The Meaning of Life is Not The Right Question

Deep Thought contemplating the Big Question.

In the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, there is a massive supercomputer called Deep Thought charged with the task of crunching all the known data and answering the ultimate question of life, the universe, and everything. The computer reports it will take seven and a half million years of calculation, so, naturally, everyone waits. 

And seven and a half million years of calculation later, the computer spits out the answer: 42. The meaning of life is 42. 

What could have saved humanity seven and a half million years was asking a better question. Deep Thought claims it can't develop a better question but it could build a larger model to do the trick. Deep Thought calls this new supercomputer Earth. 

And although Earth hasn't quite yet answered the ultimate question of life, there are endless answers to other questions at our fingertips that were never there before. Kevin Kelly, co-founder of Wired magazine, recently told John Brockman of Edge that the future of technology on Earth might rely more on asking the correct question than finding an answer. With the ubiquity of smartphones with search engines, answers are not in rare supply. What we need to determine is exactly what we're looking for. 

Economist and author Stephen Dubner bags this idea up in Think Like a Freak when he writes, "But if you ask the wrong, you are almost guaranteed to get the wrong answer." Much like how Dubner writes about the record-breaking performance and career of professional eater Takeru Kobayashi. Instead of asking himself "How do I eat more hot dogs?" at the Nathan's Hot Dog Eating Championship as the competition seemed to do, Kobayashi shifted perspective by answering "How do I make hot dogs easier to eat?". And he blew away the competition. Crowned the Nathan's Hot Dog Eating Champion for the first time in 2001, doubling the then-current record of 25 1/8 hot dogs in 12 minutes by eating 50, Kobayashi went on to win for the next five years. 

Life is a matter of trajectory. Hot dogs might not be your style but discovering something specific offers an answer you can take action on. If you're lazy and general in your goals, you'll find nothing more than inaction and disappointment. Motivational speaker Tony Robbins jokes that if your goal is to "make more money" (which for tons of people it is), someone could just give you a dollar to go away. 

The meaning of life is not specific and it might never be. As Tim Ferriss breaks it down in The 4-Hour Work Week: "Until the question is clear - each term in it defined - there is no point in answering it. The "meaning" of "life" question is unanswerable without further elaboration." There are endless answers to the "meaning" of "life" not just for society as a whole, but throughout your life too. Do you think the meaning of life you nail down in your teenage years would make any sense now? And you've had to have heard the stories of hospice patients on their deathbeds regretting the time they wasted on work in place of more time with loved ones. It is a constant questioning process. You don't want a dollar and you don't want a single, crappy meaning. 

And so with the rest of our lives ahead of us, I beg you to ask better questions. If you're overwhelmed by the possibilities of the meaning of life, find the meaning of your life today. There is no guarantee you'll be around to answer it tomorrow and you can take action now. What are you waiting for?

Quit Relying on Reaction

We need to stop wishing the cute barista at the coffee shop is going to come up and talk to us. Or the hot girl at the ice cream shop. Or the hot guy playing fetch with his dog at the park. Sure, you might make some good eye contact and even catch a smile. But what if you were doomed to live a Groundhog's Day existence where no one would ever approach you again? My guess is you'd learn pretty quickly that the way to get what you want is not by wishing you could just react. You need to be proactive. You need to stand up. You need to open your mouth. 

Too often we're caught talking out the side of our mouths explaining how much we hate to be told what to do. No one wants to have orders barked at them. We want to be in control. We want to do what we want to do. And then we wake up to jolting alarm clocks. We roll over and surrender our beautiful morning thoughts to checking the emails, texts, and tweets we didn't see when we put our heads to the pillow the night before. We spend our primetime hours at work delivering on tasks for our managers and relinquish our nights and minds to all kinds of entertainment on screens. The day is lost in responding too often to the outside world.

And it makes sense. There is comfort in our routines and there is fear when it comes to certain decisions. It's much easier to react to the alarm clocks of our days then pick with assurance from the infinite amount of pathways available. If you've ever cracked open Netflix with your friends for a movie night you can follow. 

We want what we want and we don't want to choose. But, in the end, the choice is yours and it's being made one way or another.

Josh Waitzkin, author of The Art of Learning and the chess champion inspiration for the book/movie Searching for Bobby Fischer, calls this the multitasking virus when it comes to the learning process. In an article titled The Multitasking Virus and The End of Learning? on Tim Ferriss' blog Waitzkin wrote this:

"We obviously live in a world that bombards us with information, and we feel the need to respond to stimulus as it comes in. The problem with this is that we get stretched along the superficial outer layers of many things. I believe in depth over breadth in the learning process."

Yes, we are social creatures, so the "need to respond" is real. You're not going to simply ignore everyone that doesn't fit your mold; you're not a sociopath. The trouble, psychedelic explorer and author Terence McKenna would say, is that we are programmed by culture. McKenna takes it to a spiritual extreme although the essence was there when he lectured that culture "invites people to diminish themselves and dehumanize themselves by behaving like machines." 

We're spending all of our time putting out fires ignited by other people that we barely take the time to really dive into what's inside us, what we want from life when all the chores and notifications fade away.

Questioning yourself is uncomfortable, no doubt. You need to consider the very real and very short time you have on this planet to understand what you really want to do with it. Your dreams have to be thrown around your mind and set in front of the mirror, examined from all sides. You have to go deep.

But when all of that is said and done, you have one added benefit: There is strength in knowing what you want and going for it. Deciding for yourself gives you the determination and confidence to attack. Waitzkin explains it like this, "One of many problems with multi-tasking is that the frenetic skipping leaves little room for relaxation, and thus our reservoir for energetic presence is constantly depleted." There is no true hack for the to-do list. Sometimes you just need to throw it away. Wake up and take action.

Because there is no kill switch. And if you're honest with yourself, you wouldn't pull it anyway. Life will more than likely blindside you with a couple of curveballs here and there, but it's only half the fun and challenge in reacting to them, don't make it everything.

To Decide Is To Be Human

Human beings are alone in our uniqueness. We're known to be at the top of the food chain. Descrates argued we think therefore we exist and Alexander Pope said, "To err is human" so we're special cause we fuck up. Michael Pollan, author of In Defense of Food, notes cooking as specific to humans and Daniel Pink has a book titled To Sell is Human.

But above all, we're the single most powerful species we know to possess conscious, complicated thoughts and the power to change our environment acting them out. To decide is to be human. We don't fall back to our wild side and rely on our instincts. We have the power to synthesize a thousand different lifetimes in our own, and we take the paths we think are right and good. And yet, sometimes we take it all for granted. 

Isn't that amazing? We have the ability to honestly want something and we don't act like we do. Too often we default to being scared and feeling comfortable. Our minds get the better of us one way or another. And it makes sense, life is scary. But you know what? We're still making decisions. We're falling back on our instincts to stay safe and survive. 

There is more to life for us than taking up space. 

Life is a winding series of small decisions. Nothing more and nothing less. There are no big decisions. Every step we take opens a world of possibilities whether we know it or not. And while there is no guarantee our decisions will bring us to the right destination, there is an explosive power in each and every decision. 

I am going to start investigating and exploring the best ways to make life's small and strong decisions. It is the stuff life is made of and while everyone's path is different, we can all benefit from making good decisions. Whatever that means.

Embrace the Unpredictability

New York City is unpredictable. You can't mash this many people together and not crank out some madness. And when the population hits nearly eight and a half million people, you don't dare say the word "bored". There is no end to temptation or opportunity, they're two sides of the same coin. You want to experience the intoxicating pilgrimage you'll be telling stories about for years to come. You want to see the role model you've always dreamed of meeting and hand her your business card with a smile. There is potential for everything. And that's the dream.

But if unpredictability is what we all want from our networking events or nights at the bar, we're going about it the wrong way. Just because there is something to do every night doesn't mean it has to be done. Sure, there are subway rides and dinner plans, concerts and art installations. Drinking buddies and coffeehouses. Dinners fold sixty minutes into three hours. Concerts end with shots at the bar. One-night stands turn into confusing mornings. It's the glamourous, sinful fun of the city. The trouble is when the allure of unpredictabilty comes at the expense of finding what you truly want. You're just throwing it up to chaos, hoping for the best. 

There are people working from their bedrooms, typing away. I'm one of them. I can hear the happy dinner-goers shout conversation at one another over the floating notes of the in-house band. Beyond that I know there are groups of joggers and people playing soccer in McCarren park. Somewhere in Manhattan my favorite authors could just be standing on a street corner having a conversation with someone who is not me. C'est la vie.

But sometimes it's really fucking hard to shut the door and go to work. It is embarassing to say no to so many events after work and go even further to have to defend yourself. Really it's embarassing to feel embarassed. It should be a point of pride to commit to whatever work you have waiting for you when you're alone at home. It should be more captivating than the unpredictability potential the nightlife offers. In all honesty, the embarassment might just come from the desire to avoid it all. Sometimes you need some discipline, some rest, some mental space.

When you're surrounded by millions of people, literally, you're surrounded by billions of opportunities. It can be exhausting just trying to analyze it all. When you're going to the bar, you could be crashing into your favorite director at a workshop somewhere else. When you're crunching some overtime in the office, you could be hitting on the love of your life in the coffee shop down the street. There is no right answer and it's enough to fall into the madness.

There is just a collision of two New York Cities. The grass is always greener on the other side whether you're two pints in at the bar or two pages in at home. 

You need to know your place. You're going to fear missing out every night because there is always something happening, thousands of things happening, every single night. You're not a victim if you don't want to be. Find the balance you need to get something done. 

You came to New York to experience yourself in New York. Now decide and conquer.