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2:45 PM - Sat 10.30.21

The Meaning Of LIfe - A Short Essay

(It's moving toward 3:00 pm and I've done exactly nothing so far today. So I guess this is where I turn things around...)

I've been thinking about something a lot lately, something I've thought about for years that I wish I could just fucking put to bed already: "The Meaning Of Life".

For those who don't know me (Or don't know my views on the subject), I am an Atheist.

After years of thinking of myself as "Agnostic", I'd say I'm what is currently referred to as a "Soft Atheist" - I don't definitively say "there are no gods" (Though I am kind of a "Hard Atheist" when it comes to Yahweh specifically), just that I have found the "evidence" and arguments for the proposition unconvincing.

(Sometime in the future, I might get more into this. But for now, I just mention it to say that, since I don't believe in a Deity of any sort, I don't believe there's anyone or anything that provides an intrinsic "meaning" to life.)

For quite a while, I've held the belief that there is no "meaning of life" imposed from outside, that if there's "meaning" to be found, you have to find it - or craft it - for yourself.

And, near as I can tell, I have not "found it - or crafted it - for myself".

In pure biological terms, I'd say the only meaning/purpose of life is to "propagate the species" (Or, more specifically, to "pass your genes" on to the next generation).

And on that front, I have clearly failed (Though there's a remote possibility I could be visited by a middle-aged man or woman born sometime in the 1980s, the pinnacle of my sex-having days, wanting to know if they can call me "Daddy". But it feels unlikely - I suspect that I am going to end my time on earth not having spawned).

Now, if you want to broaden the meaning of life being "to propagate the species" to something more along the lines of "to make the world - Or at least your minute portion of it - better by your having been alive, to have been 'of service' in some way", I could make a little more of a case for my life having had some meaning.

But it's "iffy" at best.

So the one option that remains in the "Meaning of Life" sweepstakes (There are probably more - though "To Serve God" is clearly a non-starter - but I'm not a super-deep thinker. And this is the one that feels most relevant to me at the moment) is "To simply be happy" - To appreciate that you are alive/got to be alive, to be grateful for who you are and what you have, and to take pleasure in everything you can".

I've never been good at that.

I have certainly experienced happiness in my life, but I have mostly struggled, in some form or fashion.

In short, I feel like I have been, for the most part, unhappy throughout my life.

I'd like to tell you otherwise, but "it is what it is", as the kids say (And if you've followed my journal for any amount of time, you know what's what already).

I've wondered why that's been the case, and my working theory - without trying to be self-pitying or playing for sympathy - is that my childhood "taught me lessons" that I have spent the rest of my life trying to un-learn.

When I think about my childhood, I always think of the "primary trauma" of my life having been being taken from Mrs. Dehaven, my first foster mother, when I was around nine years old (I would say, to this day, that it's "the worst thing that's ever happened to me").

What happened to me before Mrs. DeHaven - in the year I lived with my biological mother - has never had the same emotional impact on me, both because it was "only" a year (though being the first year of my life, I'd have to say that was a pretty important year) and I have no memory of it.

But while I was talking about this stuff with my friend Josh recently, something about that first year of my life struck me in a way it never has before: that first year was so devastating that, five years down the road, when I was school age, after Mrs DeHaven had spent years getting me to walk and talk and nursing me back to health, I was still so mentally and emotionally hobbled by that first year that people thought I was developmentally disabled (Or "retarded", to use the language of the day) - One social worker's report during that time said that the "desired outcome" for my case would be that I get adopted by a couple that would be understanding of my "condition", and that I get "as much education" as I was "capable of".

So it seems I was severely mentally, emotionally, and physically "disadvantaged" coming right out of the gate. And it stayed with me for years.

Another thing I don't remember that I imagine had a major impact was the death of Mr DeHaven when I was a toddler - While I don't remember it, my case file suggests I clearly saw him as my Dad.

Then being taken away from Mrs DeHaven after eight years, going back into the foster care system, then (after nine months and three different placements) ending up with the Pupo family, where things were...well, let's just say, "Not always very nice" and leave it at that, had to have a profound impact on a child who had already been deeply wounded coming out of the starting block.

When I try to write about my childhood, or talk about it with someone - often when I just think about it - it seems impossible not to get lost in a thicket of sadness and regret, to not feel like a victim, or present myself as a victim, but at the same time acknowledge that bad things happened to me that have made life, going forward, more of a struggle than it might have been otherwise. To grieve for the child that didn't get what he needed to thrive, that had to do the best he could, on his own, to get by.

So I want to focus on just one coping mechanism - probably a life-saving one - that I think, over time, has proven disastrous: The belief, the fantasy I developed, that went something like, "Life is not good now, but someday - when I'm a rich and famous actor, and everybody knows and loves me - then I will be happy".

I remember reading somewhere that "children who grow up in difficult circumstances often invent fantastic futures for themselves, as a way to explain, or give meaning to, what they are going through".

And that was certainly true of me.

But stripping away the obvious problem of thinking "I'll be happy when my fantasies come true" (You either spend your life disappointed that your fantasies aren't coming true and will likely never come true, or, in a much less likely scenario, actually living them out and "getting to the top of the mountain" only to think to yourself, "That's it?", because it was never going to make up for the love and attention you didn't get as a child), there's still the problem of having the basic mindset that "happiness is the thing that happens 'down the road', when certain specific conditions get met".

Because I have had that grandiose fantasy that I would one day "win at life" by reaching a pinnacle of success - and I think for a long time it sustained me - but I've also just harbored the fantasy that I would one day be "normal", and have someone love me, have kids, have the things that other, "normal people", had (And an entire series of entries could be written about why I saw hopes of "normalcy" being as daunting as becoming the next Tom Hanks, but that's for another time).

In the last decade or so, I've struggled with the realization that none of the things I've desired in life are likely to happen, and that if I judge life to have meaning only if and when I "accomplish" this or that goal, I'm going to have to judge my life as a meaningless failure.

I don't want that.

So if I want to define "The Meaning Of Life" as "To be happy - to be glad to be alive, to appreciate all the good things I've had, and to be grateful for what I have now", I guess there's no time like the present to start working on it.

...or else I'll start on it later.

I'm not very good with being "in the moment".

Till next time...


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