Altug asked:

What's the meaning of life?

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There are short answers to this question, like 'love', 'happiness', 'to live truly', 'to truly live', 'life has no
meaning beyond that which you give it' etc. If you can find a short answer that seems to answer your
question, that is a good place to begin further reflection, if further reflection is needed, which depends
how strongly you are wondering.

Then there are metaphysical answers to the question. These are the answers most favoured by
philosophers and therefore thought most philosophical. Metaphysical answers are characterised by
their embracing quality or comprehensiveness. Religions provide meaningfulness in the lives of many
millions. Religions provide metaphysical answers, for instance about the nature of God (e.g. as
Creator), the acts of God (e.g. giving us a Law or becoming a human himself) and our relationship
with Him (e.g. He loves us, He has given us the sovereignty of free will and so He cannot have power
in the world without except through mankind). Metaphysical answers in religion tend to blend with
mythological answers, but modern Western philosophers tend not to subscribe to myth.

Philosophers have metaphysical answers of their own, for instance, that Philosophy herself is the
meaning of life, or if it isn't, it certainly gives meaning to life. Another example: the meaning of life lies
with the ever greater understanding of it. Or the meaning of life is being worked out in (or by) history.
Or the meaning of life is hidden in the soul (hence psychotherapy).

All these ways of answering tend, perhaps, to make the questioner feel that the meaning of life is
uncertain, and, therefore, that those who say there isn't any meaning, could be right in their
judgement. Although how do we know what the criteria for the judgement of this question are?

I would venture that the meaning of life is different for different people. Therefore the meaning of life
is not this or that but it depends who you are! The first question on the way then is: Who Am I? This
question is not just an abstract question, but it leads to the discovery of meaning in life. This is not
necessarily to say that the meaning of life is 'relative'. One of the best places to start to find an
answer to the question of who I am, which directs me forcefully toward the meaning of life is the
thought of death. I like Nietzsche's aphorism in the Gay Science,entitled, The Thought of Death. Or
best of all, Tolstoy's novel, The Death of Ivan Ilyich.Confronting the question of death, through
reading and imagining, brings us into a sense of the meaning of life. We often imagine dying is
something that 'happens', like an event, at the end of life, but being mortal, such as we all are, means
I am dying now - even I am as I write this and you as you read it. When you can think of death (and it
is only modern Western culture that in the history of the world has avoided this thought) you know
what is important and what it not; you know what is meaningful and what is not. Not because you
know something more than you knew before, not because you are better informed by philosophy, but
because you can SEE now what before you could not. The meaning of life is not a datum, it is
something that must dawn upon us. The question, Who am I? posed in tandem with the thought of
death clears our vision so that the meaning of life can be beheld.

Matthew Del Nevo
www.sicetnon.com