Man's Search for Meaning

The problem with meaning, or meaningfulness, is it’s already recognized. In one’s search for meaning, the desire itself is meaningful. In the Richard Linklater film A Scanner Darkly (based on the Philip K. Dick novel), Freck decides rather than a cheap wine, to buy a “connoisseur” bottle to aid him in his suicide. He notes the type and the price. Before he swallows the pills and wine, he tries to “think of something meaningful, but could not.” However, Freck already decided on what is meaningful—a tasteful wine over a poor one. In the very act of thinking about what’s meaningful, Freck experiences it. And yet he misses it. His very preference constitutes meaning.

While we’re out there buying books about finding meaning (well, not me of course), the answer is in our hand at the bookstore. The meaning is in the act. Because I shop for books about “finding” meaning, the pursuit itself is something I value as meaningful. The book, then, is superfluous. That means more money for a cappuccino!

After Freck’s “death” he is forced to listen to his sins read out loud for an eternity. He remains thankful that he purchased a good wine. Because of his desire, the choice has meaning, it becomes memory—whereas the list of sins he has committed do not interest him. Although Freck’s previous sins may have been the results of desires, they lack meaning now. Meaning changes for the subject. What possessed meaning ten years ago—my favorite toy perhaps (okay, fifteen years ago), lacks meaning now. Meaning matures with us, and that’s one of the main reasons why we don’t see it. In other words, we live the meaningful everyday by our choices, our desires—except when we can’t afford them. As Freck lies in bed sighing at the sound of his sins, his “last” thought to himself is, “at least I got a good wine.”