Perhaps the oldest question in the history of civilization… it’s the also the one question with the most number of answers. Their validity is another issue…
I often say that life, and all its aspects are terribly subjective. Even death. It all depends on how you experience life itself and the end of it, either yours or others. It all depends on how you experience reality.
Being a parent has opened a door I long left closed. The door to fear. The door to pain. The door I’ve kept closed for a long long time. I’ve chosen to become numb to reality’s dark aspects, unfortunately when you become a father, a parent, your life isn’t yours any more.
There is this being which becomes the center of your life, the most important aspect of your reality, and suddenly the numbness dissipates. The aspects of the world you live, specially the dark ones, become gradually darker, because you know that sooner or later you’ll have to protect your children from them. War, famine, sickness, greed, violence, all the darkness, that part of life you choose to ignore becomes brutally loud. It’s there and it’s going to be part of your child’s reality as well. How to cope? Can you surpass it? Can you escape it? Can you still leave it outside?
How can I explain my son and my daughter that there are people living in the streets? How can I explain them that every day, millions die with nothing to eat? That another million dies from cancer, AIDS, leukaemia? How can I explain that we live in a society that values more sports players and pop stars than doctors who save people’s lives and scientist that make this world still escape (barely) from ignorance? That people are killed in stupid discussions about sports? That wars are waged in the name of religions and gods, that are no more than lies? And that the money that could change all this, is spent in those wars or feeding those religions?
So… What’s the meaning of life?