Maybe the Point of Living Is...

To stop fretting about whether Life has a point and to just live like we are confident that there *is*? (Getting Unstuck Part 2...)

[Below is Part II of “Getting Unstuck” in Life; Part I is here: aghostinthemachine.substack.com/p/getting-unstuck]

What if the Point of Life is learning to trust God that the big questions have affirmative answers, thus freeing us to do the small-scale good that lies within our power to do and to enjoy doing?

What is the point of living? What if the point is actually to stop fretting about such questions? What if the point of Life is to arrive at a place, spiritually, where you just trust that there is a point? What if this is the proper role of Faith, because trusting God means having an abiding assurance that the ultimate power over our lives is held by a good God, and this blessed assurance frees us to get on with the business of living, fully expecting God to bring about real good, in and through our lives?

One hilarious and poignant scene from the Woody Allen movie Annie Hall that really resonates with me was the one from Alvy Singer’s childhood, where his mother is explaining to the doctor that Alvy has stopped doing his homework after learning that the Universe was rapidly expanding and therefore could, theoretically, break apart in the future. Given this cosmic reality, what would be the point of wasting time on unpleasant drudgery like homework?

Young Alvy Singer Talking about Doing Homework in an Expanding Universe…

[As a side-note, in junior high I did some research into the etymology of the word “homework” and learned that it was originally a contraction of the phrase “homeroom work,” as in, work that you are supposed to do in haste in homeroom on the day that it is due, just before the start of your first class. I decided to pursue my studies in faithful adherence to the original meaning of the term. I’m a bit of a stickler for things like that. If the teachers wanted to assign “Home’work,” as in “Homeroom-work,” then I would dutifully work on it only during the proper time and place: homeroom prior to the start of the first period class. And that’s probably also why my grades were always so bad in junior high and high school. But I digress…]

Maybe I had a morbid imagination, but I do recall lying awake at night as a young child, wondering about death. Someday, everyone presently alive, including me, would be dead. Someday other people, yet unknown, would populate the world, and they would know little or nothing about the people alive today; just as there had once been countless people who had lived before me, whose hopes and fears and relationships and pleasures and pains had been just as real to them as mine were to me. What did those forgotten lives mean now? And what would the lives of those alive today mean in the distant future, when nearly every memory of their existence had been extinguished? I didn’t have the vocabulary or concepts to articulate these questions, but on some deep, visceral level, they made their voices heard to my childish mind.

If I had been a musical prodigy and a poet like Morrissey and Johnny Marr, maybe I would have found a better outlet for my musings, like they did with the Smiths…

The Smiths song Cemetry Gates about the living and the dead

I immediately recognized a fellow traveler, albeit one infinitely more prolific and profound, in Percy Shelley, the first time I read his incredible poem Ozymandias:

Ozymandias by Percy Shelley

I met a traveller from an antique land
Who said: "Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert . . . Near them, on the sand,
Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown,
And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them, and the heart that fed:
And on the pedestal these words appear:
'My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:
Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!'
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away."

I was raised in a very religious household. Like most churches, the one my family attended did not spend a lot of time teaching out of Ecclesiastes — except to quote occasionally from that isolated passage that inspired so many 1960s folk singers.

Judy Collins and Pete Seeger singing the one passage from Ecclesiastes that has attained mainstream success…

So it was not until much later that I found a profound examination, right there in the middle of the Bible, concerning this very question.

The words of the Preacher, the son of David, king in Jerusalem (Ecclesiastes 1: 1-15 KJV).

Vanity of vanities, saith the Preacher, vanity of vanities; all is vanity.

What profit hath a man of all his labour which he taketh under the sun?

One generation passeth away, and another generation cometh: but the earth abideth for ever.

The sun also ariseth, and the sun goeth down, and hasteth to his place where he arose.

The wind goeth toward the south, and turneth about unto the north; it whirleth about continually, and the wind returneth again according to his circuits.

All the rivers run into the sea; yet the sea is not full; unto the place from whence the rivers come, thither they return again.

All things are full of labour; man cannot utter it: the eye is not satisfied with seeing, nor the ear filled with hearing.

The thing that hath been, it is that which shall be; and that which is done is that which shall be done: and there is no new thing under the sun.

Is there any thing whereof it may be said, See, this is new? it hath been already of old time, which was before us.

There is no remembrance of former things; neither shall there be any remembrance of things that are to come with those that shall come after.

I the Preacher was king over Israel in Jerusalem.

And I gave my heart to seek and search out by wisdom concerning all things that are done under heaven: this sore travail hath God given to the sons of man to be exercised therewith.

I have seen all the works that are done under the sun; and, behold, all is vanity and vexation of spirit.

That which is crooked cannot be made straight: and that which is wanting cannot be numbered. (Ecclesiastes 1: 1-15 KJV.)

[It’s a little hard to spin a name-it-and-claim-it, prosperity-gospel-style sermon based on passages like this, which is probably why so few mainstream preachers use it in their sermons. Which is a shame, because if they really trusted God, these difficult questions would not get such short shrift in contemporary theology, especially when they are presented right there in the heart of the Bible. But again, I digress…]

The writer of Ecclesiastes shares some interesting insights and arrives at some surprising conclusions, especially given their place smack in the middle of the Hebrew Bible.

Great insights like, “Say not, ‘Why were the former days better than these?’ For it is not from wisdom that you ask this…” (Ecclesiastes 7:10 ESV.) In other words, stop pining for the “good old days,” because they had their own trouble, which you are glossing over in your hazy reminiscing, while you highlight the troubles present in your own day, making this a very distorted comparison.

Or like this example of what “wisdom” means: “If the iron is blunt, and one does not sharpen the edge, he must use more strength, but wisdom helps one to succeed.” (Ecclesiastes 10:10 ESV.) “Wisdom” means working smarter, not necessarily harder.

And then there is, at least for the Bible, a strikingly simple and prosaic answer to all these musings about whether Life has any grand purpose: don’t fret about it, because the answers are beyond you! Just thankfully enjoy Life’s simple pleasures, do your work with excellence and integrity, be a good neighbor and friend, don’t dwell on offenses or disappointments, love your family, and give thanks to God for the good you are able to do and to enjoy during your time on this earth.

Ecclesiastes 9: 7-10 KJV

Go thy way, eat thy bread with joy, and drink thy wine with a merry heart; for God now accepteth thy works.

Let thy garments be always white; and let thy head lack no ointment.

Live joyfully with the wife whom thou lovest all the days of the life of thy vanity, which he hath given thee under the sun, all the days of thy vanity: for that is thy portion in this life, and in thy labour which thou takest under the sun.

Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, do it with thy might; for there is no work, nor device, nor knowledge, nor wisdom, in the grave, whither thou goest.

Ecclesiastes 11: 1-10 KJV

Cast thy bread upon the waters: for thou shalt find it after many days.

Give a portion to seven, and also to eight; for thou knowest not what evil shall be upon the earth.

If the clouds be full of rain, they empty themselves upon the earth: and if the tree fall toward the south, or toward the north, in the place where the tree falleth, there it shall be.

He that observeth the wind shall not sow; and he that regardeth the clouds shall not reap.

As thou knowest not what is the way of the spirit, nor how the bones do grow in the womb of her that is with child: even so thou knowest not the works of God who maketh all.

In the morning sow thy seed, and in the evening withhold not thine hand: for thou knowest not whether shall prosper, either this or that, or whether they both shall be alike good.

Truly the light is sweet, and a pleasant thing it is for the eyes to behold the sun:

But if a man live many years, and rejoice in them all; yet let him remember the days of darkness; for they shall be many. All that cometh is vanity.

Rejoice, O young man, in thy youth; and let thy heart cheer thee in the days of thy youth, and walk in the ways of thine heart, and in the sight of thine eyes: but know thou, that for all these things God will bring thee into judgment.

Therefore remove sorrow from thy heart, and put away evil from thy flesh: for childhood and youth are vanity.

Ecclesiastes 12: 11-14

The words of the wise are as goads, and as nails fastened by the masters of assemblies, which are given from one shepherd.

And further, by these, my son, be admonished: of making many books there is no end; and much study is a weariness of the flesh.

Let us hear the conclusion of the whole matter: Fear God, and keep his commandments: for this is the whole duty of man.

For God shall bring every work into judgment, with every secret thing, whether it be good, or whether it be evil.

“We see through a glass darkly,” as the Apostle Paul said, so after a certain point, trying to nail down concrete answers to Life’s biggest and most abstract questions is like trying to grab the wind: whatever part of the wind you are able to “capture,” it immediately ceases to be “the wind;” upon being enclosed, it just becomes so much still, stale air. You cannot capture or control the wind, but if instead of trying to tame it, you work with it, e.g., by parasailing or hang-gliding, you can soar like an eagle to incredible heights, thereby obtaining an amazing and awe-inspiring perspective on your world. And so “the Preacher” says, “of making many books there is no end; and much study is a weariness of the flesh.”

It’s interesting, sometimes, to note what strange and seemingly random things stick with you, after the passage of several years, from books and conversations and the like. I remember little from reading A Catcher in the Rye, except for this single incredibly incisive saying — I don’t know if Salinger got it from somewhere else or if it was original to him — it was presented as a saying that Holden Caufield was earnestly puzzling over, and one which I am recalling from memory, so hopefully I get the wording right — I loaned my only copy of A Catcher in the Rye to a fellow Beatles fan I once knew named Mark David Chapman, and I haven’t seen either him or my book ever since [but seriously, folks…]. Anyway, here’s the quote:

The mark of an immature mind is wanting to die nobly for a great cause; the mark of a mature mind is wanting to live humbly for a good one.

There is a certain maturity and humility, what in today’s internet parlance is also known as the quality of being based, that is required to live a simple, satisfying, rewarding, and meaningful life, without needing any special recognition or acclaim, without worrying about one’s status or the need to acquire cultural symbols of having attained an enviable station in life. Another way of putting this is, not having a need to prove anything to anyone.

Yet another way of expressing this quality is to say of a person, “He’s faced his demons and overcome them.” That’s the way I once heard someone describe “Iron” Mike Tyson, a sensational figure who had a profoundly troubled youth and early adulthood, who crashed and burned and self-destructed after attaining stratospheric success, but who lived to tell the tale and who now seems (aside from unleashing an occasionally beat-down on intrusive and annoying drunks on airplanes) to have come to a place of relative peace. I’ve seen him on podcast interviews, both as the interviewer and interviewee, and have to say, for him having once been celebrated as
the “baddest man on the planet,” he’s definitely mellowed with age.

And that seems to be the lesson from Ecclesiastes. There’s nothing to prove, and no one to prove it to. Yes, Life is relatively short and unpredictable. We don’t know how long we have, and we really don’t have much first-hand knowledge of what lies beyond (or beneath) this mortal realm. But the ultimate God is good; God has given us an incipient ability to discern the spirits behind the forces acting upon our world and to discern whether such spirits mean us good or ill. So develop this capacity and embrace only those spiritual forces that are good, while renouncing those that are evil; seek earnestly to be a good family member, friend, and neighbor; do your work well, as an offering to God, and do not fret about those things over which you have no control; enjoy and freely share the good things God gives you; and God will bring real good in and through our lives.

And speaking of good things that one can enjoy with real thankfulness to God, as well as to those Muses whom God has sent to inspire mere mortals to create beautifully transcendent songs and poetry, here’s the song I was listening to while writing this, Rocky Mountain High by that happy hippy, John Denver. Enjoy!

There are some songs which I have listened to while doing the activity that is being sung about in the song. I won’t bore you with a list of these (and I’m certainly not proud of all of them), but Rocky Mountain High is on that list. And looking up at the starlit sky in an isolated campground in the Rocky Mountains, with no city lights, clouds, or smog to obscure the light from millions of faraway stars, you really do feel a connection to something inexpressibly beautiful and profound, a magical experience which John Denver did as good a job conveying as any mere human could possibly do.

And if you take in the starlit mountain sky while listening to a cassette tape of John Denver singing “Rocky Mountain High” on your Walkman (and if you forget for a minute that you’re in bear and mountain lion country and that you won’t be able to hear a predator approach while you’re listening to headphones), well, then you really can’t come away from that experience feeling like the materialist atheism of Richard Dawkins and Sam Harris could possibly be the whole story. The transcendent experience of raw, real, numinous awe absolutely obliterates all of Man’s silly attempts to reduce Life to a series of syllogisms or scholarly arguments. Life is too big, too powerful, too magical, and too mysterious an experience to be be captured and contained by Man’s meager understanding.

We forget that lesson, because we spend too much time in our artificial modern environments, where we’ve tried to squeeze out every part of Nature (including our own human Nature) that doesn’t comport with our modern worldview, and our modern world is all the worse for it. But get outside the city and look at the stars, or a mountain waterfall, or the crashing waves on the beach, or any number of other such scenes. There is no purely materialist explanation for this delight in Nature’s majesty and beauty, especially of our delight in powerful Natural forces that could easily destroy us instantly if we get too close to them. Darwin explains much, but he does not explain that. Where is the evolutionary advantage to hiking icy mountains to get a view from the top?

To me, being able to enjoy Nature’s beauty is just icing on the cake, an opportunity to celebrate God’s glory as manifested in his amazing artistry. And if we can convey a small taste of that beauty in our own artistry, the way John Denver did with Rocky Mountain High, then that is something truly to celebrate and enjoy!

And here’s Part One of “Getting Unstuck” below…

Getting Unstuck...