The Answer

I’ve asked the “meaning of life” question so often for most of my life that it’s become a tired question. Something I gave up on. Something that I expected to never find a sweet answer to. So it’s always a truly big moment, when I stumble upon the ideas of someone who has a truly remarkable or profound view that furthers my own position on the question. As I get wiser, these moments become rarer and rarer.

Last night I read a piece from the thoughts of someone who asked the same questions over a century ago and arrived at the most intriguing conclusions near the end of his life.

I highly encourage you to read this bit from brainpickings on Tolstoy. It deserves to be read carefully. It’s perhaps the most eloquent, most quantifiably conclusive philosophical, and at the same time mathematical response I’ve ever read on this topic. Tolstoy’s epiphany in comparing two identical scopes futilely (an infinite thing vs an infinite thing, or a finite thing vs a finite thing) is truly fascinating.

I’m an atheist but find his conclusion for the necessity of faith and spirituality most compelling and almost convincing (without the need to subscribe to any organized religion).