I have mathematically proven that life has meaning. I am serious, and I can prove it too!
When I was younger, I went through a bit of a numb/detached phase like many people do and began to question the meaning of it all. I had been raised in the church all my life, so I truly felt there was something bigger than me out there connecting us, but none of the explanations made 100% sense to me, and I truly felt lost and disillusioned.
If you feel like I am speaking about you or attacked, I apologize in advance. Still, I have noticed a common sentiment among my peers among the growing fears of Covid, Racial Tensions, Economic Disparity, and everything else the uncertainty of the future brings with it. I am here to ask you one question and provide the solution that brought me peace.
*Drum Roll, Please*
Do you know the mathematical difference between 0 and 1?
The mathematical difference between 0 and 1 is an infinite number of decimal places. You can go until .99999999999999… forever and ever and never reach the value of one. But when you reach and overcome this threshold, you have witnessed a change of infinite proportions. [1]
So, what does this have to do with life and its meaning?
Well, let us present the following True/False Statement: Does my life have meaning? If the answer is no or false, then the value in this scenario would be “0.” If the answer is yes or true, then the value would be “1.” Pretty straight-forward.[2]
Now you might say: “Meaning is an abstract and subjective thing, and no one can be completely certain of their meaning!”
I would agree with you. No one can ever be 100% certain of the nature of this experience and world. It is just not possible from our relative position in the universe. That is where faith comes into play.
Faith can manifest in many ways: it can manifest in religion, politics, love, business, and more. In any case, whenever a human being places their faith in something, they are essentially stating that despite their relative lack of knowledge that this thing which has earned their faith has overcome all those obstacles to the point that they can accept their reality and say: “Yes, this is the way things are and intended to be and I choose to follow this path laid before me.”
Whether you are a son of Abraham, a Buddhist monk, a potential politician, or a loving family member and friend – we all have faith in something.
In this faith, we not only find our meaning – we create it. We take that false value in response to the question “Does my life have meaning?” and we turn it into a true value – we go from 0 to 1. We go from absolute nothing and overcome an infinite threshold and create something of our choosing.
For myself? My faith has been placed in the love and support of my family, friends, community, and increasingly as I get older – my spirituality. They have instilled in me a sense of purpose and meaning and allowed me to feel a part of something bigger than myself.
So, when you hear someone say things like “life has no meaning,” I want you to smile at them softly and tell them gently:
“You just haven’t created it yet.”
[1] Mathematicians and other concerned parties please disregard that you can do this arbitrarily with any set of numbers – I am being poetic/philosophical and trying to get to a deeper truth.
[2] For those unaware, in binary code, you only use two digits – 0 and 1. Within this system, you can do several things, such as code True/False questions. These True/False questions can then be answered (based on previous code or stimulus the code is responding to) either as true (1) or as false (0).