That Gnawing Sense of Meaninglessness

When all the comfortable worldviews fail us.

Most of the time we go about our lives comfortably ensconced in a worldview of one sort or another that provides all the values necessary to keep us engaged. For some of us this worldview is a religion. For others it a more secular way of seeing things.

Either way, these worldviews get us out of bed in the morning. They give us some sense of purpose, even if that is only the satisfaction of animal appetites. But a time comes when all these worldviews fail to screen us from the stark reality of the world in which we live. Then we feel it: that gnawing sense of meaninglessness.

In the natural world — the world we inhabit despite all the trappings of civilization — organisms go about the business of living, of acquiring sustenance and reproducing. Then they die. All organisms, that is, including us. What is it all for? One could say that nature is for itself, that this endless parade of living things fulfills an irresistible urge in nature, but that tells us nothing. Not really.

The problem here, of course, is that we are thinking creatures. I doubt the finches visiting the feeder in my backyard or the chipmunk that comes around daily for handouts ever question their existence. They are too busy just trying to survive. I seriously doubt that the flowers in my garden or the trees looming over them question anything at all. But we thinking creatures have the means to reflect upon the world and our place in it. And that’s how the trouble begins.

Existential Despair

We create elaborate worldviews to explain What-Is because nature itself provides no information about it. Nature provides no answer to that question of questions: Why? While pondering the immenseness of the universe and the eternal silence of it, the 17th century philosopher Blaise Pascal filled with dread. In Pensées he wrote:

For, after all, what is man in nature? A nothing compared to the infinite, a whole compared to the nothing, a middle point between all and nothing…

I feel his pain. I too have pondered infinity and have questioned my own existence. There seems to be no point to it — nothing that is apparent in nature, anyhow. Oh sure, there are all kinds of sacred texts to fill that void in me, and even more philosophies espoused by those who consider themselves authorities on the matter. But nature itself remains silent, eternally silent, as Pascal realized centuries before I was born.

Søren Kierkegaard, the father of the angst-ridden philosophy Existentialism, called the despair that we thinking creatures feel the sickness unto death — the despair that we feel when we confront existence, that is. He recognized that there’s a simpler, more vulgar concept of despair, which is despair over something. But existential despair runs much deeper. In his book The Sickness Unto Death Kierkegaard said:

The vulgar view…completely overlooks the fact that one form of despair is precisely this of not being in despair, that is, not being aware of it.

According to Kierkegaard, we all wallow in existential despair. It’s just a matter of how keenly aware of it we are. Most of the time, most of us block it out. And for good reason. Whenever we question, seriously question the meaning of life, no answer is forthcoming.

Unknown Nature

On many occasions I have sat alone deep in the woods, poking at a campfire illuminating the darkness, trying my best to wrap my brain around this thing called nature. It is unadulterated reality. That much is obvious. It is the dance of order and chaos, no doubt. But beyond that nature remains a mystery.

While I feed sticks into the fire and watch the flames leap into the night, I ponder the dynamics of being and becoming in the natural world. But I always go to bed clueless. This is the fundamental despair running beneath the purpose that I give my life, along with all the beliefs and values that I embrace. I can ignore this despair if I want, but I cannot escape it.

Back in my college days, I came upon the musings of the writer Albert Camus about meaning. It struck home. In a slender collection of essays, The Myth of Sisyphus, he confessed:

I don’t know whether this world has a meaning that transcends it. But I know that I do not know that meaning, and that it is impossible for me just now to know it.

Nothing I have encountered since first reading this has convinced me that anyone else knows it either. Forty-five years later, this confession of his still resonates with me. I think it is one of the most honest statements about the human condition that has ever been written. In a world full of worldviews obscuring the matter, this much rings true.

Overcoming Meaninglessness

What are we to do then? How are we supposed to live our lives with this gnawing sense of meaninglessness always eating away at us? The religious philosopher Martin Buber said that relationships are the answer. He believed that the meaninglessness alienating us from the world can be overcome.

My alienated self knows only I-It relationships as it objectifies the world and everything in it. But I can overcome this alienation through relation to another “I” that is like me but apart from me — a “You,” that is. This I-You relationship provides meaning, or so Buber tells us. And his ultimate You, the Eternal You, is God.

Quite frankly, I am weary of the word “God” as so many others are. It has been used and abused for thousands of years. Buber was aware of this, of course. In I and Thou he wrote:

But whoever abhors the name and fancies that he is godless — when he addresses with his whole devoted being the You of his life that cannot be restricted by any other, he addresses God.

I see his point. When we truly relate to the world in which we live, we are relating to an Eternal You. All the same, I prefer the word “Nature” to “God” when referring to the Eternal You, believing that to be a better name for What-Is.

The Eternal You is the natural world in which we find ourselves, along with whatever force creates the apparent order in it. Regardless of the words used, it’s clear what Buber was trying to tell us. Only when we relate to the world and everything in it, including other people, can we overcome that gnawing sense of meaninglessness — temporarily, at least. All our life experiences confirm this.

This is not a rational solution to the problem of existence, certainly. Another religious philosopher, Paul Ricoeur, thought deeply about Pascal’s dread of infinite nature then said:

The very word infinite is more expressive than meaningful. It does not and could not denote a concept of reason.

That’s true, I suppose, but as thinking creatures we want more. We still want the world —the infinite universe, that is — to make sense. We want all the living and dying that’s going on in nature to be meaningful somehow. More importantly, we want our own existence to be meaningful. Unfortunately, we live and die like all other organisms in the eternal silence of nature. All we can do is reflect upon that.

Living Our Lives

There is no resolution to the problem of existence, of course. The gnawing sense of meaninglessness that emerges every now and then is not something that can be solved. There is no worldview, no matter how well thought out or divinely inspired, that can banish meaninglessness once and for all.

We are thinking creatures by nature. For as long as we are still thinking, the nature of nature and our place in it will remain a mystery. There are forces at work in the universe that we can’t begin to fathom no matter how much we think. All we can do is live our lives. Every one of us does this the best we can.