The Futile Search
I am not a credentialed psychologist or a gifted philosopher. However, I have come upon an epiphany from my experiences, spanning the social, the professional, the familial, and the experiences in isolation. And it is a theory that I have tested in thought experiments within my own four walls of existence and the practice of its applicability in real life. And I am probably by no means the first or the pioneer of this realization, but it has impacted the way I think. The profundity of the impact is questionable in terms of its impact on the wider world I interact with. Still, it definitely has impacted my concerns and reactions. It has also quite meaningfully changed the advice, when sought, I give, and, when occasioned, the lens through which I view the world.
So here it goes.
“LIFE HAS NO EXISTENTIAL MEANING”
None whatsoever, beyond the serendipity of events and the continuous combination of (i) aversion of pain and (ii) seeking pleasure. The likes of Freud and Skinner have said so long ago. The corollary to this necessarily is that the search for existential meaning is futile. My experiences have proven that beyond the obvious corollary, the source and root of all measures of misery emanate from this search.
Human beings, like all other 8.7 million species that inhabit the earth, are born. They evolve. They age. And they die. Probably unlike a few like the amoeba and its kin, who are reborn through multiplication. I the interim between coming to exist and ceasing to exist, like all of its 8.7 million bearers of genetic code in some form, human life stays instinctively, sways away from pain, and runs towards what provides pleasure.
Being blessed with a superior brain, an axiom that is questionable in itself, is not really an excuse to deny the natural course of all life and go search for that which is elusive by definition. The more we search, the more we stand the chance of being disappointed. And not only is the search futile, it inevitably ties into the pursuit of the lives and journeys of other lives just by proximity.
Think of the variety of angst in the world around. Marital discord, sibling discords, addiction, megalomania, and whichever flavor of disbalance we experience results from this search for meaning.
To differentiate ourselves from animals, our society invented cohabitation, fidelity, and marriage. Else, like all 8.7 million species, we are inclined to seek pleasure wherever we can experience it. Binding this experience into a social contract and attributing meaning to it through religious or legal association only curtail the core purposes of life and create pain. And being bound by constraints, we continue a journey of pain till it leads to misery.
As a society, we have elevated parenthood to a level of love and affection, of duty and sacrifice. With such elevation in attribution, beyond the basic purpose of sustenance of species, comes expectations. Expectations of fulfillment and care that are not natural. And yet, our evolved brains continue to search for meaning in our parent-child relationships. And we continue to grieve in pain leading to misery when said fulfillment does not fructify in reality.
When it really comes down to it, human beings are just as selfish and self-centered as all animals. With a gun to your head or on an empty stomach, all codes of civility and morality will converge to the need to evade the pain and choose the path to relief and pleasure. A mother who sacrifices her life to ensure her child's survival or a wife who goes hungry to fill her husband's stomach can be covered in the illusion of nobility. But the outcome of this is misery, whichever way you look at it. A child’s memory that their parent died to save her is a path to lifelong misery. A husband’s realization that he cannot provide for the wife is a source of self-pity, and in so many cases, suicide. And suicide does not serve in noble purpose either except leave the residual family in further misery.
The illustrations above are rather stark examples. But when you think of concepts of patriotism, loyalty, job satisfaction, and many such, you will, as I have, see that the pursuit is nothing greater than the pursuit of pleasure (hormones mostly) and avoidance of pain (adverse nervous stimuli). Associating words of high meaning with base needs are a measure of control to ensure that human life, within the social construct, does not devolve into extreme chaos that its “evolved” brain is often prone to. And, all these measures of verbal control allow society to achieve is a measure of the delay in the inevitable self-destruction.
Whichever path you seek to look at, the futility of the search for existential meaning manifests itself in the inevitable misery of its outcome.
If the outcome of our evolved brain is eventually to lead us down a path to self-destruction, is it really a blessing. Or just another measure of control to convince what essentially is a primitive brain to contain the base and natural calls of life.
