BEDA 24: The Labyrinth of Suffering

First, a quick introduction. What will follow is an essay I wrote two years ago, after reading John Green's Looking for Alaska for the first time. I wrote this as an English class assignment when I was seventeen, and I didn't edit it for this blog. So, just for the record, I know "impossible" is spelled with too s's. Another thing that is present in this essay is that I thought my teacher was a materialistic and stupid. It turned out he was a pretty nice guy. Oh well, to the essay:

Life Is Kind Of Just All About Nothing (And Setting Your Own Goals)

OR: ALASKA’S QUESTION ― HOW DO WE GET OUT OF THIS LABYRINTH OF SUFFERING?

For me, the labyrinth of suffering embodies our doubts and confusion in life, the fact that we really don’t know anything at all. We don’t know why we are here or where we will go. We don’t have perfect, universal definitions for Good and Evil. There is no all-knowing guide to tell you what is the right thing to do, what is the right path to take. And as we wander through the labyrinth’s mysterious passageways, the only tool we have to decide which direction we go, which life decisions we make, is our gut feeling. We never have security, and that is our torture. So, if you follow that theory, the way out of the labyrinth must be finding the True Meaning of Life. I used to think that if you accomplished that, you could make it out of the labyrinth alive.  I thought that once you found The Meaning, you would be Free and Wise and live a happy, meaningful and fulfilling life. But I have quite recently changed my mind, and I guess you could say that my perception of finding our way in the labyrinth has gotten somewhat more pessimistic.

                On my quest to find Meaning, I spent some time trying to figure out what the most important things in life were. I wanted to make a hierarchic list of what was the most important thing, and then the most important thing after that and so forth. Things I nominated to be on the list were love, other people, relationships, improving yourself, adding something good to the world, faith,  and improving the world. Those seemed very noble goals to me, but 1) most are imposible to achieve ―for instance, how do you know that you improved yourself or the world and made a change for the better, if there are no clear lists and definitions of good and evil?― and 2) it is impossible to list them hierarchically, because we simply don’t know what most important in life is. How can you be sure whether relationships are more important than family? Who tells you if faith has more value than helping others? Not knowing the answer to all of those questions adds up to the fact that we don’t know The True Meaning of life in general. And I believe that that is because there is nothing to know. With all these uncertainties and all this room for subjectivity, there cannot be a universal True Meaning or Goal.

                That being said, it is impossible to get out of the labyrinth of suffering. True Meaning is a made up concept and so, if that is the key to escaping suffering, we will never find it. Realizing that, I was kind of overcome with nihilism, because then, the questions all human beings long to answer ―Why are we here? What are we supposed to do with our lives?― are unanswered and unanswerable. But people have been asking themselves these questions for centuries for a reason. It’s because we need some sort of drive and motivation, I mean, if there’s no goal in life, what’s the point of living it? It’s like Miles Halter said about the Afterlife: ‘People can not bear the thought of death being a big black nothing’, but neither can we bear the thought of life being the exact same thing. So we set our own goals: we imagine that our true calling is spreading a faith, or raising a child, or doing our jobs. We think the Absolute Meaning of life is the girl we love, our children, our families, our knowledge or ―in stupid people’s minds― our money.

I’m not going to say that those things aren’t a good drive (except maybe making money) and I don’t mean to be condescending and say that they are insignificant life goals just made up by people who can’t accept that there is no goal. I will say none of those things, because the goals in life should be the goals we set for ourselves, as long as we don’t pretend that there is some sort of universal Meaning of life every human being should strive to Understand.

Ultimately, what we all have to do, I think, is realize that there is nothing special to reach, that there is no Meaning, no ultimate wisdom or Golden Truth, no way out of the labyrinth. But instead of feeling crushed by nihilism, I think we have to acknowledge it, be okay with it and just set goals for ourselves. We simply need to pay attention to the things that are important to us. That way, we will be in the labyrinth, but we won’t feel stuck. I guess that’s the closest we can get to understanding and happiness. So, love your girlfriend, raise your children, spread your faith, acquire knowledge, and, if you insist, make money.