The Paradox of Meaning

Josep Ramoneda in an essay in “Existential Utopia: New Perspectives on Utopian Thought”  entitled: “At the End of Utopia---Indifference” begins by stating the paradox of existence “being has no meaning” but “meaning is necessary for life.”  Religious believers oppose the first premise as they believe there is transcendent meaning to life. Existentialists accept the idea that existence is a mystery and that individuals function within the observable conditions of existence. For Shakespeare’s Hamlet when we die is “When we have shuffled off this mortal coil” and “To die” is “to sleep.” (Act III, Scene 1).” Hamlet’s sleep is in fact the eternal sleep. Death is like a preternatural presence that is with each of us every day of our life.

Samuel Beckett the famous Irish playwright and author lived the paradox of existence. He believed deeply that existence is absurd, but, in spite of this his work was so creative that he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature.  He realized how disparate his lived experience was from the view he held as he had one of his literary characters say the words that could apply to Beckett as well, ''You must go on, I can't go on, I'll go on.'' Beckett was known for his Theatre of the Absurd plays with “Waiting for Godot” being his best known play of this genre.

The more usual path in the West is to be born into a Christian family of some ilk and to be indoctrinated into that religion, with its teaching of a transcendent meaning to life.  Some of us free ourselves from those bonds, but few examine life as Socrates insisted when he said, “the unexamined life is not worth living.”  We seek meaning consistent with our culture’s values in very traditional ways.  It is when we cannot find meaning in conventional traditions that the vagaries of existence emerge to trouble us.  The earlier blog post on “Suicide” shows what happens when life becomes meaningless.