Alas, this modest hope of just ‘leaving something behind’ is rarely fulfilled. Most organisms that ever existed became extinct without leaving any genetic inheritance. Almost all the dinosaurs, for example. Or a Neanderthal family which became extinct as Sapiens took over. Or my grandmother’s Polish clan. In 1934 my grandma Fanny emigrated to Jerusalem with her parents and two sisters, but most of their relatives stayed behind in the Polish towns of Chmielnik and Cz?stochowa. A few years later the Nazis came along and wiped them out to the very last child.
Attempts at leaving behind some cultural legacy are seldom more successful. Nothing has remained of my grandmother’s Polish clan except a few faded faces in the family album, and at the age of ninety-six, even my grandmother cannot match names to the faces. To the best of my knowledge, they haven’t left behind any cultural creation – not a poem, nor a diary, nor even a grocery list. You might argue that they have a share in the collective inheritance of the Jewish people or of the Zionist movement, but that hardly gives meaning to their individual lives. Moreover, how do you know all of them really cherished their Jewish identity or agreed with the Zionist movement? Maybe one of them was a committed communist, and sacrificed his life spying for the Soviets? Maybe another wanted nothing more than to assimilate into Polish society, served as an officer in the Polish army, and was killed by the Soviets in the Katyn massacre? Maybe a third was a radical feminist, rejecting all traditional religious and nationalist identities? Since they left nothing behind it is all too easy to posthumously recruit them to this or that cause, and they cannot even protest.
If we cannot leave something tangible behind – such as a gene or a poem – perhaps it is enough if we just make the world a little better? You can help somebody, and that somebody will subsequently help somebody else, and you thereby contribute to the overall improvement of the world, and constitute a small link in the great chain of kindness. Maybe you serve as a mentor for a difficult but brilliant child, who goes on to be a doctor who saves the lives of hundreds? Maybe you help an old lady cross the street, and brighten up an hour of her life? Though it has its merits, the great chain of kindness is a bit like the great chain of turtles – it is far from clear where its meaning comes from. A wise old man was asked what he learned about the meaning of life. ‘Well,’ he answered, ‘I have learned that I am here on earth in order to help other people. What I still haven’t figured out is why the other people are here.’
For those who don’t trust any great chains, any future legacies or any collective epics, perhaps the safest and most parsimonious story they can turn to is romance. It doesn’t seek to go beyond the here and now. As countless love poems testify, when you are in love, the entire universe is reduced to the earlobe, the eyelash or the nipple of your beloved. When gazing at Juliet leaning her cheek upon her hand, Romeo exclaims ‘O, that I were a glove upon that hand, That I might touch that cheek!’ By connecting with a single body here and now, you feel connected with the entire cosmos.
In truth, your beloved is just another human, no different in essence from the multitudes you ignore every day on the train and in the supermarket. But to you, he or she seems infinite, and you are happy to lose yourself in that infinity. Mystic poets of all traditions have often conflated romantic love with cosmic union, writing about God as a lover. Romantic poets have repaid the compliment by writing about their lovers as gods. If you are really in love with someone, you never worry about the meaning of life.
And what if you are not in love? Well, if you believe in the romantic story but you are not in love, you at least know what the aim of your life is: to find true love. You have seen it in countless movies and read about it in innumerable books. You know that one day you will meet that special someone, you will see infinity inside two sparkling eyes, your entire life will suddenly make sense, and all the questions you ever had will be answered by repeating one name over and over again, just like Tony in West Side Story or Romeo upon seeing Juliet looking down at him from the balcony.
The weight of the roof
While a good story must give me a role, and must extend beyond my horizons, it need not be true. A story can be pure fiction, and yet provide me with an identity and make me feel that my life has meaning. Indeed, to the best of our scientific understanding, none of the thousands of stories that different cultures, religions and tribes have invented throughout history is true. They are all just human inventions. If you ask for the true meaning of life and get a story in reply, know that this is the wrong answer. The exact details don’t really matter. Any story is wrong, simply for being a story. The universe just does not work like a story.
So why do people believe in these fictions? One reason is that their personal identity is built on the story. People are taught to believe in the story from early childhood. They hear it from their parents, their teachers, their neighbours and the general culture long before they develop the intellectual and emotional independence necessary to question and verify such stories. By the time their intellect matures, they are so heavily invested in the story, that they are far more likely to use their intellect to rationalise the story than to doubt it. Most people who go on identity quests are like children going treasure hunting. They find only what their parents have hidden for them in advance.