The Searching Self

8/11/2019 The Searching Self

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The Searching Self: Beyond the Cycle of Worms.

In his essay “The Meaning of Life” Richard Taylor defines meaninglessness as

“essentially endless pointlessness.” A meaningless life is one that is caught up in an “idioticcycle.” Death can be seen as a welcome event because it brings this cycle to an end.

Meaninglessness involves “ a repetitious cyclic activity that never comes to anything” Can

meaning simply be found if we embrace this type of activity and reconcile ourselves to the tasks?Taylor has Sisyphus want precisely what the gods inflict on him. It is his desire to roll the stone

and his desire is therefore fulfilled for all eternity. This twist does not bring mercy to the

perversion; it in fact multiplies the perversion like a Stalinist show trial.Taylor argues that our lives share certain patterns with all life. Taylor describes caves in

New Zealand inhabited by worms that lure insects to their death. Taylor asks, “What great thing

awaits all this long and repetitious effort and makes it worthwhile? His answer is “really

nothing.” Taylor offers the insight that “the point of any living thing‟s life is evidently nothing but life itself” Life is defined as “a vast machine feeding on itself, running on and on forever to

nothing.” Taylor believes that since we are part of this life “the differences are not as great as we

like to think.” What makes us different from the cannibalistic worms? Are we not the same? Dowe not create our own cave- bubbles that break as soon as something sharp touches them?

The old house in the village where I was born is now in decay. My grandfather built it

after he returned from the United States to fight in the Great War. Here sixteen people lived,

loved, rejoiced and mourned. I remember sitting on the wooden floor in 1989 looking throughold photographs and letters that my father wrote to his parents and brothers. My tears mixed with

the ash of my cigarette. This once beautiful village house is no more. The rocks rolled only to

crumble. The Buddhists believe that we can end our suffering by embracing impermanence. I

have never liked this answer even if I know it is true. I am left with what Taylor calls an“unspeakable sadness.” It is not enough for me to embrace the notion that “the day is sufficient

to itself.” Taylor argues the point to living is simply to be living in the manner that it is in our

nature to be living. It is not that we stand on the shoulders of giants; rather we stand onfragments and remains. The landscape is already a deathscape that no amount of grass trimming

can mask. If the result of all our activity is ruin, what is the point?

The Sumerian quest story of Gilgamesh, the King of Uruk was first told in 1500 BCE.Fearful after the death of his friend Enkidu, Gilgamesh sets out on quest to find the secret of

immortality. After many adventures and struggles, he fails to find the elixir that will rescue him

from death. We are told that the search itself remains the most important thing even when thequest ends in failure. I am not willing to accept this position. The stories that we tell reveal that

the quest never gives us what we intended to get. The quest attempts to bring back the lost

object. Isis searches for the remains of her husband Osiris. Orpheus descends to the underworld

to bring back his wife Eurydice. Demeter attempts to rescue her daughter Persephone from the

dead. If Lacan is correct, the lost object is never to be found. The lesson of Moby Dick would bethat the pursuit of the object only leads to death. Captain Ahab found the white whale but it is

death that surfs the waves that doom Ahab and his crew.

One can say “yes, the archaeologist can unearth this piece of ceramic tile, but her PhDthesis will never record what was important unless it is recorded by the person who lived there”.

These tiles were laid together with memories whose meaning will always remain secret. It is not

the doing that counts, but what can be achieved by the doing. I agree with Taylor, the meaning oflife is within us. It is not something given and readymade.



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Leo Tolstoy in his My Confession writes that there are five basic attitudes towards life

and meaning. We can live in ignorance of the problem of the meaning of life. We can ignore the

question and seek pleasure. We can admit that life has no meaning and commit suicide. We canadmit that life has no meaning and continue to live. The attitude chosen by Tolstoy is that

“without faith one cannot live.” Faith for Tolstoy allows one to be satisfied with life. Tolstoy

writes, “ In contradistinction to the people of our circle who struggled and murmured against fate because of their privation and suffering, these people accepted diseases and sorrows without any perplexity or opposition but with the calm and firm conviction that it was all for good.” Tolstoy

is convinced that “the more intelligent we are, the less we will understand the meaning of life”

Tolstoy‟s wise peasants “live, suffer and approach death and suffer in peace and more often in joy” I cannot accept Tolstoy‟s easy answer. A people drugged on faith can be easily brought to

the Gulag to be told “it was all for good.”

David Swenson argues that happiness “is life‟s vital fluid and the very breath of its

nostrils.” Though I would like to believe in such optimistic remarks, I do not think, “happinessand life are so much one and the same thing” Life itself brings forth the evidence that happiness

is a fleeing thing. We have a need for happiness but happiness is not something that life

provides. Given this, I am not in agreement with Louis Pojman who argues that we should live asthough the theistic worldview were true. It is the “as thought \” and the “as if” that I find

problematic. Pojman provides us with the same answer presented by Tolstoy. Pojman is correct

when he argues that secularism fails to produce moral saints like Jesus, Maimonides, Father

Kolbe and Mother Teresa but neglects to ad that these saints became exemplars because ofsecularism.” Secularism and theism are tied more closely than either group wishes to

acknowledge.

I am not satisfied by Schopenhauer‟s answer that “on the whole life is a disappointment,nay a cheat.” I do not find the “blessed calm of non-existence” preferable. Schopenhauer argues,

“The happiness of any given life is to be measured not by its joys and pleasures, but by the extent

to which it has been free from suffering” Schopenhauer condemns life in advance. Much of life

is about suffering and un-ease, so that any joy however large does not seem to put suffering intoa corner. Given the accounts of Schopenhauer‟s own lif e and his legendary sexual appetite, one

wonders why he so full of complaint? Was the orgasm after-glow not enough to melt his

pessimism or did he see pleasure as a cheating lure cast by an optimism that no longer believedin itself?

I agree with Schopenhauer that this world cannot be “the successful work of an all -wise,

all-good and at the same time all- powerful Being.” The Nietzschean answer would be to find joywithin the suffering. Here the words of Bertrand Russell are important: “Be it ours to shed

sunshine on their path, to lighten their sorrows with the balm of sympathy, to give them the pure-

joy of a never tiring affection, to strengthen their failing courage, to instill faith in hours of

despair.” The insights that Russell gives us comes from the strength of the free mind that hasovercome the mediocrity that spreads itself as the ground of culture.

Moritz Schlick in his remarkable essay, “On the Meaning of Life” argues that we shall

never find an ultimate meaning in existence, if we view it only under the aspect of purpose.”

Schlick sees purpose as a burden. Empty work is a burden. This work is not performed for itsown sake. Schlick affirms that: the core and ultimate value of life can lie only in such states that

exist for their own sake”. He calls such activities “play” because they contain “free purposeless

action.” In this joyous play all “working days become holidays” This creative play producesvalues that can transform this “war -racked globe” Schlick names the poet, the artist and the



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unlucky, grief stricken, victims of injustice.” The question arises when “we start reflecting on

the point of the routine activities we endlessly perform.”

It seems pointless to argue with someone whether priming the drywall is actually“painting” the drywall even as your brush is coated with paint. You stand in front of t he drywall

thinking there are better things to do with my time, but then reflecting further you realize there is

no need to turn to religion or morality or join a new club. There is no need to ask if there is acosmic order, nor is it necessary to remain in unreflective innocence or willfully embraceignorance.

If the everyday is problematic then a shift in how the everyday is seen is required. Kekes

writes, „everyday life is what life mostly is. Keeping it going requires constant struggle. From a birth we did not choose to a death we rarely desire, we have to cope with endless problems. If we

fail, we suffer and what do we gain from success? No more than some pleasure, a brief sense of

triumph, perhaps a little piece of mind. But these are only interludes of well being because our

difficulties do not cease.Kekes ignores many other solutions available to the so called „difficult business of

living.” In these well-argued accounts of meaning, reason and logic are not saviors. It is as if

theorists believe that by providing necessary and sufficient conditions that difficulties will cease.The difficulties do not cease. How we deal with them is the challenge. Herein we can locate

whatever meaning may exist.

The Searching Self

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