Meaning of Life and Other Ultimate Concerns
Return for a moment to Tolstoy, who often asked: "Is there meaning in my life which will not be destroyed by the inevitable death awaiting me?" "All my acts, whatever I do, will sooner or later be forgotten and I myself be nowhere. Why, then, busy one's self with anything?" These questions are not about meaning but about meta-meaning concerns, and revolve around the issue of transience: will we leave anything enduring behind us? Do we vanish without a trace and, if so, how can our life matter? Is everything pointless if, as Bertrand Russell lamented, "All the labors of the ages, all the devotion, all the inspiration, all the noonday brightness of human genius, are destined to extinction in the vast death of the solar system, and the whole temple of man's achievement must inevitably be buried beneath the debris of a universe in ruins?" When Tolstoy lamented that there was no meaning in his life that would not be destroyed by the inevitable death
