Struggling for Meaning in the 21st Century

He who has a why to live for, can bear with almost any how. — Viktor Frankl

The meaning of life is one of these broad existential questions we avoid thinking about due to a lack of a proper answer. However, it is not as profound or complicated as it seems at first glimpse. If we hope to understand it, we first need to define it.

Defining the Meaning of Life

The meaning of life is the reason for life. It is why you wake up in the morning. People that don’t wake up in the morning most of the time don’t because they don’t have any reason to. It is that that we will speak of in this article: why waking up in the morning?

As we are about to see, the meaning of one life depends very much on the viewpoint you’re looking at it from.

Choosing the Viewpoint

Let’s put things into perspective: we live in a galaxy called the Milky Way, housing 100 000 million stars (100 000 000 000 000). We also estimate there are as many galaxies, even though that number tends to double (200 000 000 000 000) as time goes by.

From a cosmic point of view, we are smaller than a drop of water in the Pacific ocean. It is therefore quite clear: we don’t matter. The Earth could explode tomorrow, no one would notice, and…