Reason for life versus meaning of life
Instead of thinking and brooding about the unanswerable “meaning of life”, much better, more immediate, and urgent should be (is?)”reason for life”.
It is much more dynamic and useful too. I like “reason”- the tools, equipment, and mechanisms are clearly stated -the reason is the system that can, should, and ought to produce the answer. I like “for” instead of “of”. It implies that life requires, and needs action, that what is, is not satisfactory, but you are in just the right place and time to exert effort toward better. It is almost like in that brilliant question is a very positive and natural beginning, budding of an answer! In contrast, the eternal “meaning of ” smells of linguistic masturbation, wallowing in self-invented doubts, not leading anywhere. It looks to me that, again, in the question of the meaning of life the answer “there is none” is there already.
Or, which means the same: “God” or “know thyself”. It (this question) questions the natural feeling about life. As “it is not it”. You have, it almost demands, invent a new language to name the meaning beyond yourself, like you, as you are now, are not good enough. Like “there is no point in doing anything until you’ll be better, wiser, knowing something more.” But the dimensions of those changes are permanently and immanently beyond you. Hence: “God”.
Reason for life is so humanistic and encouraging. It retains the philosophical generalization, but by pointing toward “reason”- the tool you are familiar with and toward a big thing-“life” -it suggests a matryoshka doll structure of the answer. There is no one answer, there are many projects inside bigger and bigger goals and directions. You can start right away, today, and know that you can enfold them (the projects) as life unfolds. And as Desiderata says “it unfolds as it should”.
Ecohumanist Lab 