The cake is a lie

This 'spirit' that we feel within ourselves - this significance, interconnectivity and meaning is a Gestalt - "A physical, biological, psychological, or symbolic configuration or pattern of elements so unified as a whole that its properties cannot be derived from a simple summation of its parts."

Yet we're nothing more than meat, bones and interesting connections of nerve cells that interact with the world through fuzzy and unreliable senses. Somehow they make up all that we are. But being human and therefore incorrigibly arrogant, we find ourselves wholly meaningful and significant.

Which is absurd of course, as we live in a universe devoid of meaning.

There are ways to deal with this ambivalence, which for me, are related to the individuals ability to cope with it.

For those who struggle, there is always religion and God, as it imbibes their world with significance, certainty and purpose. They no longer need to struggle with their own unimportance, as they're made in the image of God and so, their little lives are granted equal significance to the entire universe.

There are those who feel this ambivalence in every fibre and wonder what's the point? Depression, withdrawal, revolution or suicide are ways of coping with it.

Plenty don't even think about it. Perhaps the majority don't. I guess there's something to be said in not thinking too hard about stuff.

There's the middle ground of course - that precarious path set in between existential bleakness and religious rapture;

If there's no point to life then it's incumbent upon us to make one for ourselves. If we use the term 'spirit' in this context, then we mean nothing more than how we fashion our own wholeness, interconnectivity and contentment, regardless of its lack of objective significance.

I choose truth, beauty and love. My purpose is to learn all that I can in the short time that I have and perhaps pass some of this learning on. I want to enjoy all that I find beautiful and spend time honing my sense of the aesthetic so that I might enjoy it more.

But if there can be anything significant and with real substance, then it's love and our connection to others. If the world finds me meaningless, then is it unimportant, if someone finds me meaningful? Love finds itself meaningful just for the sake of itself, yet it takes effort to nurture and keep alive. And what better purpose than that?

Who cares if it's a lie.