The Meaning of Life

I found this section odd because it seems very much at odds with Taylor's essay that I discussed earlier on this topic. At any rate, it is interesting and worth mentioning.

Again, Taylor considers the problem of the meaning of life through the myth of Sisyphus. Clearly this is a case of a meaningless existence. What is important here is not the size of the stones being rolled, how easy it is to do so, whether or not instead of stones it is a valuable gem, but what matters is that the activity is pointless. In the end it comes to nothing. (Now, however, supposing that there were a point to it, say the stones that he rolled up the hill were then assembled to create a marvelous temple, then we could not say that his activity was meaningless. This is essentially the line of thought that Taylor emphasizes in his other essay. However, in this essay, he stops there. He mentions the idea of giving the activity a purpose and then stops there saying, more or less, "but let's instead consider this". So I do not exactly know what to make of it. Maybe his thoughts on the meaning of life from this book and from the essay can be meshed... I don't know yet.)

Taylor then introduces a slight variation in the story. Everything remains exactly the same except now Sisyphus has a deep desire to roll stones and is blissfully happy that he is fated to do so forever. From the external point of view his activity is still meaningless as it lacks in any sort of point whatsoever. To us, everything is exactly the same as it was before he liked it. For Sisyphus, however, this slight change makes a world of difference. He will find meaning in his activity and thus, from the internal perspective, his activity has become meaningful. Has it? I really do not know. I will say however that little children seem to find their games very meaningful despite the fact that they are sometimes as pointless as rolling stones. Intrinsic value seems to be in the eye of the beholder, but is that what we are really after? External value/meaning seems more important, but as Taylor thinks there is none to be had... Anyway enough side commentary for now.

After considering the Myth of Sisyphus, Taylor applies the lessons learned their to life in general. First he considers a bunch of different lower animals whose entire existence is composed of eating, sleeping and reproducing. Clearly these, as with Sisyphus, are the image of meaningless existences. Yet, this is true of every animal the point of whose life is inevitably no more than life itself. The whole of life, then, seems like a great machine feeding on itself and running on and on for an eternity and coming to nothing. And we are part of that life. Though we are certainly different in many ways from the rest of living things (conscious of our own activity, aware of our goals, differences between each generation, etc.) we are still a part of this utterly pointless activity. We pursue goals all of which are of transitory significance and upon completing one we are off on to the next one which is, essentially, just more of the same. Each life resembles Sisyphus's climb to thetop of his hill, each day is one of his steps; the difference is that whereas Sisyphus returns to push the stone up again, we leave this to the next generation. (Here Taylor returns to the theme of "what if Sisyphus was building a great temple" and says that, though beautiful, this temple will eventually crumble like all other things. Buildings and nations are built and then fall and nothing persists forever. In his other article however, what gave meaning was not the building of the temple but the creating and this I suppose is unaffected by his comments here. Yet, creative activity is not discussed at all in this discussion of his.)

At this point, Taylor goes back to Sisyphus and considers what it would be like if his activity had a point and thus had meaning. Suppose again that Sisyphus was building a temple and that he wanted more than anything to do this. After great toil and long years, he had finally completed the temple and could now enjoy and contemplate it for all enterity. But, then what? This would be a life of infinite boredom! Clearly there had been a meaning here, a point to his existence, yet now that it is fulfilled anything that was worthwhile here has entirely slipped away. Surely this, external meaning, can not be the meaning we were looking for.

Thus, Taylor considers again the case of internal meaning (i.e. where Sisyphus had a great desire to roll rocks). Now that it has been established that there is no external meaning to our lives and that even if there was one it would not at all be what we were looking for, Taylor believes that we can reintroduce an important factor that had been neglected in our attempt to view human lives objectively: our own wills and deep interest in what we find ourselves doing. From this point we can see that the meaning our lives lack is of the external sort, the sort that eventually would result in infinite boredom, whereas the meaning that we do have is of the inner sort which is our compulsion to do just that which we are in fact doing and to continue doing it so long as we live. So if the long dead builders of now ruined buildings were to come back today and ask what was the point of all their toil we should say that it was not what was built that gave meaning to their lives, but rather it was the building that did so. Those things that we busy ourselves with now, the realizing of our ephemeral plans, are precisely the things in which are wills are involved and in which we are interested and as we do them no such questions of a point seem necessary. That we are interested is enough. The whole justification and meaning of our, and anything's, activity is just that it is our will to pursue it. What follows is the end of Taylor's discussion on the matter:

"A human being no sooner draws his first breath than he responds to the will that is in him to live. He no more asks whether it will be worthwhile, or whether anything of significance will come of it, than the worms or the birds. The point of his living is simply to be living, in th emanner that it is his nature to be living. He goes through his life building his castles, each of these beginning to fade into time as the enxt is begun; yet, it would be no salvation to rest from all this. It would be a a condemnation, and one that would in no way be redeemed were he able to gaze upon the things he has done, even if these were beautiful and absolutely permanent, as they never are. What counts is that one should be able to being a new task, a new castle, a new bubble. It counts only because it is there to be done and he has the will to do it. The same will be the life of his children, and of theirs; and if the philosopher is apt to see this a pattern similar to the unending cycles of the existence of Sisyphus, and to despair, then it is indeed because the meaning and point he is seeking is not there - but mercifully so. The meaning of life is from within us, it is not bestowed from without, and it far exceeds in both its beauty and permanence any heaven of which mean have ever dreamed or yearned for. " I found this to be a particularly good passage and a particularly good discussion on the meaning of life. His earlier paper could, I suppose, be used to augment these ideas so as to allow one to critique the value of his or another's activity from within. Anyway though, this discussion here could stand alone and be enough I think.

THE END of Taylor's "Good and Evil"