I always thought having meaning is what makes someone human. It is the ultimate human purpose: to find meaning in an apparently meaningless life.
I also thought that someone surpasses another by having more meaning in their lives. That their actions are intended. They know what their goals are. They know what they’re doing. Their hobbies, activities, and ambitions lead them toward a central point. The day they reach their awaited post, everything they have done and believed in suddenly makes sense. All the years of labour and soul-sucking work make sense.
Consider Narendra Modi, the most popular politician in the world and the prime minister of the largest republic. This man did not spend his life being a family man, searching for wealth, attempting career after career or trying his luck with the notorious Indian civil service exams.
He decided to give his life to politics early on. A politician at every inch of his body. His devotion to his work made him the most deserving person to be the prime minister of more than 1.4 billion people.
Most people who seem to have meaning in their lives don’t question their path.
The politician becomes a minister.
The innovator becomes an entrepreneur.
The thinker becomes a philosopher.
The sign of meaningless is that the purpose is questioned repeatedly. The questioning politician thinks, why should people elect me? The unclear innovator thinks, what do I have to innovate? And the lost thinker wonders if it even matters anymore.
Being Extraordinary
We all know that to be extraordinary at anything. The trick is to keep doing that thing over a long period of time. If someone is great at horse riding after two years of practical learning, he becomes proficient at it after ten years. After 30 years, he becomes a master horse rider. And after 50 years, he becomes perhaps the horse’s extra limb. He’s more a horse than a man at that point.
What is amazing about this feat of accomplishment is not just to see the great control he has over his horse. But the great control he has over himself over something. His discipline in his art is what makes him admirable.
Within the human project, then, the goal should be for every individual to find one activity at which he spends the majority of his time to hone and master. He naturally succumbs to this activity without additional coercion or convincing.
That the politician attends the political rallies and the caucus meetings and builds friendships with fellow party members should be a no-brainer. The same is true for the innovator. He spends his day and night honing his business, marketing, sales, and development skills. He works with various startups. He learns about the world of VC funding, runways and startup accelerators. He shares his abode with his co-workers and co-founders, sacrificing freedom and personal space. All for his life’s passion, i.e., to start a company, earn independently and be his own boss.
And what should the philosopher do? His is a lonely world. All he has are his thoughts. He can perhaps exercise his thoughts by reading and writing. He spends his days wondering. Nothing else to entertain him. He participates in the human world; though his body is in this world, his soul isn’t. How else can he engage with the world? To not bore himself to death, perhaps he can go around finding out what thoughts his fellow human beings carry. What are they thinking about? What is bothering them?
Redeeming Oneself from Loss of Meaning
If one has a particular ambition, at which he hopes to become a master one day and become its symbol, he needs to not only clarify his goal (i.e. for the politician that he wants to be a politician) but also find the activities that lead him closer to those goals (i.e. for the politician he needs to attend rallies, party meetings, keep up with the news, etc.). He then needs to repeat those activities nonstop.
If the person does not find those activities engaging (for e.g., the chef doesn’t find shopping for vegetables thrilling), he needs to find a way to engage himself. So that his ambition lives on. What he cannot do is let his ambition die!
When he loses motivation, he slowly forgets about his ambition. He forgets his purpose in the world. Then, slowly, he feels his life carries no meaning and is at a loss of what to do and what his whereabouts are in this world.
The human being is a laborious creature. He works to feed himself. He does another kind of work (i.e. activity) to leisure himself. Thus, all life is work. He has no choice but to labour. If he does nothing, he finds himself bored and rather meaningless. Thus, he ought to choose an ambition, stick to it and keep grinding until his very death. That is the closest thing he can find to meaning in a mysterious life.
