What is the meaning of life?

Food!

Ha. I jest. I’m Jewish, you see. And a pagan. So something that is both integral to my culture AND representative of bodily/base pleasures would of course be the first thing to pop into my mind.

But yes, this is a difficult question, one I’m often asked. I would say I’m asked this one most of all, and I’m afraid I have some bad news: 

I don’t have the answer. No one does. Many profess to have the answer, but they’re fibbing liars who lie. 

Take this into your soul and let it permeate the depths of your consciousness: Anyone who says “So and So or yadayada is why we are here and how we should live” is either after your money or your adulation or both.  This is not a new thing.

There are some, however, who’ve attempted to answer, and have perhaps brought us a little closer to understanding.  They include:

Curly, in City Slickers, as played by Jack Palance.

Monty Python, in the aptly named “The Meaning of Life” (most sketches).

Albert Brooks, in “Defending Your Life” (Most of Rip Torn’s lines).

For those of you who think this is a cop out, you’re absolutely right.  I’m a simple pagan rabbi, you see – all I can do is help point you on the path to self discovery.

If pushed, however, I will concede my own affinity for the Hellenistic-era ideas of Cynicism, minus all the masturbating-in-the-public-square business.  My shlemedel on the whole kibbling is that if we as a society were able to truly explore the ideas of living in the moment, and understanding that life is meant to be experienced and explored and adventurized and examined, then so much of the bollocks that occupy our time and energy would, probably, not exist.

Realize that your life is what you make it – not what others make it.  You must examine and question and always always always be exploring.  Fall in love. Get lost in a city in which you don’t speak the language. Commune with the mountains.  Learn how to live without energy for a week.  Get in touch with the planet – it’s all we have.  

Only by realizing these basic truths, and understanding that our place in the cosmos is so miniscule and minute as to be almost inconsequential, can we ever hope to understand why we are here and what our purpose is.  

And in a way, it’s better that it’s almost unanswerable, because it is in the pursuit of this question that we become better and more loving people, and more efficient and effective stewards of the only planet we currently have. 

Zeigezund.