What is the Meaning of this Journey we Call Life?
Photo Credit: Natalie Nicklin/ Via New Scientist.
Today (Sat 22 March 2025) I read a very interesting, powerful and meaningful article in my daily paper on life’s biggest question: What is the Meaning of Life? All sorts of thoughts, imaginations and ideas started to get shaped and formulated in my head. I decided to read the article again, hoping this will help me to calm my excited and busy mind. To some extent it did. But I wanted more…
I must admit that the article very much resonated with me, as this fundamental question, ‘what is the meaning of life’, has been occupying my thoughts and my mind for a very long time, since the early 1990s when I began to ask fundamental questions of myself, my personal and my professional life, meaning and purpose, who am I, what am I, why am I, what am I teaching my students, who have come to me for inspiration and guidance, and much more. It was then that I began my journey of self-discovery, a journey of search for meaning and purpose, a journey still in progress. More on this later (see the links at the end)*.
Moreover, these days, the meaning of life has become even more important and significant to me. Since my wife’s stroke a couple of years ago, our lives have been turned upside down. Many new challenges, difficulties, emotions, feelings, questions and more. Despite the wonderful loving kindness and support of our sons and their families, as well as our friends, here, in Coventry, I, nonetheless, at times feel more isolated, lonely and vulnerable; missing our loving conversations, storytelling, planning our lives together and doing the things we used to do…Above all, I miss Annie’s insightful and wise counsel, helping me to navigate my life and to anchor me whilst sailing in life’s stormy waters.
As a result, I have learnt more about what things are valuable or essential. I have learnt to be more grateful, caring and more thankful. Giving thanks for the beauty and the wonder of life, still being together, in love and living in hope. I think these all contribute to a better understanding of life’s meaning and purpose.
Now let me tell you a bit about the author of the said article-James Bailey- and his intriguing project, his search for the meaning of life.
In September 2015 ‘James Bailey was unemployed, heartbroken, and questioning his purpose on the planet. In desperate search of an answer, he decided to write to luminaries from all fields and ask one simple question: What is the meaning of life?
Then he waited.
Slowly but surely their responses arrived through his letterbox…Later on, he put some of the responses together in a book, which according to many observers it has turned out to be more than ‘just a collection of letters; it's a roadmap to finding your own path.’
For now, the best I can do is to begin with James’ letter to the people that he had sent his question and request.
James’ Letter
‘In 1931, the philosopher Will Durant wrote to 100 luminaries in the arts, politics, religion and sciences, challenging them to respond not only to the fundamental question of life’s meaning but also to relate how they each found meaning, purpose and fulfilment in their own lives. I am currently replicating Durant’s study, and I’d be most appreciative if you could tell me what you think the meaning of life is, and how you find meaning, purpose and fulfilment in your own life?
‘As Durant originally instructed, “Write briefly if you must; write at length and at leisure if you possibly can.”
What is the meaning of life?
Photo credit: The Gallerist
Below I have noted three of possible answers – from a palliative care doctor, a Holocaust survivor and a professor of cognitive and computational neuroscience
Photo credit: Via Be Encouraged Always
‘I’ve seen death many times. What matters most isn’t success, or wealth’: Kathryn Mannix, palliative care consultant
‘Every moment is precious – even the terrible moments. That’s what I’ve learned from spending 40 years caring for people with incurable illnesses, gleaning insights into what gives our lives meaning. Watching people living their dying has been an enormous privilege, especially as it’s shown me that it isn’t until we really grasp the truth of our own mortality that we awaken to the preciousness of being alive.
Every life is a journey from innocence to wisdom. Fairy stories and folk myths, philosophers and poets all tell us this. Our innocence is chipped away, often gently but sometimes brutally, by what happens to us. Gradually, innocence is transformed to experience, and we begin to understand who we are, how the world is, and what matters most to us.
The threat of having our very existence taken away by death brings a mighty focus to the idea of what matters most to us. I’ve seen it so many times, and even though it’s unique for everyone, there are some universal patterns. What matters most isn’t success, or wealth, or stuff. It’s connection and relationships and love. Reaching an understanding like this is the beginning of wisdom: a wisdom that recognises the pricelessness of this moment. Instead of yearning for the lost past, or leaning in to the unguaranteed future, we are most truly alive when we give our full attention to what is here, right now.
Whatever is happening, experiencing it fully means both being present and being aware of being present. The only moment in our lives that we can ever have any choice about is this one. Even then, we cannot choose our circumstances, but we can choose how we respond: we can rejoice in the good things, relax into the delightful, be intrigued by the unexpected, and we can inhabit our own emotions, from joy to fear to sorrow, as part of our experience of being fully alive.
I’ve observed that serenity is both precious and evanescent. It’s a state of flow that comes from relaxing into what is, without becoming distracted by what might follow. It’s a state of mind that rests in appreciation of what we have, rather than resisting it or disparaging it. The wisest people I have met have often been those who live the most simply, whose serenity radiates loving kindness to those around them, who have understood that all they have is this present moment.
That’s what I’ve learned so far, but it’s still a work in progress. Because it turns out that every moment of our lives is still a work in progress, right to our final breath.’
‘The first awareness, in Bergen-Belsen, was that kindness and goodwill had survived’: Susan Pollack, Holocaust survivor
‘In response to your letter, here are a few thoughts that assisted me to look forward in my youth after those bleak, horrendous times in 1944. I am a camp survivor from Auschwitz and was liberated from Bergen-Belsen on 15 April 1945. I was totally dehumanised, fearful, distrustful, lost to contemplate the future, all alone, unable to comprehend the values for a life in a modern civilisation.
Fourteen years old – unable to walk, to express the latent, suppressed anguish – the realisation I only speak Hungarian, no skills, no education, no finance, no support system, no knowledge.
The first awareness, in Bergen-Belsen, was the discovery that kindness and goodwill had also survived. When the British soldier lifted me up from the mud hole – seeing a twitch in my body – he gently placed me in one of the small ambulances. From that experience, miraculous goodwill is one of the guiding lights to this day. I often think of that moment and ask, “What part of that goodness with your heart do you take from that soldier?”
Kindness, generosity comes in small everyday events. Small measures of goodness have an enormous impact – to this day I take nothing for granted. I remember the effect and appreciation this first helpfulness had on my life – it gradually removed the heavy iron cover on me, and sparks of “I can do” and “I want to do” gradually came into my existence.
In Sweden, where I was taken for recuperation for my devastated physical corpse-like being, one of the facilitators had a large collection of classical records. These he played every evening, and we sat around and listened in awe to Beethoven symphonies and other pieces. In my interpretation, I could feel the energy of the music, from sorrow and despair to the drive of supreme human effort to rise above those destructive memories. I must say not completely – personally, I don’t want to let it go completely – but I am free of the chains which deprived me in the camps. Music, generally, has an enormous effect on my life.
I moved on. I became a Samaritan helper for some eight years. I took a degree at the age of 60 and then a diploma in psychology. For me, life is full of possibilities, like a search engine – find your meaning for existence that makes me feel worthy – self-esteem is the reward.
I was fortunate in having a family and could play with my grandchildren, reclaiming those years of persecution.
I remember the doctor in Sweden who took me in his arms to teach me walking, and turned to me saying: “I have a little girl like you.” What a discovery about myself – powerful words that still ring in my ears long after 70 years – I cherish kind words. These are the propelling force to continue our journey and many more small events that had a huge impact on my life.’
Photo credit:Martin Puddy/Getty Images
‘I asked my mother what she thought it was, from her now frail vantage point’: Anil Seth, professor of cognitive and computational neuroscience
‘It feels strange to be writing to you about the meaning of life while my mother is struggling to hold on to hers. At the age of 89 she’s had a long life by the standards of human history, but any human life is the briefest glimmer in the vastness of time. The inconceivable brevity of human existence brings questions about meaning, purpose and fulfilment into sharp relief.
My mother was born in York in 1934, on Christmas Day, and grew up playing in the ruins of bombed-out buildings. She was a teacher, and later an artist and a landscape photographer. Lately, before her recent illness, she would wonder to me at the prospect of nonexistence. She knows she will die, as most of us do at some level, but she cannot imagine not existing. As the horizons of her life have contracted, she has been able to find contentment in simpler and simpler things: the rhythms of the garden, the play of light on the leaves of a tree. This flexibility suggests to me that meaning, purpose and fulfilment are not only different things, but moving targets, if they are targets at all.
I’ve spent my career trying to understand more about the mystery of consciousness. About how the mess of neural wetware inside our heads can give rise to the everyday miracle of experience. Consciousness is intimately familiar to each of us. We all know what it’s like to be conscious, and what it’s like to lose consciousness when we fall into a dreamless sleep. The nature of consciousness is also endlessly perplexing, confounding scientists and thinkers for thousands of years.
Some people worry that pursuing a scientific perspective on conscious experience might drain life of meaning by reducing us to mere biological machinery. I have found the opposite to be the case. There is no reduction. There is rather a continuity with the natural world, and with this continuity comes an expansion, a wider and deeper perspective. As we gradually pull back the curtains on the biological basis of conscious experience in all its richness, there are new opportunities to take ourselves and our conscious lives less for granted. We can see ourselves more as part of, and less apart from, the rest of nature. Our brief moments in the light of existence become more remarkable for having happened at all.
A recognition of the precarity of consciousness can help defuse some of our existential fears. We do not usually worry much about the oblivion that preceded our birth, so why should we worry about the equivalent oblivion that will follow our death? Oblivion isn’t the experience of absence, it is the absence of experience. As the novelist Julian Barnes put it, in his meditation on mortality, there is “nothing to be frightened of”.
I’ve come to think of consciousness as the precondition for meaning. An argument can be made that without consciousness, nothing would matter at all. Meaning, purpose and fulfilment can take many forms against this backdrop. The Aristotelian concept of eudaimonia best captures what I have in mind here. Eudaimonia means living well, flourishing, doing that which is worth doing. It is not about pleasure or hedonic satisfaction, nor is it about selfless sacrifice for some greater good. It involves realising one’s potential through cultivating virtues such as reason, courage and wisdom. Fundamentally, it comes down to doing a bit of good and feeling good about doing so.
For me, participating in some small way in the scientific and philosophical journey to understand ourselves and our place in nature, and communicating some of this journey to others, offers the promise of a slice of eudaimonia. In practice, frustration lurks at every turn. There is the risk of hubris when dealing with such apparently grand matters. And the dramas of everyday life get in the way.
Which brings me back to my mother. Today she has rallied, unexpectedly confounding the prognosis of the doctors. I asked her what she thought the meaning of life was, from her now frail vantage point. She told me it was about relationships with other people, and who can argue with that.’
Below you can read the entire article by James Bailey:
A Must-read book by James Bailey
The Meaning of Life: Letters from Extraordinary People and their Answer to Life's Biggest Question
Read more and buy the book HERE
*A comment on a Financial Times editorial
*My life’s Journey to Meaning and Purpose: Let Me Know What is Essential