“So all these elites are doing meditations because they want to curb the voice inside.”

“What voice inside?”

“The voice that is you. The self.”

“I don’t have a voice inside.”

“You never talk to yourself? Have thoughts?”

“I have thoughts, but I don’t really talk to myself.”

“So either you have reached a completely selfless state or you are cognitively impaired.” I snickered.

“Fuck you” he retorted, feigning insult and hurt, but belying neither.

That’s a fairly typical dinner conversation between me and my husband. We are an odd couple for sure. He is the rational scientist with few words and I’m the writer wanna-be drawn to emotional roller coaster rides. And yet he cries at movies and I don’t. It’s not exactly the opposites attract. The types of men I’m attracted to are the charismatic rebels, the bad boys, and my husband is decidedly not that. But every time I fly away, he is the gravity that gets me grounded before I crash. It’s like I’m the waves rushing to shore eager to make a thunderous impact but all I hit is the soft sand and I can barely make a sound. As unsatisfying as it may feel, it’s exactly what the waves need – a quiet more harmonious retreat into the ocean.

It’s a bit like the political odd couple James Carville and Mary Matalin. He is a passionate Democrat who got Bill Clinton into the White House whereas she is a top Republican strategist who served for Reagan and both Bushes. They vehemently disagree on just about everything and yet miraculously not only have they not killed each other, they clearly respect and love each other and have been happily married for over twenty years. Mary insists the reason why their marriage works is because it is not a democracy, it’s a “mom-o-cracy”. Amen to that!

But where my husband and I differ is not our political views. It’s our philosophical views. I’m emotionally and cognitively needy, insatiable rather, always driven to the next dopamine rush. He, on the other hand, has achieved some Zen equanimity, unperturbable by life’s ups and downs. I live for the future, overpreparing to force a sense of control over the unknown while fully aware of the futility of my endeavors. He does not worry. He lives in the moment. He attributes everything he has in life to pure luck and is supremely grateful all the time -- the man spontaneously exclaims “Life is good” at least a couple of times a day even during the Covid lockdown. I’m torn between admiring him as an enlightened human being and feeling envious of the simplicity through which he sees life, in a somewhat condescending way, stubbornly holding onto my self-identity of intellectual superiority. Similar to how I feel about devout Christians, wishing I could be one of them having a God to pray to – what a relief that would be, but acutely aware and proud of the fact that I will never be one of them.

So when I lament over the unbearable boredom and wrestle for the meaning of life, it is just so characteristic of my husband to casually throw out the remark: “The meaning of life is whatever you want it to be.” As if the answer to this profound question that has been the subject of such intense intellectual debate by many philosophers and thinkers for centuries, is so simple and plain in sight like the sky is blue and we need air to breathe.

It may be simple for my husband, but for me, I have to overanalyze it, deconstruct it, and digest it. The way I think of it, there are only three possible answers to the question of meaning of life: 1) The meaning of life is embedded in the design of life itself and therefore it is universal. 2) There is no meaning of life. Everything is random. Meaning of life is a construct invented by men that has no validity in the physical world. 3) There is no meaning embedded in life itself, but humans are compelled to search for meaning. In order to reconcile the conflict between the two, humans create meanings and thereby impacting the physical world.

Let’s examine them one by one. The hypothesis that meaning of life is related to the design of life inevitably leads to the question of the origin of life and the universe. Religions have a ready answer for that – whether it is the Christian God or the Muslim Allah, there are divine creators who created human life and therefore the meaning for any human is to swear undying loyalty to these creators so we can go to heaven. The problem is different people believe in different religions which believe in different creators. And far from being able to come together to create a universal narrative, the various religions fight with each other and curse infidels into their own versions of hell. So if I were to dedicate my life to Christianity, I could end up in the Christian heaven but will inescapably be condemned to the Muslim hell and vice versa. Neither seems like a good option to me.

Science is helpless in this area as well. The Big Bang theory, while widely accepted, is still just a theory and only describes how the universe may have expanded, but provides no explanation for how the universe came about in the first place. Similarly, the theory of evolution provides a probable explanation for how various species have adapted to the environment and competed to survive, but the origin of life, how life arises from non living matter, still remains a mystery. If we don’t know who or what and how life is created in the first place, it is impossible to trace to the original design to find meaning. So I’m rejecting the 1st answer, not because it is an improbable answer, but because our lack of knowledge renders any meaning derived from this answer (love, happiness, pursuit of knowledge, enlightenment, etc.) questionable and my inquisitive and skeptical mind is incapable of accepting a questionable answer as truth – it could well be an answer for many people, it’s just not for me.

That life is without objective meaning is the central belief in nihilism. The French philosopher Albert Camus asserts that the absurdity of the human condition is that people search for external values and meaning in a world which has none and is indifferent to them. And to resolve for this absurdity, Camus proposes humans have three ways out: commit suicide, accept religion even though we are aware that it is unprovable, or embrace the absurdity and continue to live in spite of it. Sounds absolutely miserable, doesn’t it? Again, I’m rejecting the 2nd answer, not because it is improbable, but because to live with such a dystopian view of the world is to commit myself to a slow mental suicide. I am not strong enough for that.

So that leaves me the only answer – the meaning of life is whatever you make of it, the simple wisdom from my husband. It is an answer rooted in pragmatism, that the practical, useful understanding of life is more important than searching for an impractical abstract truth about life. It is also an answer necessitated by the existential belief that even though life is without objective meaning, we can choose to live meaningfully, free of despair and anxiety, by the power of our free will. It is an answer that is simultaneously liberating and frightening. The idea that we can have meaningful impact of our own choosing is incredibly daring and empowering, but it also comes with the terrifying realization that no one else except ourselves are responsible for our own destiny, that we have no God to pray to, no one to blame for the “emptiness” we feel in our soul, not our parents, not our loved ones. Just ourselves.

Viktor Frankl wrote in his “Man’s Search for Meaning”, the seminal book written after he survived the Nazi concentration camp: It did not really matter what we expected from life, but rather what life expected from us. We need to stop asking about the meaning of life, and instead to think ourselves as those who were being questioned by life – daily and hourly… Life ultimately means taking the responsibility to find the right answer to its problems and to fulfill the tasks which it constantly sets for each individual. These tasks, and therefore the meaning of life, differ from man to man, and from moment to moment.

Apparently the saint husband of mine has found the meaning of life.  And me, a mere mortal, have to suffer through the insufferable void of being.