Why should we do one thing rather than another when there was no goal anyway, nor any direction in life, apart from the huddle together, live and then die?
Who enquired about the value of this life when it was gone for ever, turned into a fistful of damp earth and a few yellowing brittle bones?
The skull, wasn't it grinning with derision down there in the grave?
What difference did a few extra dead bodies make from that perspective?
Oh yes, there were other perspectives on this same world; couldn't it be seen as a miracle of cool rivers and vast forests, whorled snail shells and deep potholes, veins and grey matter, deserted planets and expanding galaxies?
Yes, it could, because meaning is not something we are given but which we give.
Death makes life meaningless because everything we have ever striven for ceases when life does, and it makes life meaningful too, because its presence makes the little we have of it indispensable, every moment precious.
Karl Ove Knausgård in "My Struggle: Book 2 - A Man in Love"
Who enquired about the value of this life when it was gone for ever, turned into a fistful of damp earth and a few yellowing brittle bones?
The skull, wasn't it grinning with derision down there in the grave?
What difference did a few extra dead bodies make from that perspective?
Oh yes, there were other perspectives on this same world; couldn't it be seen as a miracle of cool rivers and vast forests, whorled snail shells and deep potholes, veins and grey matter, deserted planets and expanding galaxies?
Yes, it could, because meaning is not something we are given but which we give.
Death makes life meaningless because everything we have ever striven for ceases when life does, and it makes life meaningful too, because its presence makes the little we have of it indispensable, every moment precious.
Karl Ove Knausgård in "My Struggle: Book 2 - A Man in Love"