Mark Dohle
Well-Known Member
Meaningless?
2 “Meaningless! Meaningless!”
Everything is meaningless.”`
“Utterly meaningless!
says the Teacher.
2 “Meaningless! Meaningless!”
Everything is meaningless.”`
“Utterly meaningless!
says the Teacher.
When people hit a certain period in their lives, they come face to face with the absurdity of their existence. It is easy to live one's life like a robot. coffee and some sort of breakfast at home or in a drive through, rush hour traffic, work, have lunch, going Get up in the morning, shower, shave (if a male), have It is easy to live one’s life like a robot. When people hit a certain period in their lives, they come face to face with the absurdity of their existence.home, rush hour traffic, home, TV, supper and then bed, with some variations each day, but few.
The same can be said for living in a Monastery. Routine is important and very helpful but it can also be mind-numbing if done on automatic. Life pulls at us, routine helps to limit making constant choices and allows us just do it. It is when we never stop and look inward that we can run into problems. Life can become gray, hopeless, boring and it is usually summed up as meaningless, at least on a feeling level if not actually articulated. Since this was dealt with in the Book of Ecclesiastes, it is an issue that is not a modern problem but been around for a very long time.
Once a habit takes over we can forget why we actually are doing anything, or most importantly, if it needs to be done at all? As a Christian, what am I called to do in order to offset this “Waiting for Godot” experience, as portrayed in the play by Samuel Beckett?
There is more to life than the mundane everydayness that can at times be soul killing. When we pray and develop an interior life that is directed towards something greater than we are, it can bring us to a sense that what we do does, in fact, have meaning. That our smallest choices do dictate the direction of our lives, so the more conscious our choices the better off we will be, in how we move towards self-knowledge and personal responsibility.
Frantic activity is one way to escape this despair that can tear at us. Yet the only result is a deeper fatigue and a more frantic search for escape. Faith allows us to stop and permits the experience to pass through us, to not fear it, but to listen to it.
It can bring us to a place of ‘conscious intent’ wherein all that we do can be seen in a new light….we learn to see with the eyes of Christ.
All faith paths seek to bring their followers to that point, but sad to say our cultures tend to have more power than our supposed beliefs. What is around us is seems real, but it changes all the time. What stays put, is permanent, is our own inner struggle for meaning and the seeking after love and an end to isolation and the feeling that it is all for nothing in the end.
The world can’t be controlled, in fact, I believe that after a certain point of growth, cultures allow themselves to be taken over by the collective unconscious of the population, and are simply prodded along. How else can out current state be explained? The more unaware the population is of their own inner world and their responsibility for their choices is not addressed, the faster the cycle towards devolution spirals out of control.
I do believe that to depend on our governments to make things better is an illusion, for it is the collective will of the people, which in the end create what we call our culture. Perhaps, the seeking after control needs to be let go of, despair rejected, judging others harshly put to rest, and to simply, quietly, live out our faith and show that faith in how we relate to others. The old way seems not to work, is there another way to do life? If not, we may soon be something other than what we are now. No society or way of life is promised any kind of extended existence, in fact, all cultures die in the end, how soon is up to each of us…..not to the intervention of the government.
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