If you knew the workings of the universe and that the nature of this knowledge consequentially proves life to be meaningless in every conceivable way, would you keep that truth to yourself or share it with other people?

Home - Quora Link

I already have the knowledge of the workings and the knowledge of the ultimate nature of life. I will share it with you since you seem to care. Most people just want to decide for themselves, and I don’t blame them.

Think about the difference between meaning and purpose. Just contemplate that for a few seconds. A thing might have a purpose. That thing might also have meaning. The semantics of the two words are different, even if their definitions are similar.

You see, you don’t need to know the inner workings of the universe in order to answer the question. Just some hard critical thinking.

Life itself obviously doesn’t have a singular purpose. In fact, you can put life to many purposes. Parents used to have children in order to do all their housework for them. If you lived in the Soviet Union, your purpose was to build the communist state.

The point is that the purpose isn’t built-in. You create it.

On the other hand, life is perhaps the most meaningful thing there is. Thing about what it means to find meaning in something. There are things you can find meaning in and things you can’t. I personally can’t find meaning in partying. Just isn’t my thing.

You find meaning in something when you decide that that thing is bigger than you and you want to be a part of it. I never found meaning in joining the military. I couldn’t consider the military as bigger than me and I never wanted to be a part of it. On the other hand, working for CNN holds a great deal of meaning for me. It supports my rich, wannabe playboy lifestyle.

When you find meaning in something, you get bigger as a result of becoming part of it. That ‘becoming bigger’ aspect is the purpose you find in it.

Life itself is the ultimate in ‘things that are bigger than you that make you bigger just by being a part of it’. You might not yet have found a purpose in life yet, but that doesn’t mean it’s not there, waiting for you to discover.

In fact, life abhors a purpose vacuum. If you don’t create your own purpose in life, someone else will come along and put you to work on their purpose. Then your purpose will become to find meaning in it. You can find a job or work for yourself.

Being bored, listless, rudderless, is your mind’s way of working through the problem. Your subconscious exerts pressure on your consciousness while you sit around and wallow. Eventually you’ll find some kind of purpose to get you moving to do something. Something will come along and shock you out of idleness. You’ll find a purpose, if only for a brief time.

But it’ll suck. You’ll want to get away from it, because imposed purpose sucks. You want to find meaning. And life has endless roads to meaning. You can even find meaning in life itself, and have a bunch of kids, or pets. Just look for something you want to be a part of, and get closer to it.