Posts tagged ‘Ecclesiastes’
Meaning in Life
David Foster Wallace’s final unfinished novel, The Pale King, describes a handful of IRS employees looking for meaning in life. One employee, Lane Dean Jr., seems to be particularly overwhelmed by the apparent tedious and utter meaninglessness of his job:
The rule was, the more you looked at the clock the slower the time went. None of the wigglers wore a watch, except he saw that some kept them in their pockets for breaks. Clocks on Tingles were not allowed, nor coffee or pop. Try as he might, he could not this last week help envisioning the inward lives of the older men to either side of him, doing this day after day. Getting up on a Monday and chewing their toast and putting their hats and coats on knowing what they were going out the door to come back to for eight hours. This was boredom beyond any boredom he’d ever felt.
Lane Dean Jr. tries to browbeat his boredom into beauty by imagining a beach, full of sunshine and warmth, but after just an hour of work:
The beach was a winter beach, cold and gray and the dead kelp like the hair of the drowned, and it stayed that way despite all attempts.
Lane Dean Jr. could not seem, try as he might, to conjure meaning in what felt to him to be a meaninglessness job.
Lane Dean Jr.’s struggle for meaning was a reflection of Wallace’s own intensely personal and desperate struggle. For all of his success as an innovative and creative novelist, who is still widely read and well regarded to this day, he too was on a search for meaning in life. But try as he did, he was simply not resourceful enough to create meaning ex nihilo in his admittedly brilliant novels. And his struggle cost him dearly as, tragically, he took his own life.
Wallace’s sad struggle with meaning in life is nothing new. It was King Solomon who once cried:
Meaningless! Meaningless! Utterly meaningless! Everything is meaningless. (Ecclesiastes 1:2)
Solomon, like so many others before and after him, struggled to see meaning in life. Indeed, the Hebrew word for “meaningless” here is hebel, which refers to a “vapor” or “mist.” Solomon knew that so much of the stuff in life that we tout as meaningful – our jobs, our successes, our paychecks, our social networks, and even our morality – always and eventually evaporate before our eyes. They do not and cannot be lastingly meaningful in and of themselves.
So, what is the solution to our futile and desperate attempts to create meaning in life? It is to trade our obsession to create meaning in life for a humble and sincere desire to seek the meaning of life. For life to have lasting meaning, meaning must come from somewhere beyond life and from something larger than life. Humans cannot create true meaning ex nihilo. Instead of being created, true meaning must be revealed. This is why Solomon, after declaring all human attempts to create meaning futile, concludes:
Of making many books there is no end, and much study wearies the body. Now all has been heard; here is the conclusion of the matter: Fear God and keep His commandments, for this is the duty of all mankind. (Ecclesiastes 12:12-13)
People may write volumes upon volumes of books, as did David Foster Wallace, seeking to make life meaningful, but only God and His Word can provide true and lasting meaning. It is in His Word that the true and lasting meaning of life is revealed – to obey God’s commands and to be loved by Him even when we do not.
Is this the foundation of your meaning?
U.S. Life Expectancy Slides
Credit: Nazrul Islam Ripon
King Solomon makes a sobering statement in the book of Ecclesiastes:
The wise have eyes in their heads, while the fool walks in the darkness; but I came to realize that the same fate overtakes them both. (Ecclesiastes 2:14)
Solomon knows that, for all humanity’s wisdom, no one is clever enough to outrun, outsmart, or outmaneuver fate. The wise, just like the foolish, share the same fate of death. As Solomon puts it later in Ecclesiastes: “Death is the destiny of everyone” (Ecclesiastes 7:2).
I was reminded of this truth when I came across this headline: “With death rate up, U.S. life expectancy is likely down again.” Mike Stobbe, writing for the Associated Press, explains:
The U.S. death rate rose last year, and 2017 likely will mark the third straight year of decline in American life expectancy, according to preliminary data.
Death rates rose for Alzheimer’s disease, diabetes, flu and pneumonia, and three other leading causes of death, according to numbers posted online Wednesday by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
The progress we have made in fighting disease has been nothing short of astonishing. From advances in treating HIV to new drugs for ALS and MS to promising gene therapies for certain types of cancer, we are making extraordinary strides in protecting and extending life. But disease still haunts us and hurts us. What’s more, it’s not just disease that threatens us existentially, it’s we who threaten ourselves personally. As Mr. Stobbe notes:
Full-year data is not yet available for drug overdoses, suicides or firearm deaths. But partial-year statistics in those categories showed continuing increases.
The indicators from late-2017 looked grim on both drug overdose, where U.S. deaths skyrocketed 21 percent, and on firearm deaths, two-thirds of which are suicides. As it turns out, we are often our own worst enemies.
I sometimes wonder if our societally sliding life expectancy doesn’t have an inverse relationship to our personally skyrocketing life expectations. Far too many people have unattainable, unsustainable, and, frankly, misplaced expectations for life. Some people expect riches. Others expect pleasure. Others expect ease. Still others expect perfection. When these expectations are not met, sometimes, some people slide into destructive habits, patterns, addictions, and even moments of despair. And a life expectancy craters because life expectations are not met.
In Ecclesiastes, Solomon notes that even if a person recklessly indulges every desire, his life expectations will remain impoverished. Life expectations based in things like riches, pleasure, ease, and perfection can never satisfy. This is why we must place our deepest expectations not with our individual longings, but in our transcendent Lord. For when we do, even if our life expectancy is cut short, our eternity remains secure.
The nation’s average life expectancy may continue to slide. But our lives do not have to fall forever. Because of the One who was lifted up on a cross, we can be lifted up from the grave. And that’s not an expectation that can be dashed. That’s real hope that lasts.
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