A Conversation

It is a cold, dark night. Peter sits at home alone reading a book when he hears a knock at the door.

Peter: Felicia? Come in! Come in! You're shivering!

Felicia: Thank you. Brrr...

P: What are you doing out wandering at this late hour?

F: I went out for a walk so I could think a little and try to clear my head. It didn't work and I realized I was in your neighborhood so I decided to stop in and talk to you. I'm not bugging you, am I?

P: Of course not! Here, let me take your coat. Please, sit down by the fire and warm yourself.

F: Thank you.

P: Now, what was it you wished to speak to me about?

F: I...I need to know the answer to a question.

P: What question is that?

F: "Who am I?"

P: Why you're Felicia, of course.

F: I know, but who is Felicia?

P: Are you OK, my dear?

F: Sometimes...sometimes I need someone to tell all my secrets to and not be judged. But I suppose they're too dull and boring to confess to you. I'm sorry, I don't want to bore you. I should go...

P: No, no - don't be silly. What's wrong?

F: I don't know. I just feel like...like I don't know what to feel. Nothing in my life seems to be going right. A mediocre job. I want to go to college but can't. And I feel so alone, at times. I want to be learning, to be living and to have someone hold me when I need that too. I'm tired of a dull life and having no purpose. I'm tired of thinking too much. I'm tired of wanting things I'm not really sure I want. I want adventure and someone to share it with.

P: Ah...I think I am beginning to understand your dilemma - a bout with existential angst. Are you going to ask me what the meaning of life is next?

F: Ha ha. But tell me the meaning of life anyway. I think I'm beyond all help.

P: Now, don't say that. Let me try and answer the easy question first.

F: Which one? Why my life is so dull?

P: No, the meaning of life.

F: Jesus, if you think that one's easy...

P: You know, I once felt as you do.

F: Really?

P: Of course! Everyone asks big questions. Everyone feels that way at some time.

F: Well how did you get over it?

P: I don't know - it just happened of its own accord.

F: How?

P: If I remember correctly, the first thing I did was to read various things written by philosophers and bits from the texts of the great religions - Plato, Kierkegaard, Descartes, Chuang Tzu, the Bible...

F: Did they help?

P: No, not one bit. I didn't read them correctly, you see.

F: What do you mean?

P: Have you ever seen a commerical for a movie and thought that it looked good? And then you pay your money to see it and it's nothing like the commercial? And you didn't like it at all?

F: Yes - more times than I can count.

P: Think of it that way then. All those great thinkers and all those ideas - none of them seemed to speak to me and my life. They just seemed to give me more questions to ask. I read them expecting to be presented with answers that I could then use. But there were none. Only ideas - ways to look at the problems. Men and women have been asking the same questions since time immemorial yet there's no right answer.

F: Oh, I feel muuuch better now.

P: Well, you haven't let me finish, Ms. Sarcasm. I suppose if you believe in a god then the meaning of life is laid out before you because you'll have some text to tell you what it is and you are left to merely follow a prescribed course. So for a Christian, let's say, the meaning of life is to get into Heaven. Thusly, Christians try to live lives according the standards of good delineated in the Bible so they can pass through the pearly gates with a clean bill of spiritual health from Saint Peter.

F: But I thought you were an atheist...?

P: I am.

F: So...I don't understand.

P: I was asking the wrong question. The question "Why don't monkeys fly out of my butt?" is legitimate only if monkeys do that, if they have the property of flying and flying out of the anuses of their fellow simians.

F: Now you're getting gross.

P: Sorry. But it's one of those phrases I find funny and captures the essence of my point. Monkey don't do that sort of thing so the question is irrelevant. There is no meaning to life because this presupposes a being that created life with some plan in mind that is opaque to we mortals and that this being expects us to puzzle it out. Asking what the meaning of life is assumes that there is a meaning to be had. But why must there be one? How can there be one if there is no supernatural entity, no external force to give meaning?

F: I think I see what you're saying...

P: The question shouldn't be "What is the meaning to life?" but rather "How can I give my life meaning?" or "How can I be happy?".

F: Alright. I see what you're getting at. So, when you figured out that you were asking the wrong question, did you find happiness?

P: Oh, heavens no.

F: So even if I change the question, I still won't feel happy. How can I be happy?

P: Now, that is a very tough question. When I started asking the right questions, it was just a beginning. But I didn't look under my nose. That came later. Now, imagine a very tall mountain...