The question as to whether there is
meaning in life isn’t meaningless. A
cigarette jingle when such jingles were legal hymned “To a golfer, it’s a hole
in one… to a smoker, it’s a Kent.”
The meaning of life is what animates our consciousness. The meaning of life for a tiger is to devour
small game. The meaning of life for my
cat is to spend long hours sleeping. Every
individual is animated by metaphors—flags under which we march because we
believe those flags have transcending value.
These metaphors might be called God, materialism, science, politics,
race, or art. From these metaphors, we
find community and satisfaction. Some
people however find meaning in seeking isolation and pain. According to Kant, practical reason allows
the mind to accept things even if it cannot prove things. The claim that “life is pointless” is like
the statement “life is sacred.” The same
must be said for such statements as: “the God of the Bible is”, “reason is”,
and “tradition is.” These are statements of meaning—a prioris—rather than statements of
fact. The meaning of life is not an
object—something that exists in time and space—but ourselves as we encounter
time and space. "Ultimately, man
should not ask what the meaning of his life is, but rather must recognize that
it is he who is asked,” Viktor Frankl writes in Man’s
Search for Meaning. “In a word, each man is questioned by life;
and he can only answer to life by answering for his
own life; to life he can only respond by being responsible." Meaning
in life, therefore, is the set of those conscious or unconscious
presuppositions from which we deal with our life.
