The question of the meaning of life is one of the first "main questions" that visit a thinking human being - we all once tried to understand why all this, why me, where to direct our forces and what goals should be set for ourselves. At the same time, in our wise era, he acquired a notoriety as the prerogative of adolescents. For us, adult people, everything has been clear for a long time, we went through this and it is worth pitying those who, being delayed in development, and at a respectable age continue to tinker with such commonplace problems. Approximately such a refrain is repeated by many of us, smugly confident that we have a solution to the problem that gnaws at the smartest people from the very dawn of mankind to this day (in the 20th century, among such thinkers, first of all, A. Camus, J. -P. Sartre, E. Fromm and V. Frankl).
It is worth, however, to look at this complacency a little more attentively, how quickly it is revealed that it is not at all an independent analysis, but an accidental, spontaneous, uncritical acceptance on faith of one of the concepts existing in the surrounding culture. But it is precisely in this matter that it is impermissible to be hasty and intertwined: priorities, the course and picture of our life depend on it. If we do not dare to really try to give our answer, we will be victims and blind puppets of those forces in the outside world that are always ready to forcibly install ideological viruses that are beneficial to them, whether they be the forces of religion, politics or mass culture welded to the economy.
All the variety of solutions to the problem of the meaning of life in human history can be roughly divided into two categories: 1) the meaning of your life is only in you; 2) the meaning of your life is outside of you. As a researcher of the legacy of F. Nietzsche and M. Heidegger, I can say that they just represent the radicalization of the first type and the second, respectively.
And here's what seems really interesting: no matter what answer we give, no matter what camp we join, they are united by a single principle proclaimed by their teachers: the principle of creativity. Without undertaking to give a strict definition, one can characterize creativity as any constructive, creative activity that increases the degree of order and organization of matter. It, therefore, has an infinite variety of forms: physical and spiritual self-development, cultural, political and legislative, economic and moral-educational, building relationships with other people, or at least a barn in the country. Without trying to build some kind of hierarchy between them, it should be noted that in the end one thing is important: creative activity, progressive movement - up, not down, at any angle, direction and along any trajectory.
The opposite of creativity will then be consumption, which, in essence, is the destruction, absorption of a product or service. It is stagnation, death, entropy, that is, a decrease in the degree of organization of matter, destruction or disintegration of its structures, inevitable and necessary as part of life and as an element of the process of creation, but destructive, if they only take a predominant position.
Why is it so important to understand this? Isn't this taste, the usual moralizing grumbling? Hardly, because regardless of your position on the meaning of life or to any other person, a person is so psychologically and biologically arranged that it is from creativity, its predominance over consumption, that the very possibility of true happiness depends on both ourselves and those around us. Nietzsche called this expansive energy, permeating us and setting in motion, a force striving for expansion and transformation, pulling upward, forcing us to change what is around, and to change, Nietzsche himself called the will to power. Both personal experience and historical evidence with no doubt: we are only truly happy when we let it unfold, when we create and improve, overcome and see how our will changes the inner and outer reality. Happiness is inaccessible to a bum, a lazy person, a consumer - at best, episodes of joy and pleasure, alternating with relentless longing, boredom, dissatisfaction and an oppressive feeling of emptiness. Here is what the great Arthur Schopenhauer has to say about this:
I believe, therefore, that people can be divided into two groups according to their inner structure and the way of finding real happiness: creators who pursue goals, and consumers who indulge their desires. The vast majority of us, I am convinced, can be happy only within the first group, but for various reasons (mainly out of fear, laziness and misunderstanding) we do not lead our own life at all - the life of consumers, a life that is contraindicated by nature itself. And at the same time we refuse to admit this even to ourselves, rationalizing and justifying inactivity or absence of higher forms of activity. Only creativity, which is at the same time love (after all, one cannot truly create without loving, and one cannot love without creating), is capable of giving us what we need. By rejecting it, we rob ourselves, becoming our own shadow. Only by investing ourselves in some meaningful business with love do we grow ourselves, educate ourselves and by our example those around us. Only by investing, we truly receive. Consuming, if this consumption is not at the service of the creative process, is not a respite in it, we are only losing. By making consumption, that is, annihilation, the content of our existence, we enter the service of entropy and ourselves become its premature victims - without moving forward, we inevitably roll back. As the famous Latin saying goes, non progredi est regredi. By making consumption, that is, annihilation, the content of our existence, we enter the service of entropy and ourselves find ourselves premature victims - without moving forward, we inevitably roll back. As the famous Latin saying goes, non progredi est regredi. By making consumption, that is, annihilation, the content of our existence, we enter the service of entropy and ourselves become its premature victims - without moving forward, we inevitably roll back. As the famous Latin saying goes, non progredi est regredi.
The first task of life for each of us, therefore, is to find what we love, what we are able to do well, what we would like to change and what to work on - and surrender to it. Not in the name of something or someone, but in the name of ourselves. Why this is needed besides enjoying the process itself, if this reason is not enough for someone, there is a completely different question. How can this be done? First of all, you need to look back at your life and figure out what until now gave us the greatest pleasure, what business we had a special craving for, what was given to us better than anything else and inspired, what we would like to change in the world around us and in ourselves. And at the same time, it is important not to be trifling, not to limit your creative impulses by building a barn or replenishing your knowledge: by agreeing to be less significant people than we could be,preferring small goals and small efforts, we often doom ourselves to the same unhappiness and dissatisfaction.
In conclusion, as further food for thought, I will cite three quotes I once wrote, the first of which has been a guiding star for me for a long time (which, however, does not mean that I have always had the courage to follow her).
© Oleg Tsendrovsky
