A Question That’s as Large as Life Itself

The question What is the meaning of life? is unanswerable, but that doesn’t keep people from trying.

Many of the answers I have received, however, merely turn the question in upon itself, something like the late physicist Richard Feynmen’s verse:

I wonder why I wonder why

I wonder why I wonder.

John Martin of Palmdale holds that there is only one answer--perpetuation of the species. “With that accomplished,” he says, “life per se becomes academic.”

John M. Freter recalls the story of a young man seeking the answer who made his way to an aged guru who was said to know. “‘What, great teacher,” the young man asked, “is the meaning of life?” The old man whispered, “Life is like a barrel.” Incredulous, the young man shouted, “Life is like a barrel!” And the old man answered, “All right already. So life isn’t like a barrel.”

Pat Coil of Laguna Hills reminds us that the most important beings on Earth are the worms, for without their tilling of the soil there could be no other life. “And the real truth is that the real truth will still remain the real truth, whatever that may be, no matter how loudly we disbelieve it.”

Alfred Cavaliere of Beverly Hills makes the point that all the persons I quoted on the meaning of life from Life magazine’s article on the subject were men. “A woman, of course,” he adds, “does not have to ask the question.” (Of the 50 persons quoted by Life, only eight were women.)

To correct that imbalance somewhat, let me quote one of them now. Writer Jamaica Kincaid was quoted as saying, “If anyone should absolutely, definitely, truthfully find out why we are here, please do not tell me. If I were to really, really know, I feel certain that I should then ask, ‘Please, may I now leave?’ ”

Gennie Bone of Banning suggests that a slogan painted on trash containers in Australia is the answer: “Do what’s right.” First, we have to know what’s right.

David P. Lewis thinks the answer comes from a go-go dancer who has the last lines in a play he recently finished.

She says: “You want a happy ending, Larry? Try another world. In this one there are no endings, happy or otherwise. Every day you pick up the pieces of yesterday and try to put them together so you can make it through to sleepy-time tonight, and be ready for another go in the morning, which just leaves you wasted and wondering what all the excitement was about; and hoping that somehow tomorrow will be better. So all you can do is keep on dancing, and try a new step from time to time and pray to God somebody applauds.”

Joe Gottesman, trying to answer the question for a 9-year-old, put it in verse:

Why has the void been disturbed?

Why are there children at play?

Why has the chaos been curbed?

Why are there crows? Why croquet?

Why are there gaggles of geese?

Instead of just googols of zeros?

Why are there Popes and police

And pills for digestion and Neros?

Why is there Something, not Nothing?

Stand by for the mystery unmasked!

It would seem to appear

There is Something, my dear,

So the question you ask can be asked.

Numerous readers expressed sadness that I overlooked the Bible. Don Kellogg of Playa del Rey writes, “Someone should tell Jack Smith that if he wanted to know the meaning of life, he was wasting his time asking mankind. His creator has been trying to give him the answer for thousands of years. The answer is in a book called the Holy Bible.”

M. Yancey of Fallbrook recalls that when a woman told pianist Vladimir Horowitz that she didn’t care for the music he had played, but that it was outstanding when he played it, Horowitz replied: “Madam, it doesn’t matter.”

As antidote for all this cynicism, I’ll end on a note of sweetness and light by quoting Louise Peebles, whose husband, Byron, is recovering from heart bypass surgery, an event that has caused her to reflect on the meaning of life:

“To freely give and receive the love of other human beings and to appreciate and protect the glorious planet on which we live.”

Amen.