We survive many difficult things because, despite their sometimes tormenting meaninglessness, we innately hope to move beyond painful futility to where things make sense again. But it seems like our culture is being taken over by increasing meaninglessness. School shootings and other kinds of madness are becoming common. We no longer live in a time where one can move to the country to escape such things. Even there, madness gets on us like tree sap on our clothes.
Escape is no longer an option. Even those who have the money to shield themselves from things that most of us can’t still need meaning. We’ve all heard of rich people committing suicide once they found that money is no substitute for meaning, or lottery winners who were broke again in a few years. Meaninglessness is the massive termite damage that has eaten out our culture. Our answer is to keep building storefronts on it as if life is an old building, then keep pretending that the whole building is new. We also add many diversions, some form of constant stimulation, that keeps us from thinking about the meaninglessness that lies hibernating within. We dare not awaken it lest we find that we don’t have the internal resources to deal with it in its terrible aroused hunger.
But none of this need be. Yes, many of those who own the spotlights, soundbites and microphones portray a world oriented to pleasing the senses at all costs. They expend all their energy to tell us that our thirst is easily quenched by some material manipulation. Anyone who’s lived long enough knows that doesn’t work.
The good news is that we don’t have to depend on them for meaning. Sure, they make it difficult. But that’s only in proportion to how much we put our faith in them. The world is a meaningful place. A tough place, a sometimes harrowing place, to be sure. But meaning runs through us and sustains us. It’s up to us to bring ourselves into a more conscious and purposeful cooperation with it in a simplicity that is so much more restful than the empty imagery surrounding us that disappears like a desert mirage as soon as we get close enough.
John’s the resident literary connoisseur. He dissects classics and uncovers hidden gems. Expect his insights to enrich your reading journey, one page at a time.
