Why We Ask ‘What Is the Meaning of Life?’ – A Philosophical Journey

The search for the meaning of life is a question humans have struggled with for millennia. In ancient times, people found answers in religion, tradition, and blind faith, systems that offered meaning, structure, and purpose—and many still do. However, the Enlightenment guided us in an era of scientific inquiry and rationalism, which opened new ways of understanding human existence. Rather than replacing faith entirely, rationalism expanded our toolkit for grappling with life’s fundamental questions. Across the ages, philosophers have offered countless perspectives on the purpose of human life and how to live meaningfully. Like many, I am exploring various philosophies, trying to find the one that resonates most or perhaps create my own. But what has always troubled me is this: why do we ask this question in the first place?

Perhaps finding an answer would ease the restless search for a purposeful life, a journey that has haunted humanity for ages.

The Cognitive Evolution of Meaning: Insights from “Sapiens”

After reading Sapiens, Yuval Noah Harari’s exploration of human evolution, I was struck by a key insight: our ability to create complex language allowed us to gossip and cooperate with people beyond our immediate circle. However, simple conversations and gossip alone can’t sustain cooperation in groups larger than 150 people. So, we evolved a new method: collective fictions which are shared beliefs, such as religions, myths, and ideologies, allowed humans to unite under common ideas that transcended immediate experience and survival.

This belief in collective fictions not only ensured our survival but enabled us to dominate other species, making us apex predators. It became our superpower, allowing us to bend the fabric of reality and achieve extraordinary feats. Yet, this very capacity for creating fictions—especially in the face of nature’s indifference—also laid the groundwork for our insatiable hunger for meaning.

But here’s the paradox: the quest for purpose in life may not be a search for some inherent, universal truth, but rather a consequence of our cognitive evolution—a byproduct of the stories we tell ourselves. Our minds evolved to seek patterns and meanings for survival, now we apply this same drive to abstract questions about existence. While nature itself remains indifferent to our endeavors, our shared beliefs and the stories we create give us a sense of significance, grounding us in a world that otherwise offers no clear purpose.

Look around, and you’ll see that we are surrounded by the byproducts of our cognitive revolution. We live in a world of fiction, fabricated by our own minds and evolved consciousness. Every day, we work tirelessly to earn money—not because it holds any intrinsic value, but because we’ve collectively agreed that it does. Governments, legal systems, our belief in morals and ethics, and the pursuit of higher purpose—all of it is built on shared imagination. To a reasonable mind, it may seem just an illusion.

The Problem of Meaninglessness: Absurdism and Its Challenges

This realization, for me, is tinged with despair. It feels as though I’ve been robbed of something precious—something deeply personal. The more I reflect, the more I question: if everything is constructed, where does true meaning lie?

But as these fictions evolve and break down, they inevitably leave individuals grappling with the void they fill. For the first time, I truly grasped the philosophy of absurdism, as articulated by thinkers like Søren Kierkegaard and Albert Camus. The conflict lies in the rational human desire for purpose, peace, and happiness, clashing with the universe’s stark indifference toward these desires. But what does this realization of absurdity take from me?

Upon deeper reflection, I realized that, for me, it strips away the very staff I clung to in the face of despair and suffering. Think about it: without meaning, suffering becomes unbearable. Meaning and belief are the only things that make pain tolerable. If you have a deep belief in God, for example, and find meaning in that divine connection, you can ease your suffering by believing He has a higher plan. You can think that perhaps He is testing your faith or holding something better in store. But when those meanings dissolve into illusions—mere mirages—the weight of existence becomes even harder to bear.

And ironically, it is during our darkest moments—when life spirals out of control, when we feel directionless—that we are most likely to confront this absurdity. No one questions the meaning of life when things are going well. We wrestle with these questions only when everything goes wrong, making an already difficult situation even worse. To put it poetically: when you stare into the abyss, the abyss stares back.

This line of reasoning can leave you feeling exposed—vulnerable, even naked. You begin to doubt everything, and nihilism or cynicism may seem like the only viable options. But let’s take a step back and think more deeply. After all, if you choose the path of cynicism, you must also be cynical about your own cynicism; you must remain critical of your thought process. Is life truly not worth living? Is a life of purpose and happiness possible, even in the face of the absurdity of the human condition?

Creating Personal Meaning in a World Without Objective Purpose

Albert Camus directly addresses the absurdity of life in his famous essay, “The Myth of Sisyphus”. In it, he argues that there are three possible responses to the absurd condition: suicide, blind faith in meaning, or rebellion.

Life, by default, is hard. When you add its inherent suffering and the realization of its meaninglessness, suicide might seem like a viable response. After all, if life holds no inherent value, why endure its struggles? This is the first option Camus explores—ending one’s life in the face of absurdity. But Camus ultimately rejects this response. He argues that while suicide may seem like a true acknowledgment of life’s meaninglessness, it actually sidesteps the core issue. If life is meaningless, ending it provides no resolution. The very absurdity we face demands a more profound confrontation.

The second response is to take a leap of faith—to believe that there is some inherent purpose to human existence. This response seeks to reconcile the tension between humanity’s desire for meaning and the apparent meaninglessness of life. However, Camus categorizes this as philosophical suicide, where one refuses to confront the reality of an indifferent universe. It is much like Don Quixote charging at windmills, believing them to be giants. Though his courage is admirable, his valor is tragically misplaced. His squire, Sancho Panza, continually reminds him that the “giants” are merely windmills, but Don Quixote remains steadfast in his delusion, fulfilling what he sees as his noble duty in the name of his beloved lady, Dulcinea. For Don Quixote, this is the meaning of life. Yet, to a rational mind, it is a delusion—a fool’s errand, driven by an unwillingness to accept reality.

So what did Albert Camus choose? He chose an act of defiance and rebellion. Rather than succumbing to death—either physical or philosophical—he accepted the absurdity of life while refusing to submit to it. By breaking the shackles of seeking higher purpose, you rebel against the absurd and, in doing so, achieve freedom. In rejecting the need for ultimate meaning or the promise of judgment day, you gain the freedom to create your own meaning, no matter how fleeting or subjective.

For Camus, the only way forward is to live life to the fullest, even if it means embracing the despair that comes with it. The true act of rebellion is to enjoy the freedom of giving your life any meaning you choose, without relying on the illusions of a greater cosmic purpose. In short rebellion means: living without appeal to higher meaning, creating one’s own subjective meaning, but knowing that it will always be temporary and limited. One must imagine Sisyphus happy—the mythical Greek figure condemned to push a boulder uphill, only to watch it roll back down, forcing him to begin again. After all, what could be more rebellious and poetic than finding joy in what was meant to be eternal punishment?

When I reflect on Camus’ view of life, I find the concept of rebellion both ironic and, at times, amusing. Even in rebelling against the absurd—acknowledging life’s inherent meaninglessness yet choosing to live fully—we are, paradoxically, creating meaning for ourselves. This act of rebellion becomes a personal stance, a task we see as significant, even though we accept the larger absurdity of existence. To me, this feels somewhat inconsistent. After all, rebelling against something that is indifferent to our defiance doesn’t quite make sense. If nothing truly matters and there is no inherent meaning, then our response to the absurd also holds no real weight.

In essence, aren’t we combating absurdity with absurdity? Some might argue that the difference lies in acknowledging the absurd rather than denying it. Yet, I find this ironic. To me, it feels like we are still Don Quixote—not fighting imagined giants, but acknowledging they are mere windmills and choosing to fight them anyway. Paradoxically, we create a purpose for living fully and meaningfully, even after acknowledging nature’s indifference.

Camus might agree with this contradiction and argue that rebellion is not about “winning” against the absurd but about acknowledging its existence and still choosing to live with purpose. Camus takes on this approach towards the absurdity of life does not rob us from living a life without purpose. His point is a lot more nuanced, while the universe has no objective or inherent meaning, humans have the freedom to create their own subjective meaning and emotional responses to life. But I personally feel that life is not completely indifferent.

How do we judge if something is meaningful? Camus might argue that life itself has no inherent purpose, but is life truly indifferent to the meanings we create? While the universe may not dictate meaning to us, I find it conceptually incoherent to claim that nature is always indifferent to human meaning and belief.  Let’s examine the practical impact of this on nature itself. Is it true that nature is absolutely indifferent to our meanings and beliefs? I would argue otherwise.

The Indifference of Nature: Is Life Truly Meaningless?

Though the universe may not dictate any inherent metaphysical purpose to our existence, the interaction between us and the universe is tangible. The meaning we assign to ourselves shapes our actions, and nature, in turn, responds to those actions. Thus, I would argue that while the universe may be indifferent to our meanings on a metaphysical level, it is not indifferent on a practical level. The power to create collective fictions, as Yuval Noah Harari explains, has allowed us to bend the very fabric of reality. Once, we were primates in the middle of the food chain, competing not only with predators but also with other human species such as Homo erectus, Homo Neanderthalensis, and Homo sapiens. Homo sapiens not only survived but outlived these other species. How did we manage this? It wasn’t because we were physically superior—Neanderthals were stronger. Instead, collective fictions played a crucial role. The beliefs, passion, and meaning we gave to these fictions—however illusory they might seem on a universal scale—transformed us into apex predators and reshaped the earth itself. In this way, nature has responded to the collective fictions we have created.

The meaning we assign has not only shaped our internal realities but also our external world. From an insignificant primate species struggling for survival, we now contemplate interplanetary colonization. Even if the pursuit of meaning is a byproduct of our cognitive revolution—merely a figment of our evolved consciousness—it has real, tangible effects on nature. Nature is not indifferent to our beliefs. While Camus might argue that the universe is indifferent on a metaphysical level, this does not negate the real-world consequences of our actions. The universe may not “care” about the meanings we create, but it certainly reacts to the actions driven by those meanings—and is therefore not entirely indifferent.

Looking on a more personal level, Viktor Frankl’s observations as a prisoner in Nazi concentration camps demonstrate how meaning can have a direct impact on survival. He noted that finding personal meaning was closely linked to one’s ability to endure the camp’s horrors. As he put it, life asks us what the purpose of our life is, and we are mistaken when we respond to that question with another question instead of seeking an answer. Frankl survived the camps, and his meaning-driven approach led to the development of his famous logotherapy. Life, in a very real sense, reciprocated to his sense of purpose by allowing him to survive and shape his future. So how can we say that life is indifferent to the meanings we create?

The Two Facets of Purpose: Universal and Personal

So, what is the purpose of life? This question has two facets: the universal sense of purpose, i.e., the purpose of human civilization on a metaphysical level, and the purpose of life on an individual level. Asking this question from a metaphysical perspective is perhaps the trickiest. Camus might be right in claiming that life is meaningless on a macroscopic scale, and if he’s wrong, there is no way to prove it—at least not through physical evidence or logical reasoning. The purpose of humanity on a metaphysical level has evolved throughout history and is often shaped by the time and place in which we live. In truth, this topic deserves a dedicated blog post of its own, but all I can say for now is that discerning a universal purpose is incredibly challenging.

On a personal level, the question of purpose is simpler to answer because we each have an individual journey. No one can determine our purpose for us—it is something only we can discover for ourselves. As Viktor Frankl said, “Life is asking us the purpose of our own life, and it is not the other way around.” Each of us has a unique purpose, something that only we can achieve. Your purpose might be to provide for a loving family and live a happy life, or it could be a personal goal that holds meaning only for you. When you have a purpose, you have a reason to live.

He who has a why to live can bear almost any how.

Friedrich Nietzsche

For Frankl, his “why” was his unfinished manuscript in the field of psychology. Only he could complete it, and that purpose gave him the strength to endure the suffering of the concentration camp. His observations of the psychological state of prisoners led him to develop logotherapy, a form of psychotherapy that revolves around finding meaning in life—the individual “why” that gives life its purpose. This insight wasn’t unique to Frankl; many other prisoners found meaning in their own ways, and it was this sense of purpose that helped them survive the camps.

I’ve only touched on these two facets of purpose—universal and personal—and perhaps oversimplified them. There may be flaws in my reasoning. To be honest, I’m not a seasoned philosopher or psychologist; these are simply my reflections as I engage with the ideas of great thinkers like Friedrich Nietzsche, Viktor Frankl, Albert Camus, Yuval Noah Harari, Buddha, and many others. These blogs are my way of documenting my thought process as I explore their perspectives.

What do I hope to achieve through this? Perhaps it’s to better understand my place in the world and to live a life without regret. I believe that to do this, you must first know yourself. I invite all my readers to join me on this journey of self-discovery and reflection.