I have been reflecting on the seemingly inordinate amount of so-called celebrity deaths we have encountered over the past few months and am struck by the number of these people who have had problems with drugs, drink, depression etc. Celebrities amass considerable fortunes and widespread fame and I know I will be missing something terrible important, but I cannot conceive how someone with that amount of wealth and fame can have problems in the sense that the rest of us have getting by each day.
If I understand it properly, such people suffer from what the Bible describes as people who gain the world but lose their soul. The soul in this context is the 'nephesh' what I generally consider to be the life spirit and appears to describe people who gain wealth, fame, power etc. but who fail to find any real meaning in their life. The Bible is of course referring to God and that such people are disconnected to him/her and that their lives are meaningless because they have no connection with the only thing that can give your life real meaning. Of course religion is not the only thing that can give your life real meaning, and I suspect that they are lost in the sense that they are in a state of dislocation and are failing to understand their own location in a world that seems to make no sense, and, as God makes no sense to many people that option is not an acceptable one and they are driven to look elsewhere. Why are we all here? is a phrase many people seek an answer to, and my reply to that is because we are not all there. I argue that my reply makes as much sense as the question because the question is predicated on the assumption that there must be a purpose in life, a plan etc. that we should be seeking to uncover and understand. This is what gives rise to religion. People must individually have a purpose in life, but that is quite different from the concept of a 'grand plan' hatched by some supernatural entity. The legal profession, when seeking to apportion blame for corporate mismanagement or responsibility for an industrial accident caused by corporate neglect or criminality etc. looks for what is known as a directing mind in order that the law can be implemented correctly and blame can be properly apportioned, and that seems to be the goal of people who seek an answer to the question, why are we all here, or what is the meaning of life. They are searching for a directing mind, whom they simply call god. There must be a reason for life, for war, for tragedy etc. in the sense that it must be meaningful and part of a bigger purpose. No there doesn't, why should there be? Indeed if there is such a directing mind then it must belong to an entity of incredible callousness and indifference to human suffering and misery, a being of such evil that I want nothing to do with it.
As opposed to the search for a directing mind, I was awakened to the liberating notion of the Sophist Protagoras who told us that man is the measure of all things. We live in a material world and a material universe, and, most importantly, a world of choice. Human beings make their own world and must determine their own meanings. Here Protagoras is telling us that there is no such thing as absolute truth. This gets its best expression in the writings of David Hume, and I encourage everyone to read Hume. It is both comforting and liberating to learn that truth is a relative concept and that we all have our own truths if we just look for them. We can find meaning in our lives from a multitude of different sources, from art, music, sport, from pursuing a dream, even if we never realise it. We can make and shape our own meanings. A life dedicated to others, or to animals, is incredible meaningful according to the people who live such lives. Celebrities often live a life of self-destruction because they can find no meaning in fame and wealth. Their music or their art, or whatever brought them their fame is not an end in itself, when it often should be. Of course many celebrities do find such meaning in their chosen field as they are able to understand that it is not the fame and the wealth that brings the good life, although it certainly helps, but in being the best they can be and appreciating that their pursuit of their chosen field is itself a meaningful goal and that they have been incredibly fortunate that it has also brought them the fame and the wealth that other people think are the purpose of such a life, when the purpose is actually in the performing of the talent that has given them success and being the best they can be. Why would you choose to live in misery and uncertainty, in denial of the good things in life in preparation for an afterlife you have no knowledge exists, or even can exist? Why do you want to even contemplate such an afterlife when you live in a world that will give you all you require spiritually if you only appreciate what is all around you in all its incredible majesty and potential. In the words of the popular idiom, get a life! You have been warned
Your Servant
Doktor Kommirat
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