If You Had the Answer to the Meaning of Life, What Would You Do With It Anyway?
By: Shelly Fagan
Tags: Life, Religion, Buddhism, Philosophy, Existentialism

Photo by Farnoosh Abdollahi on Unsplash

All my life I have been obsessed about discovering the answers to the really big questions. Why are we here? What is the meaning of life? Yesterday, something occurred to me.

Would the answer change anything?

I suppose on some level, we believe once we have unlocked the secrets of the universe, we might have some measure of order in the chaos, or at least suffering would make sense. With the key, we could escape the cycle of rebirth and karma. Perhaps the answer would instantly transform us or maybe transport us to Nirvana.

In possessing the truth, we would have something that we now lack. We are on a journey to wholeness by seeking the answers because without it, we need understanding. Without it, we are incomplete.

Something is missing.

So much of this reality is based on a duality, but it is nothing compared to the value humans assign to experiences. While many people obsess over the “beneficial” aspects of life like success, pleasure, or recognition, the philosopher is just as imprisoned.

In this reality, we agree that certain things have worth, while others do not. We value the art, but not the artist’s process when it does not produce. We worship people who continue to strive in face of overwhelming odds, but not those who recognize the futility and give up. We value things, thoughts and intentions — the “stuff” of this existence.

The more “spiritually evolved” have reconciled this reality to a place where negative experiences are necessary because without pain we cannot know pleasure, without evil we cannot experience good. Their hamster wheel is coming to acceptance in light of the suffering. They tell us you create your reality, you must want this. Because these are concepts or ideas and not tangible objects, spending our energy to find the answers is somehow less profane.

Our pursuit of the big existential questions is no different. We assign value to the seeking because it is spiritual in nature, and in our judgment it is elevated from the physical. Yoga, meditation, or just thinking is so much better than chasing money, sex or fame.

But is it any different?

Are our desires better because we judge them to noble?

The Space Between

I have often wondered what was meant by “the space between.”

I have always intellectually understood what it means — how it represents the gaps between thoughts. It is a place of pure potential where all things are possible. It is a void stuffed full of possibility, just waiting for us to come along and manifest something really fantastic.

That’s the thing. Even in that emptiness, we always have to do something. The space between needs creativity. We need to be there. All the infinite possibility does not satisfy us. We are moving toward some goal because where we are at now is not whole, good and perfect.

The implication of the word “potential” means that something could be made and emptiness by itself is not complete.

Lately, I have come to understand the space between as something different.

The gap is the place where we no longer define experiences by duality, by desirable and undesirable, good or bad. This is the place where there is no good or evil, wanted or unwanted. There is nothing missing, there is no need to create, there isn’t even anything to accept.

Everything (and nothing) just is.

By finding refuge there, we no longer lack anything. We do not have to judge things as good or desirable, as bad or unwanted. We have no need to understand the meaning of life because life isn’t required to have meaning — neither is suffering, death, how the universe came about or even if there is a God.

It is.