The Meaning of Life..... and Everything.......

The quick and easy answer as everyone knows is 42 (and not to panic). Evolving from The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy this posits us (the earth) as part of a gigantic computer program designed to discover that very answer. The point is that it assumes an investigative mode of behaviour and by placing the question in the guise of a comedy places existence firmly in the field of the surreal. Perhaps this is not so far from the same existence being explained in terms of the pantheon of Ancient Greek Gods interfering in the mortal lives of their subjects. Both of these are explanations that put the basic responsibilities for life and its meanings on the shoulders of giants (or at least higher beings with differing senses of responsibility). Us, as puny mortals, are at the beck and call of outside events - the whims of fate.

In the literary novelistic worlds of the human hero the meaning of life is deduced from the actions of the combatants of existence. To do one's best in the face of overwhelming odds. To boldly go where one is told to go and perform as and when required. It may even be the heroism of the ultra-ordinary that is celebrated. Reginald Perrin trudging faithfully into the anti-heroic world of Sunshine Desserts every morning down those streets named after the greatest poets in the English Language. Perhaps the meaning of life is measured in terms of the rise and fall of individuals, of civilisations, even of celebrity.

Another option lies in the meaning of the examined life. Making sense out of the inexplicable. The song of the philosopher struggling to describe mankind (and womankind) to itself. The navel-gazing or the star-gazing, both activities requiring knowledge, vision and mental strength to face what may turn out to be a big fat existential nothing.

My own personal choice lies in the making of beauty and truth (or Truth and Beauty). To describe what you can see or what you wish to see. To create a culture or an image that serves to define that decision to explore. The meaning of life would then be more about the process than the result. In terms of the written word or the making of marks the resulting works of Art would (could, should, might) reveal the nature of existence. It can illustrate the framework in which we find ourselves, the time and space and nature that surrounds us and in turn reflects our options, our opinions and our operations to understand that universe of being. The meaning of life is personal, private, public, profound, and punctuated by confusion. In the pauses and the clauses of existence life may be as obvious and as misused as punctuation. We eat, shoot and leave.