I think we’re miserable partly because we have only one god, and that’s economics.
—James Hillman
For thousands of years, the world’s greatest thinkers have addressed the question of the meaning of life. No clear consensus has emerged.
If they can’t resolve this issue, what are your chances? It’s probably best to give up.
People who have a sense of meaning and purpose in their existence are generally found to have greater life satisfaction than those who don’t. Troll the shelves of your local bookstore, and you will find dozens of guides to the purpose-driven life.
So if it is your goal to score in the single digits of any life-satisfaction measure, a sense of purpose should be avoided at all costs. That can sound easy, as if all you have to do is not read any of those books. But just as misery can sneak up on you, so too can a sense of deeper meaning. You will need to be more vigilant—and adopt the meaning-free life deliberately rather than accidentally.
In this section, then, let’s take the road less traveled, and look at a subject that few have examined carefully: how to reduce or eliminate a sense of meaning from your life. The journey to misery can be a long one, and we want to free ourselves from any buoyant baggage that might prevent a full exploration of life’s murky depths.
For us, the dark night of the soul will not be sufficient. We want to eradicate the dawn forever.