LIFE | PHILOSOPHY | SPIRITUALITY
Meaning Is the Candle We Kindle
On confronting the “darkness of mere being.”
As far as we can discern, the sole purpose of human existence is to kindle a light of meaning in the darkness of mere being.
— Carl Gustav Jung
The whole cosmos is, quite literally, falling one way or another. That’s what makes existence truly weird.
Massive spacetime objects fall around each other along elegantly elliptical paths. And these objects have danced this dance for billions of years and will dance it for billions more, long after you and I — and indeed even the solar system we inhabit — has returned to dust.
That’s a lot to take in.
What are we to make of our measly few decades on the planet Earth when we compare it to the sheer magnitude of cosmic timescales?
It’s no surprise that for many — myself included — there can be a whole lot of anxiety associated with confronting life and existence in general.
When faced with the fact of our tinyness, it’s easy to give in to the view that everything is meaningless — our lives, the lives of our friends and loved…
