Question for the Commentariat.

[silveradept]

Please answer the following two-parter, if you feel comfortable doing so.

(a) Have you successfully resolved the existential crisis of not only mortal life, but the likelihood that you and what you do will be essentially meaningless in the history of the cosmos?

(b) If so, please let me know your solution and its reasons. If not, please let me know where your difficulties are.

I'm still wrestling this one, and I have yet to find an acceptable answer in either religion or philosophy. A TARDIS and/or the ability to see what the post-life experience is like, remember it, return to life, and then evaluate by that standard is about as far as I've gotten for acceptable outcomes. I'm sure there has to be at least one that will click and fill the void of being able to conceptualize oneself in cosmic terms.

Comments

[kaptainvon]

Like fascination and adeliej, I come down on the side of making my own meanings. They don't have to outlast me, but if they provide some transient amusement, some temporary edification, that'll do - and if someone even one generation removed from me says "that Von, he knew what he was talking about", I'm calling that a win. What worries me is that I wrong or wound someone within my lifetime, not that I leave something beyond it; what entitles me to ask for that? It is a vast and uncaring universe and I am not the protagonist of its story - just part of its ensemble of billions.

I suppose I haven't so much resolved it as resigned myself to it.

[silveradept]

Resignation seems like the wrong idea to me, mostly because my psyche has issues with anything associated with "defeat" on matters of the intellect. Although, you do raise a good point in being more concerned about wounding someone in this lifetime.

[kaptainvon]

I see where you're coming from, though I don't count refusing to fight an unwinnable battle against an ineffable foe as a defeat - quite the opposite, in fact, a victory for common sense and priority management. Sometimes, the only way to win is not to play.

[silveradept]

Quite. Hopefully, I don't need to play a million games of Tic-Tac-Toe against myself to figure that out.