let’s do our part.
Then again, this is all through my current lens…
