Time and place and transience. Part 2

Time and place and transience

Part 2: You can be happy if you give up searching – but only by accepting you are lost in meaninglessness

The Greeks’ concern with transience seems to be about a search or desire for our actions to have some substance. If everything is transient, does this mean that our lives – so important to us – are really meaningless?

Jumping to the present day, postmodernism has enjoying attacking the foundations of reality and purpose by denying that there is any such thing as objective reality or ultimate purpose; everything is indeed transient and meaningless. This is often a destructive idea, undermining the foundations of society and of individuals’ sense of identity and purpose. However, some postmodernists turn this around into a liberating thing. If human beings have tormented themselves in the fruitless search for the holy grail of ultimate meaning – without realising that the search was always going to be fruitless because there is no ultimate reality – then there is joy and freedom if you accept that there is no such thing. This is because you realise that you have not failed in your quest – there is no holy grail to find. There is no burden of expectation; you are not missing out on anything; your life is not unfulfilled because you didn’t find it. While this could be a cause for despair because you realise that all life is, is a meaningless passing of the time with whatever is the most interesting activity you can find, instead, you joyfully embrace the fact that there is nothing more fulfilling to do than whatever I choose in the present moment. So, I might spend today studying to be a particle physicist, or engaged in gruelling but important charity work, or I may go shopping, watch TV or play bingo. Provided I feel that I have adequately surveyed the opportunities open to me and am happy with my choice of playing bingo, then I can revel in playing bingo as much as though I had found the holy grail. For me, today, playing bingo is the be all and end all of life. There is nothing more than the transient surfing of possibilities within the artificial construction of human society – but if you accept this, and can find possibilities that you enjoy, then your life is, after all, completely fulfilled. If anyone challenges you: “Really?! Bingo?! The prime purpose of your life?!” “Yes! I like bingo”.

This does, in fact, work as a valid logical position. Though we can’t help but feel deflated. Countless planets are uninhabited. I so easily might not have come into existence. Life has the ability to be inexpressibly wonderful, beautiful, profound. And I only have this one chance before dying into oblivion. But your answer to the big questions of life is: “I like playing bingo”. I prefer the Greek questions and answers. Rather than the postmodern “opt out” that either there is no meaning to life, or the meaning of life is whatever surface choice you make about how to spend your time, can we explore further what it might mean for our lives to have meaning and substance, and to produce something of lasting value.