More on meaning
It's funny that Jeff should bring up pigeons when it comes to the meaning of life. I don't say that flippantly, er- not too flippantly - because a long time ago I got to asking the same question, and the answer was in the bird. I'll explain - I was in Boston, near the MFA, actually, and I watching some birds pecking at the ground. Simultaneously I was thinking about the meaning of life, and it occurred to me that the birds had something figured out. The answer - just do your thing. They were birds, and their job was to look for seeds and worms and things like that. I'm a human, and my job is to go to school, then start working, then - oops - then what?!
That gets to the second issue I'd like to address today. When you get to a certain age, and that age is in a lower entry if you haven't been reading along, but I'm not going to repeat it, you start thinking about your life in a different way. In your teens and early twenties, it's about school, if you've got that opportunity, and starting to forge a path in a career that you feel good about. When you get a little older, you wonder, well, what was all the fuss? If I am already there, what do I do next?
Do I pursue the white picket fence and the perfect family, when that aspiration has already been shown to be a myth for most? Do I try really hard to get lots of money? Do I sit at home and meditate? What would be the young American woman's equivalent of the pecking pigeon that so inspired me then, pursuing its daily fill?
Being a human makes things so much more complicated, and having a certain number of choices due to what are essentially economic opportunities make things still more complex. When you are in need of the next meal, the meaning of life is to get the next meal. But when Americans are glutted with too many meals, going so far as to pay people to get them to eat less and to burn off excess calories, we seem to need a hierarchy of things to pursue.
If I were to write one, it would go something like this:
Food and shelter
Social interaction
Meaningful work
Love
Spiritual well-being
So food, shelter and a few good friends would come first, and as you get each thing you'd move on to the next. But the problem is that as you get further along, the definition of each thing get vaguer and more personal. What is meaningful work for you? Is it a job that brings you money to enjoy or spend on someone you care about? Is it working at a soup kitchen for minimum wage plus a good bit of personal satisfaction?
Okay, say you get the right job, whatever it is for you.
Then you move on to the next thing. What is love, anyway? Haven't we reduced it to a bartering of qualities, from looks to education to the size of your salary? Is the romance of the heart gone, as few of us even experienced parents who stayed married and many of us have had trouble finding that fabled One?
Anyways, say you find him or her.
Then you move to spiritual fulfillment. What if sitting on a cushion for hours everyday doesn't do it for you? It hurts your back. You feel the need to check your email too often. You're not sure you want to give up your sense of individuality, even if it is an illusion that will end when your heart ceases to beat. Well, yes, now we are up a creek.
Sometimes I think we've evolved a step or two too far, because beyond simply staying alive, none of it seems very clear. Even reproducing ourselves is no longer the obvious way to have a good, successful life - I mean, I didn't even think to put it in my list!
After all this discussion, I think I will just go back to the pigeon's message, as vaguely as it applies to the slice of human life that I am living - Just do your thing. Do it everyday, enjoy it, and do it until you die.