delivered to the Unitarian Church of Los Alamos
5 October 2008
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In a cave on a high plateau on the slopes of Mt. Parnassus in the town of Delphi in Greece, there was once a sanctuary dedicated to god Apollo. The sanctuary was home to the Pythia, the famous oracle at Delphi, who was renowned for her gifts of prophecy, spurred on by the gasses that seeped out of the earth from crack in the cave’s floor that led her into altered states.
The Pythia was an astonishingly accurate seer, although her proclamations were cryptic. One coming to see the oracle needed to know the key to deciphering her predictions. The key was inscribed over the mouth of the cave, for any who cared to take the time to read it and take it to heart.
Gnothi Seauton.
Know thyself.
***
On an old microwave cart in the garage of a condo on the slopes of the Jemez Mountains in the town of Los Alamos in New Mexico, was pile of supplies and equipment purchased by me for various art projects that have yet to see the light of day. Among these supplies is a blank matroushka, a nesting doll imported from Russia, waiting to be decorated as I saw fit.
The idea was that the various nesting layers of the doll would be decoupaged with various bits of advertising, each layer representing the various labels applied to a person throughout their life — real or no, deserved or no.
The smallest doll on the inside, the heart and soul of the matroushka, would be covered in gold leaf and set apart from the rest of the shells, held at bay by miniature barricades and barbed wire (which also sit patiently waiting in their respective boxes).
I’ve given the still unborn project the rather embarrassingly pretentious title: “Frustrated, the Oracle at Delphi Submits Her Resignation.”
***
This morning we continue our series on “The Big Questions.” Today, the question before us is “What Is the Meaning of Life?”
So this should be a pretty short sermon.
For many people, this is the be all and end all question, that for which all human efforts at knowledge strives. It holds the world’s record for the longest streak at the top of the philosophical hit parade, and it shows no signs of being dethroned any time soon.
Philosophers, theologians, poets, songwriters, and every novelist or screenwriter published or unpublished have tried to answer this question.
And the answer is almost always vague, almost always unsatisfying. So we keep returning, year after year, century after century to the question.
What is the meaning of life?
Why are the answers we find never enough?
Remember when we were in grade school, the teacher would try to ignite and encourage our curiosity and critical thinking by telling us that “there’s no such thing as a bad question?”
They were fibbing a little bit.
Is “What is the Meaning of Life?” a good question?
On the surface, it looks like it should be, alright. It’s grammatically correct. It follows an acceptable pattern for the sentence structure of a question. We can ask “What is the meaning of agua?” and get a concrete answer. We should then be able to ask “What is the meaning of life?” and get an answer that’s similarly concise, no?
But, somehow it never works out this way. While agua is fairly strictly analogous to water, “life” is . . . well, life is a much larger word.
What do we mean when we say “life?”
Terry Eagleton writes that over the years life has been alternately referred to as a gas, a bitch, a cabaret, a vale of tears, and a bed of roses.
In the space of one soliloquy alone, Shakespeare tells us that life is a walking shadow, a poor player that struts and frets its hour upon the stage, and a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing (This was not one of his comedies).
What is “life?” Is it merely a biological inquiry? Do we mean just human life, or do we mean something broader? Animal life? All life?
Is this a metaphysical question? Do we mean the life of the spirit or the soul? Our inner life? The life of the mind?
Agua is water and water is agua, but life? It’s more than just la vida. “Life” opens up a whole new raft of questions, and then we go and simply ask “What is the meaning of life?”
Are we nuts?
Already, the validity of today’s question is in jeopardy, and we haven’t even talked about the meaning of “meaning,” yet.
What sort of meaning are we looking for?
Is it meaning as in, “What does agua mean?”
Or, “I’ve been meaning to read that book.”
“Thanks for the get well card, it really meant a lot to me.”
“What is the meaning of this?”
“I didn’t mean to hurt you.”
What sort of meaning are we looking for from life? Is it a signifier or a symbol? A statement of intent or action?
There’s a continuum of tension within the word “meaning” that runs between symbolism and action. To ask the question “What is the meaning of life?” could be to ask “What is the purpose of our being here?” or “What does our being here signify?” or even “What caused us to be here?”
The question as it stands becomes less and less valid. The further we parse, the worse it gets.
“What is the meaning of life?”
Is there really only one? If there is, are we stuck with it whether we like it or not, doomed to either ride it out or rebel against it? Can there not be a meaning for each individual? The meaning hardly seems like an appropriate Unitarian Universalist concept. So, let’s just call the question moot and go to coffee hour!
(No? Still here? You’re gonna make me answer this question, aren’t you?)
Is “What is the meaning of life?” a good question?
Not really, no. Even the “what” is suspect. Again, Terry Eagleton posits that it’s probably more rightly a “how?” question, or a “why?” For the most devoutly religious, it’s a question of “who?”
It’s no wonder the answers over the centuries have been vague, or incomprehensible, or unsatisfying. As dear St. Douglas Adams has written, we don’t know what the question really is!
And yet we still look for answers! How does this happen?
***
Over the centuries, we have sought the answer most often as a species during times of extreme crisis. It’s no accident that some of our greatest philosophers emerged during times when the world seemed to be turning upside down. Nietzsche emerges during the upheaval of the European industrial revolution and the controversy over the new theories of Darwin. Wittgenstein emerges from the carnage of the first world war, while Sartre and Camus come out of the horrors of the second.
As a species, we are always staring our own mortality in the face. At times like the ones mentioned, when life seems most worthless, we go looking for worth. We want to know that there is a point to our brief existence here beyond a mere accident of biology.
Lately, it seems as though we are in a constant state of crisis, and accordingly, we go delving for an answer to that ultimate question, however we may have chosen to phrase it.
Something odd has shifted, however, over the last half century.
Meaning has become some sort of marketable commodity, something that can be had at a price. Humans look anywhere and everywhere for meaning nowadays and seemingly are willing to pay any price. People shell out millions of dollars to self-proclaimed gurus who rehash old and failed philosophies like The Secret or The Law of Attraction that prey on our baser materialistic instincts and our sense of entitlement. People lose fortunes looking for meaning in narcotics, lose relationships looking for meaning in casual sexual encounters. All in all, people have begun to pay too high a price and work to hard at making meaning outside themselves, without ever bothering to look in the one place where truly deep meaning begins to form, within their own souls.
The situation puts me in mind of the classic image of the person who seeks out the meaning of life: the solitary figure who has ascended the high mountain so they might visit the guru in his cave who’ll give them the answer just for making the trip. (I believe it’s the subject of about every fifth New Yorker cartoon). The poor soul schleps his or her way up the mountain with great effort (and probably greater expense) only to receive an answer that makes no sense, or receive no answer at all.
It is a sorry state of affairs. Ever since the the Delphic Oracle resigned, no self-styled and shallow guru of the modern age has ever seen fit to post the all important caveat over the mouth of their cave, the key to deciphering the mystery.
Gnothi Seauton.
Know thyself.
It is the last taboo. We humans are remarkably adept at manufacturing self-images based on pre-existing categories: liberal/conservative, masculine/feminine, jock/nerd, them/us, so on/so forth. We have more than enough capacity to break away from the labels, more than enough personal power to make our own way, but to do so is to risk, perhaps, loneliness. At least if we fit ourselves into a pigeonhole, we know we’ll have others to share it with.
To “know thyself” is a brave and frightening act. And it is the only way can even begin to get to the heart of a question such as “What is the meaning of life?” For here is the heart of the matter. The only meaning we can ever fully comprehend is that which is contained within us. We cannot know even another person in and of themselves. All we can know is that which we experience and make meaning of. Meaning grows out of a relationship between the knower and the known.
A human being is a meaning-maker. We are the universe’s attempt to know itself. Unless we can strip through the layers of manufactured meaning others might apply to us and get in touch with the heart of our own self, that ultimate question, whatever it is, will never be answered.
Douglas Adams continues his story of the computer, Deep Thought, this way:
“I think the problem, to be quite honest with you, is that you’ve never actually known what the question is.”
“But it was the Great Question! The Ultimate Question of Life, the Universe and Everything!”
“Yes,” said Deep Thought with the air of one who suffer fools gladly, “but what actually is it?”
A slow stupefied silence crept over the men as they stared at the computer and then at each other.
“Well, you know, it’s just Everything . . . everything . . .”
“Exactly!” said Deep Thought. “So once you do know what the question actually is, you’ll know what the answer means.”
“Look, all right, all right can you just please tell us the question?”
“The Ultimate Question?”
“Yes!”
“Of Life, the Universe and Everything?”
“Yes!”
Deep Thought pondered for a moment.
“Tricky,” he said.
“But can you do it?”
Deep Thought pondered this for another long moment.
Finally: “No,” he said firmly. “But I’ll tell you who can.”
“Who? Tell us!”
“I speak of none but the computer that is to come after me,” intoned Deep Thought, his voice regaining its accustomed declamatory tones. “A computer whose merest operational parameters I am not worthy to calculate — and yet I will design it for you. A computer that can calculate the Question to the Ultimate Answer, a computer of such infinite and subtle complexity that organic life itself shall form part of its operational matrix. And you yourselves shall take on new forms and go down into the computer to navigate its ten-million-year program! Yes! I shall design this computer for you. And I shall name it also unto you. And it shall be called . . . the Earth.”
They gaped at Deep Thought.
“What a dull name.”
Now, it’s just a silly science fiction parody, but stop and ponder for a moment — if we are truly the engines of meaning-making in this universe, then maybe we are part of a larger picture, part of a program to find questions to answers we already know. Perhaps we really are the universe’s attempt to know itself.
If this is the case, then we have a job to do. We have to intentionally go out and make meaning. We can’t just sit around in our caves pondering “What is the meaning of life?” and then wait patiently for the answer to drop into our lap, unearned. We cannot purchase the answers from another, either.
We have to get up, go out, and experience life — experience it from the soul out, knowing fully who we are. If we catch a glimpse, we can certainly stop long enough to ponder and process and suss out meaning, but then we’ve got to get right back at it. Even the Buddha knew this, and would tell his followers, “After enlightenment, return to the marketplace.”
The meaning of life is to live it.
The meaning of life is to mean it.
I’ll let you decide for yourselves what that means.
Some of you may have come here this morning looking for a more solid answer. I haven’t got it. But, I don’t want to leave you hanging, so I leave you instead with the meaning of life . . . as arrived at by Monty Python:
“Well, it’s nothing very special. Try and be nice to people. Avoid eating fat. Read a good book every now and then. Get some walking in. And try to live together in peace and harmony with people of all creeds and nations.”
Now go out and mean it!
May it be so.
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