What is the meaning of life?

Hello friends!

In the last month, I have received some emails and comments with this question: “What is the meaning of life?” Now that my entire family and I are mourning the passing of a dear lady (my great-aunt), the question has another weight. After all, how can someone just disappear from this world? How can the phrase by Jorge Luis Borges, in the short story O Imortal, be so true that “There is no face that is about to dissolve like the face of a dream?”

Well, we could approach this theme, life and death, in different ways, and in psychology and psychoanalysis, we also have very interesting productions such as the dichotomy life drive and death drive for Freud, middle age and getting ready for death in Jung, anguish and authentic choice in existential psychology, Victor Frankl’s logotherapy – who wrote his famous book “In search of meaning – A psychologist in the Concentration Camp” – among other interesting possibilities

In the consulting room, death appears not only with the death of a loved one or in religious crises, but it is present every time the question is about “What for?” i.e. “Why get up early in the morning and go to work?” or “Why continue this empty relationship?” or “Why study, work, get married, have children if I’m going to die?”

Finally, death is certain. The death of each one, death itself. If so, what’s the point of continuing?

These days, a photo of a Chinese lady who would be 178 years old has circulated on social media. The astonishing thing for me would not be the age. When I was a child, in a city close to São Lourenço, Carmo de Minas, lived the oldest woman in Brazil, at almost 130 years old. So, although it is an almost inconceivable age, the most amazing thing for me was the ability to live so long and be able to accompany the birth (and probably the death) of children, grandchildren, great-grandchildren, great-great-grandchildren, great-great-grandchildren, great-great-grandchildren…

Biology’s answer to the meaning of life is reproduction. βíos, Bios, (in bio + logia), means life in Greek. Therefore, the meaning of life in the study of life (biology) is the maintenance of life, the reproduction of the species.

I cited the example of the old Chinese woman above and it’s funny because in my family we all have children very early. So, I had the opportunity to meet my great-grandmother and my great-grandfather, I have all my grandparents, paternal and maternal, and my daughter met her great-great-grandparents, some say great-grandparents. Ascendancy and descent, life that goes on.

Only those who are parents can understand this response from biology. In fact, I find it difficult to explain the feeling and that’s why I feel so happy to see my friends having children, because only with experience is it possible to really know. It’s like somehow you’re still alive in your son or daughter, it’s like your continuity is better, perfected, it’s the birth of love and sacrifice. As I said, I don’t know how to explain it properly. But I fully understand the response from biology.

an ethical response

When we think about the meaning of our own life, in view of the imminent death, we can be astonished with time. We don’t have all the time in the world. And the next question should be: “What am I going to do with the time I have available?”

Well, for many people (famous or otherwise) this question and the answer they find individually will guide their entire lives. For example, Steve Jobs said, “Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know of to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. You are naked. There is no reason not to follow your heart.”

Following your heart is advice that is often given, which can help us find meaning in our actions. After all, with death, everything dies: belongings, pride, vanity, problems…

At the psychology faculty, sometimes the professors taught a group dynamics class, a very strong dynamic: after body relaxation, the activity consisted of thinking about the moment of one’s death. Think: what if you died now? What would you think in the last few seconds? What do you need to do? What did you leave behind? What can you do differently? What do you need to change?

I don’t need to say that psychology students, when doing the dynamic, left the room crying…

Conclusion

There is no way to conclude (conclude comes from conclude, which is close in Latin) the question about the meaning of life. Not only because meaning is totally individual and, consequently, non-transferable, but also because life often seems to be meaningless. The word sense, used throughout the text as a synonym for meaning, also means direction. For example, “I am going in that direction, in that direction”.

Life is often meaningless because it is often not about going somewhere else, reaching a goal, concluding something, but simply living. And laugh and cry.

“In life only life, in death only death” (Dogen).

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