The meaning of life

We dedicate our lives to understanding the meaning and purpose of life, hopefully through scientific inquiry, but what we fail to realize is that we are using imperfect tools, namely ourselves, for which the instruction manual has long been lost. We set about observing life and hope through that act alone we can gain a better understanding of life, but we also fail to realize that through our observation of life and indeed our participation in life we alter and pollute the final results. We call ourselves dominant as a species, and yet we have created a world where knowledge of and fear of the unknown paralyzes us and confines us to a world of superstition rather than motivate us to find answers. Progress and increased knowledge do not equal advances in human civilization if they ever did, in fact the opposite may one day be proved to be the case.

Think of what the revolution in personal computing and communication has done, it did not make us better human beings, only better connected and more capable. Instead of paper, ink and postage stamps or even carrier pigeons, we type a message on a touch screen and press send. It gives us the illusion of God-like powers after all while all other animals are confined to communicate with others of their species with sounds their own body generates and within a very tight range, we are usually in constant contact with other people at the far side of the globe. But has this made us better human beings, has it elevated us as a species? The answer would be most decidedly no. We are still a savage warring race of hairless apes, except that 300 years ago armies in Europe were commanded by gentlemen who believed war was an honorable undertaking and believed in rules and gentlemanly conduct. Today, we have many commanders, especially in the troublesome Middle East, but none observe any rules of war.

If we consider our personal lives, for those lucky enough to be born middle class in any one of the prosperous pockets on this Earth: Europe, America (North), Australasia, or in the oil-rich Gulf countries, its easy to see how our lives have improved immeasurably. Of course it’s all a façade; we are still the hairless apes we always were, still prone to violent tendencies, still committing atrocities, still in need of laws, limits and boundaries to govern our baser nature. We can bend the ox in the field to our will, but we can never alter the unchangeable nature of the human animal. We are hunter gatherers, we always were and we still are, except instead of nuts and berries we gather wealth of another kind. Apes are curious creatures, as are we, it’s how we explore new territory to exploit when the old one in over populated. Our desire to explore and understand life is nothing more than our animal nature telling us we need to find fresher greener pastures. If we were rational beings we would do away with a lot of useless things in our lives, but as we are mere animals inclined towards hoarding, we tend to fill our homes with a lot of useless things.

All we have succeeded in doing is complicate life and call it progress; we create technical marvels and illusions and pretend we are gods. We search for adventure that takes us to the brink of death so life may taste sweeter. For animals, closeness to death is a daily routine, so undoubtedly their lives are richer, fuller, happier, and when death finally does come for them, it seldom visits them while they are lying in their beds. Theirs is a savage end to a savage life, as life should be a savage struggle. Our vain attempt at civilizing life is just another sign of breath taking human arrogance.