As you progress through life and shape your life story by your actions, another kind of progression is also present. This progression can be more or less pronounced but as far as I can tell it is something everbody experiences to some degree. I am talking about the progression from youthful exuberance, optimism and ignorance in your younger years to the seasoned wisdom, authority and responsibiity of your adult years. This progression have the power to totally transform your view of the world and consequently your personality - and at least for most it seems like an unavoidable progression. Since this progression is unavoidable you might as well make the best of it and make sure your path through life becomes an enjoyable and rewarding journey. Depending on your philosophy you might want the journey to be a long and slow one where you enjoy the individual stages as much as the journey itself, or you could let your childish curiosity guide you through it in order to experience the experiences, which are only possible by arriving at “the other side”.

Interestingly the concept of your life as a journey was first conceived in hinduism. Connected to the notion of life as a journey there are also a set of 4 hindu values or objectives designed as ideal goals to achieve. They are listed here in ascending order of importance :

Artha (Property, Material wealth)

As the first objective in the list (and therefore least important) we find the acquisition of property and material wealth. This is in acknowledgement that money and material wealth are important in the sense that it can make it easier to achieve other objectives like Dharma (explained later). The Artha objective is not to be understood as encouragement of greed and pursuit of wealth for the wealth’s sake, it is after all the least important of the 4 objectives and even though poverty is not glorified in hinduism, freeing yourself from the illusion that money is very important, is a part of the more important objective Moksha.

Kama (Desire and sensations, Sensual pleasure)

The ideal of kama has to do with the sensual pleasure you can achieve in various ways and your desire to do so. Probably the term is mostly known in the western world from Kamasutra the sensual pleasures achieveable from sexual behavior, but primarily it refers to enjoyment of music, painting, drama, dance, etc. Kama is a highly respected ideal, but it is expected to be confined to a certain part of your life, a certain stage of your personal development; ultimately you must move beyond it and focus on more important objectives, especially Moksha.

Dharma (Virtue, Responsibility)

Dharma is an ideal that is supposed to be inherent in everything you do. It can be described as a religious sense of obligation to fulfil the duties you have in society and in life. It is considered virtuous to perform these duties in a responsible mannor: willingly and effectively. As we grow older we become more aware of this value and recognize how the rights we enjoy in our everyday life are made possible by the responsible behavior of the individuals in society. The responsible behavior of the Dharma ideal is also meant to create harmony between the actions of an individual and his/her surroundings and therefore assure a harmonious society.

Moksha (Liberation from Illusion, Spiritual salvation)

As the fourth and most important objective in the list is Moksha. It is the highest ideal for which you can strive and reaching this ideal is done by ridding yourself of all delusion and let you experience the world as it really is. Achieving Moksha you become free in a higher sense of the word, not just free to physically take some action, but also mentally free; you are in a sense free from ignorance. One key aspect of this is to recognize the self in all being and all being in oneself, or in other words an intuitive feeling of oneness in the universe. This concept is found in the Baghavadgita VI. 29-32 :

Who does behold the Self-in all,
And all beings in Self alone
He sees indeed by Yoga’s force
All things spread out everywhere.

Who sees the One in variety,
And all variety in the One,
To him the Self is never lost
And he too is not lost to Self.

Who adores ever the One alone
And is himself the vastest Self;
Let him behave in any way,—
He still abides in Deathless Self.

Who sees all is identical
With himself in his Cosmic Deeps
Has all the worlds on his own palm.—
Nay, he himself is all the worlds.

This oneness has the natural consequence that you can not hurt another being without also harming yourself. A modern implementation of this concept can be recognized in the nonviolence philosophy of Mahatma Ghandi. The Moksha ideal is a very high ideal and achieving it in your life is considered an almost saintly achievement.

These 4 objectives were traditionally accompanied by dividing a persons life into 4 stages : The student, the householder, the retired person and the ascetic. With the exception of the ascetic these will look familiar to one used to the traditional stages of western life : going to school, getting a job/marriage and retirement. In modern times these stages have become more blurred and learning for example is considered a lifelong endeavour but even if one does not want to follow the traditional path to achieving the 4 objectives or even achieve them, I still find it inspiring to consider these values as the embodiment of ancient wisdom - especially in the light of the stressful and wealth-oriented lives most of us live today.

In this article I will try to explain my view on the meaning of life and it will be in my typical style : based on logical arguements and not on feelings or faith. I can fully accept if you have decided for yourself that your religion or your intuition is more trustworthy than logical arguements and if so, just keep in mind that I am not trying to “convert” you - I just want to present my view.

I think the question is nonsensical to begin with (and actually that many such “puzzling” questions are puzzling exactly because they are nonsensical) and that the conclusion of the question being nonsensical must be that there is absolutely no meaning of life, none at all. To see why this is so, we must first look at what “meaning” is. When we say a life has meaning, it indicates that there was some form of intent in the existance of the life, the life fulfils some purpose. Before there can be some form of intent, there must be the capability to make decisions; one thing is intentionally decided over another thing. We as humans make decisions and can have intent, inanimate objects like a rock can not. The word “meaning” is invented by humans, and describes a very human trait, having a plan with things - having a purpose for something.

Some would say that the more intelligent animal species also can recognize plans and assign meaning to things happening, but whether that is true or not does not change that the question “What is the meaning of life?” is a question about whether there is some entity outside of a human life that assigns a meaning to a life. That is the question tries to assign a human trait to something strictly not a human as we know it - and that is precisely why I deem the question nonsensical.

If you are religious this might not seem nonsensical to you, afterall you would perhaps happily assign such a human trait to God. And if you believe in reincarnation, then assigning such a human trait to a spirit might not be a weird thing for you to do. This makes it obvious that my arguements are only valid in the absence of faith in a God or spirits of some sort, but since I believe in neither of these that makes the answer clear for me : Life has aboslutely no meaning outside of the meaning we humans attach to it.

I previously wrote an article about the importance of having a purpose in life, and now in this article I have tried to argue that life is meaningless, so what is the deal? The natural consequence of both life being meaningless and meaning being important to people, is that in order to satisfy both, the meaning of your life should be decided consciously and not be left to chance. This means you should actively “invent” a meaning of your life. This might involve a God, spirits, aliens or whatever - as long as it is a purpose that resonates deeply with the person that is you. I wish you great fun in your endeavour

Ironically philosophers through times have debated a lot about whether free will is “real” or not. On the one hand it feels like you have free will, but on the other hand science has shown how a lot of your personality can be explained by genetics and your past experiences. In his article I will just assume that free will exists.

If free will is real, then you are actually 100% free to do what you want, and unless someone else physically forces you, you should not find yourself in a situation where you feel trapped and with very limited freedom. You should always be able to just refuse what you do not want to do and instead choose something you want to do. So why do we sometimes get the feeling of being overwhelmed with things that just has to be done?

When we are born, we are born with free will and the power to exercise it. Babies tend to cry whenever they are not happy about the situation, without regard to the socially accepted norms of when to cry. Babies are also born both empty handed and full of desires. So as we grow up the desires make us want all sorts of things but since we initially are empty handed, we have to find out how to fulfil our desires. It just so happens that the fulfilment of almost any desire demands that we please somebody else.

If you want a place to live as shelter for the weather, you can either buy, rent or build a place. If you choose to buy, somebody else already owns the place and you need money to buy it. If you choose to rent the same thing applies although the amount of money needed is lower. If you choose to build, you still need a piece of land, which will be owned by somebody else. In any case you need money to fullfil your desire for a place to live. In order to get money you will need to find some way of delivering value to somebody who has money and is willing to pay you for that value. Mostly this involves getting a job of some sort. Being employed implies that you have a boss who tells you what you should do, and what not to do, at least during the working hours. So what you have just done is trade a portion of your freedom for money in order to fulfil your desire for a place to live.

The money earned from the job serves as the “middle man”. What you are really doing is not fulfilling a desire by paying for a place to live, but fulfilling a desire by trading in some of your freedom. But what happens is that after some days, months or years of working you forget the original desire that drove you to earn money and instead you start to focus on how you have to pay the bills, and have to go to work so you wont upset your boss, and have to work hard at your job so you do not get fired, and have to and have to.

This process is not only present when money is involved as the “middle man”. It is also the case with interpersonal relations. The desire to be liked by somebody else will drive people to trade some of their freedom in exchange. Marriage for example is partly a formal way of acknowledging the desire to keep a person for the rest of your life, and in exchange trading in the freedom be intimate with others.

So what can be learned from this? Well, there will always be desires - and given that you will either suffer from your unfulfilled desires, or suffer som a loss of freedom in order to fulfil them. What is really important though, is when you find yourself in a situation where you feel less than totally free, to remember what desires you are currently working to fulfil. You might discover that the desires have already been fulfilled, and you do not need to trade in your freedom any longer. If that is not the case remembering your original desires will often refuel your motivation, as you once again can see and feel the reward you will get for trading in your freedom temporarily.

Another lesson to remember is to be consciously aware of the freedom you trade in to fulfil your desires. So when you want to borrow money, accept a job, have unprotected sex or find yourself in another situation in which your desires drive you to act - do not do it unless you find that the (potential) loss of freedom is worth it. It is good to have dreams and goals but if you have to trade in all your freedom you will be unhappy even if you succeed.