A Little Cheerer-Upper About Annihilation

He’d been a strong man in his time. I remember him from way back. Tall and strong. Even well into his 90’s – he still stood upright and took on some gardening work to supplement his pension. But the Reaper will have his way, and shortly before his 100th birthday the man breathed his last. It was what came next that disturbed me the most though. I had not realised that the man had even been married, let alone that he had children. But after his death the relatives duly arrived to go through his things. A skip was planted at the front of the house. And it looked like everything went in there – furniture, clothes, books, cd’s, dvd’s – everything. It just seemed desperately sad, seeing all that stuff sitting out there. Not even a yard sale. Not even a charity shop. Just everything junked. I looked around at my own possessions of books, drawings, paintings and writing. I wondered what my relatives will do with all that, when the time comes. But, some might say, it’s just stuff. And there’s more to life than stuff, right? So why be concerned? I agree, of course. Perhaps a person has found some purpose in their life. Perhaps they’ve managed to achieve that purpose – or at least, partially achieved it. So hasn’t life been worthwhile? No need for stuff – that’s just scenery, just technical support. But, some might say, purpose very much relies on context. In a small-scale, local context, the purpose means something. In the context of the whole universe – well, of course, it’s nothing. But, some might say, what about God? God surely makes sense of a human life. Doesn’t God have a special and unique purpose for everyone, if only we would recognise it? Well, okay, I won’t quibble with that, if you want to believe it. But, I’d hazard to say, the problem with bringing God into a discussion is that He has the habit of complicating things! So, we could ask, why does God think that a particular purpose is a good idea? And to this there really is no answer – except to say that God’s ways are inscrutable and human minds are unable to comprehend what He’s about. So then, no further forward. As an alternative, how about looking at things in the light of eternity – looking at things in the widest of wide contexts? That way, the question holds for believers and unbelievers alike. We’ve said already though that in this context a human purpose is meaningless. But what if purpose is somehow built into the universe from the get-go? What if the universe is a moral universe? What if the universe is all about choice, quality and agency? Would that not mean that everything we do takes on a kind of significance? Every conversation the opportunity to make the world better or worse. Every choice laden with consequences that means something in the big picture. Who you are might matter. In fact, who you are might be part of what defines the universe! The trouble with this ‘view from eternity’ idea is that it kind of assumes too much. It assumes we could somehow see something of the universe from the outside, as it were, rather than being stuck within it. I think it’s a paradox worth pondering, but not one that’s ever going to be solved. And when it comes to the universe as a whole having purpose – well, how could anyone know what kind of influence they have unless they know just what the universe is up to? It’s back to the same problem we had with God! Let me tell you how it feels personally to be stuck in this dilemma. Everyone has their own version of the truth. Everyone has their opinion. Everyone has their joys and hopes and their fears and pains. Whatever a person believes of purpose then will often assume that they can change the way the rest of us think about things – change the narrative – even change human nature. So no matter how sincere you’ve been, trying to fulfil some worthwhile goal in your life, there’s always someone – in fact, a great many people – who are going to think that you’ve squandered your time on Earth. Your treasured meanings and purposes and your legacy – they’re sat outside in a skip. What are you going to do about that? Try to prove that everyone else is wrong and you are right? That, I can’t help thinking, would be a hollow victory. Try to convert people to your way of thinking? That’s a fool’s game. In fact, a hazard of all this is that – rather than winning people around to your way of thinking – you drive them away. So now you’ve made the world worse. Better to have stayed quiet. And anyway, isn’t it usually loud, pushy, arrogant people who get their way in the end? And who wants to be that way – just to force their opinions onto others. So why not throw in the towel and just live for pleasure? Eat, drink and be merry, for tomorrow we die. At least that way we won’t be messing with other people’s thoughts. At least you won’t scare people with your highfalutin ideas about fulfilling a purpose. That living for pleasure. It does not deliver somehow. Joy is a sort of spontaneous thing – appearing often for no reason and disappearing just as quickly. Maybe there are reasons somewhere – diet, exercise, or some such. But it just seems kind of random. Those brief moments in the sun – those un-looked-for moments. And those random meetings with strangers with whom we just somehow connect. Meanwhile, there are, after all, causes that deserve our attention, even if we do not construe them as personal meanings or purposes. We might describe them as common purposes for humanity. We will not be too concerned over their ‘ultimate’ meaning, or where the desire to see them fulfilled may come from. We will just roll up our sleeves, knowing there is work to be done. Peace, equity, freedom, stable government, reliable institutions, honest and reliable business practices – and many more. We may quibble over the details, but few, I think, would quibble over the aims. These are still big issues – these big-picture causes I’ve listed. I suppose the difference is that they are pragmatic issues. We know they need fixed. We know something needs to be done. So there’s a cut-off point. Our differing ideas on truth, our opinions on how to live, our preferences – all these hypothetical, philosophical things seem to lead us into unresolved bickering. But when it comes to the pragmatics there’s at least a glimmer of hope that we can agree. They are worth it. I think we need those pragmatic aims before the other stuff follows along. I think, even, that we still need to be contemplating those big questions for which we have no answers – because somehow that keeps us humble – recognising how much we don’t know. With all that, I’m not saying we’ve cracked it. Annihilation is a scary thing – anyone who tells you otherwise, well, I for one am not going to believe them. Annihilation is part of the paradox. But we do what we can in the face of the unknown. Such is the human condition. The essential precarity of our existence and a little moment in the sun and the serendipity of meeting someone with whom we connect and a sublime moment of connection with nature or the universe. This is all we’re ever going to get! And it is enough! *** I take a sip of wine. The light in the garden seems very warm and mellow. I feel suddenly dizzy. There are spots in front of my eyes… *** Neighbours see the man in his garden, not moving, a glass of wine in his hand. They check to see if he is okay. Realisation dawns on them. Then everything plays out like a drama that’s been repeated a million times. Within a few days, all the man’s possessions are sat outside his house in a skip.