Why Do We Live? – A Wrong Question to Ask
posted: 24-Jan-2025 & updated: 29-Aug-2025
… the right question to ask is “Do I want meaning of my life?” This reframing represents a crucial philosophical move that shifts the entire ground of the discussion from metaphysics to pragmatics, from discovery to creation, from obligation to choice.
The meaning of life isn’t an inherent truth waiting to be discovered. … it’s something we actively create through our will and intention.
… Religious and secular, individual and collective, traditional and innovative approaches to meaning can all contribute to the rich human project of creating lives worth living.
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The Universal Quest and Personal Journey
Like most people, I believe … or guess, I have often pondered why we live and, more specifically, why I live or should live. This question appears to be hardwired into human consciousness itself—a fundamental inquiry that emerges as soon as we develop sufficient self-awareness to recognize our own existence and mortality (or not). Throughout different stages of my life, I’ve found various answers, including the possibility that there is no answer at all.
The search for life’s meaning is perhaps the most persistent and universal human endeavor. From the ancient cave paintings of Lascaux to modern existential philosophy, humans have consistently grappled with questions of purpose and significance. This universality suggests something profound about our nature—we are not merely biological entities seeking survival, but conscious beings compelled to justify our existence to ourselves (at least ever since Axial Age).
Before developing sufficient capacity for philosophical thinking and logical reasoning, my thoughts wandered aimlessly. Childhood offers a natural reprieve from existential anxiety—the immediate concerns of play, learning, and growth provide sufficient meaning without deeper questioning. Yet even children occasionally ask profound questions: “Why am I here?” “What happens when we die?” These early stirrings of existential curiosity often catch adults off-guard, revealing how fundamental these questions are to human experience.
According to my mother’s recollection, it was around when I was 7 years ago that I asked her “What is life?”, which quite surprised her. Looking back, I threw quite a lot of philosophical questions myself even when I was very little.
As the child of non-religious parents, I didn’t rely on divine beings to find meaning. This absence of religious framework, while liberating in some ways, created a particular challenge. Religious traditions, whatever their ultimate truth claims, provide ready-made answers to life’s big questions. The religiously raised child receives a complete cosmology: you exist because God created you, your purpose is to serve God and follow divine commandments, and your ultimate destiny lies in an afterlife determined by your earthly conduct. Without this framework, the burden of creating meaning falls entirely upon the individual—a daunting task for a developing mind.
During high school, I explored Christianity but found its answers unsatisfactory, as the Bible failed to convincingly demonstrate God’s existence, hence for example, making the “Christian type” of purpose-driven life arguments unconvincing. (I know this cannot disprove anything.) My engagement with Christianity was earnest and thorough—I attended youth groups, read theological texts, and genuinely attempted to embrace faith. The intellectual obstacles, however, proved insurmountable. The problem of evil, the historical inconsistencies in religious texts, and the absence of empirical (and non-empirical) evidence for supernatural claims created cognitive dissonance that I couldn’t resolve through faith alone.
The philosophical implications of rejecting religious answers to life’s meaning are significant. As Dostoevsky famously wrote through Ivan Karamazov, “If there is no God, everything is permitted.” This statement captures the vertigo that accompanies the loss of divine authority—without a cosmic lawgiver, we must create our own moral frameworks and purposes. Some find this prospect liberating; others find it terrifying. For me, it was both.
The Wittgenstein Moment and the Burden of Gifts
A turning point came in around 2000 when I read the two-volume biography of Ludwig Wittgenstein, subtitled “The Duty of Genius” (this and this). The moment I saw that subtitle, something stirred within me—which is probably what drew me to pick up those books at the bookstore in the first place. I still can’t fully explain that impulse or why those particular volumes called to me that day. (They weren’t gifts or recommendations from friends; the choice was entirely my own, though I only recognized its significance in retrospect.) At the time, I couldn’t articulate why the subtitle struck me so powerfully, but after reading the biography, I came to understand it this way: Wittgenstein recognized his exceptional intellect and understood that he had no intellectual equal among his contemporaries. He knew he surpassed even his mentor Bertrand Russell in many respects, particularly in philosophy. This awareness of his rare gift created a sense of obligation—a duty to contribute something meaningful to humanity, simply because he had been given this extraordinary capacity, whether he had asked for it or not.
The concept of the “Duty of Genius” reveals a particular approach to life’s meaning that deserves deeper examination. Wittgenstein’s biography portrays a man tormented by his own intellectual gifts—he felt compelled to use his extraordinary mind not for personal gain or comfort, but for humanity’s benefit. This created an almost unbearable psychological burden. He abandoned a promising career in engineering, gave away his inherited fortune, and subjected himself to intense philosophical labor that often left him mentally and physically exhausted.
Wittgenstein’s approach to meaning through obligation and service represents one strand of thought about life’s purpose that has deep philosophical roots. Immanuel Kant’s categorical imperative suggests we have moral duties that transcend personal desires—we should act according to principles we could will to be universal laws. From this perspective, exceptional abilities create exceptional obligations. The person with rare intellectual gifts has a duty to use them for the greater good, just as the person with great wealth or power has corresponding responsibilities.
This line of thoughts struck me deeply that time, now I think, compelling me to search for my own purpose, even though I didn’t consider myself his intellectual equal at that time. The Wittgenstein model of meaning-through-obligation appealed to me because it provided a secular framework for purpose that didn’t require religious faith. If I possessed any special talents or abilities, perhaps my meaning lay in using them to benefit others. This perspective offered a way to escape the apparent meaninglessness of a purely materialistic worldview while avoiding the intellectual compromises required by religious faith.
However, the “Duty of Genius” approach contains several philosophical problems that I didn’t fully appreciate at the time. First, it presupposes that extraordinary abilities create extraordinary obligations—but why should this be true? The fact that someone can do something exceptional doesn’t necessarily mean they ought to do it. A naturally gifted athlete might choose to pursue philosophy instead of sports; a brilliant mathematician might prefer teaching children to advancing the frontiers of knowledge. The is-ought distinction that David Hume identified applies here: descriptive facts about abilities don’t automatically generate prescriptive duties about how those abilities should be used.
Second, this approach to meaning risks creating what psychologists call “impostor syndrome” or “inferiority complex” at the least on a cosmic scale. If your life’s meaning depends on your exceptional contributions to humanity, what happens when you discover your limitations? What if your supposed gifts turn out to be more ordinary than you believed? What if your contributions don’t measure up to your own or others’ expectations? The meaning derived from exceptional service becomes fragile and dependent on external validation.
Third, the genius-obligation model may reflect a subtle form of narcissism disguised as altruism. The person who believes their special gifts create special duties may unconsciously enjoy feeling chosen or superior to ordinary mortals. This psychological dynamic can undermine the supposed selflessness of the approach. Friedrich Nietzsche would likely have seen through this self-deception, recognizing it as a manifestation of what he called “ressentiment“—the weak person’s attempt to feel strong by claiming moral superiority.
Despite these philosophically fundamental problems, my search for the meaning of life persisted until at least 2016, as I recall mentioning it during a phone conversation with my brother. The longevity of this phase of my thinking demonstrates how attractive the genius-obligation model can be, especially for intellectually inclined individuals seeking secular meaning. It provides a sense of importance and direction without requiring faith in unprovable religious doctrines. The fact that it took years for me to move beyond this approach suggests both its psychological appeal and its philosophical inadequacy.
The transition away from the Wittgenstein model began with exposure to Gautama Siddhartha’s (i.e., Buddha’s) original teaching, but it was catalyzed by deeper questions about the nature of obligation itself. If meaning comes from fulfilling duties, who or what creates these duties? In religious frameworks, God provides the ultimate source of obligation. In secular frameworks, we might appeal to reason (as Kant did) or social contract (as political philosophers do). But Buddha’s original teaching introduced me to the possibility that the very concept of inherent obligation might be an illusion—that duties, like the self that supposedly bears them, might be mental constructions rather than objective features of reality.
Buddhist Awakening and the Illusion of Inherent Meaning
When I refer to “Buddha’s teachings” (here or anywhere else), I use the term as shorthand for universally accessible truth rather than specifically attributing these insights to Gautama Siddhartha alone—though his original teachings remain the closest approximation to what I had been seeking. This understanding emerged not from any deliberate pursuit of universal wisdom, but through an extended intellectual journey across diverse disciplines: Western philosophy both ancient and modern, spiritual traditions, natural sciences, mathematics, statistics, economics, psychology, cognitive science, and Eastern philosophical traditions. Somewhere along this path of exploration, I gradually realized that a coherent understanding had been crystallizing within me. There was no sudden moment of revelation; instead, this recognition developed slowly and organically over time.
… The fact that the universe as a whole may lack purpose or design doesn’t necessarily negate the possibility of finding or creating meaning within human experience. This distinction becomes crucial in understanding how meaning can exist even in a apparently purposeless cosmos.
… In reaching what I describe as nirvāna, I experienced a profound letting go of the need for life to have inherent purpose or cosmic significance. This wasn’t a depressing realization but a liberating one—like putting down a heavy burden I didn’t realize I was carrying.
… The absence of inherent meaning doesn’t end the story—it opens up new possibilities for understanding what meaning might be and how it might function in human experience.
It happened that, since 2015, I had become deeply interested in Buddha’s teachings; not the Buddhism as a religion, but his original teachings he taught to help people overcome the (inevitable) suffering, or to be more precise, the dukkha1. As I explored concepts of mercy, compassion, nirvāna, enlightenment, and Anātman, these teachings started transforming my life and have eventually led me to nirvāna. During this period, influenced by Buddha’s teachings, I concluded that life had no inherent meaning (of course!).
The Buddha’s approach to life’s fundamental questions differs radically from Western philosophical traditions. Rather than asking “What is the meaning of life?” or “Why do we exist?”, Buddhism begins with the observation that existence is characterized by dukkha (suffering or dissatisfaction). The Four Noble Truths diagnose the human condition: life contains suffering, suffering arises from attachment and craving, suffering can cease, and there is a path to end suffering. This framework reframes existential questions entirely—instead of seeking meaning, we should seek liberation from the psychological states that make existence burdensome.
The concept of Anātman (no-self) proved particularly transformative in my understanding. Western (and other Indians’ at Buddha’s time and still many Indians’ at this moment) thought generally assumes the existence of a persistent, essential self that seeks meaning and purpose. Buddhism challenges this assumption, suggesting that what we call “self” is actually a constantly changing process—a stream of consciousness, sensations, perceptions, mental formations, and consciousness itself, none of which constitute a permanent, unchanging essence. If there is no fixed self, then the question “What is the meaning of my life?” becomes problematic from the outset. Whose life? Which self is seeking meaning?
This insight initially led me to nihilistic conclusions. I clearly understood and accepted the randomness of my existence—after all, I resulted from the chance meeting of an egg with a random sperm. From this perspective, life appeared to be a cosmic accident without inherent purpose or significance. The universe doesn’t care about human meaning; it simply unfolds according to physical laws without regard for our psychological needs or philosophical questions. We exist briefly in an vast cosmos that preceded us by billions of years and will continue long after humanity disappears.
The randomness argument deserves careful examination because it represents a common pathway to nihilistic conclusions about meaning. If our existence results from chance events—the particular sperm that fertilized the particular egg, the countless historical accidents that led to our parents’ meeting, the cosmic coincidences that made Earth habitable—then how can our lives have objective significance? This reasoning seems to follow logically – meaning requires intention or design, chance events lack intention or design, therefore chance-produced existence lacks meaning.
However, this argument contains a subtle fallacy that I didn’t recognize at the time. It assumes that randomness in origin necessarily implies meaninglessness in outcome. But many valuable things arise from chance processes. The evolution of life itself depends on random genetic mutations, yet we don’t typically conclude that evolved organisms are therefore meaningless. The great works of art and literature often emerge from unpredictable combinations of influence, circumstance, and inspiration, yet we don’t dismiss them as insignificant because their origins involved chance elements.
More fundamentally, the randomness argument conflates two different types of meaning: cosmic significance and personal significance. The fact that the universe as a whole may lack purpose or design doesn’t necessarily negate the possibility of finding or creating meaning within human experience. This distinction becomes crucial in understanding how meaning can exist even in an apparently purposeless cosmos.
Buddha’s (original) teaching provided tools for working with meaninglessness without falling into despair or nihilism. The practice of meditation revealed how much of our suffering comes from mental constructions—including the construction of a self that desperately needs cosmic validation. As these constructions dissolved in meditative states, so did the urgent need for external meaning. The question “Why do I exist?” began to seem less important than the immediate experience of existing.
The concept of nirvāna, often misunderstood in popular culture, doesn’t refer to a heavenly realm or blissful state. But rather, it refers to the cessation of suffering through the elimination of craving and attachment. This includes attachment to meaning itself. In reaching what I describe as nirvāna, I experienced a profound letting go of the need for life to have inherent purpose or cosmic significance. This wasn’t a depressing realization but a liberating one—like putting down a heavy burden I didn’t realize I was carrying.
But that turned out to be my misinterpretation. Well, misinterpretation or not, what mattered is what I have realized now (regardless of his original teachings), which I will describe in the following sections. The journey through Buddha’s teaching, while transformative, led to an incomplete understanding. The conclusion that life has no inherent meaning is correct as far as it goes, but it stops short of recognizing the full implications of this insight. The absence of inherent meaning doesn’t end the story—it opens up new possibilities for understanding what meaning might be and how it might function in human experience.
Beyond the Binary - The Creative Nature of Meaning
… the conclusion that life has no inherent meaning is right, but at the same time wrong. …
… Meaning emerges in this dynamic between thrownness and projection—between the given and the chosen.
But what if meaning doesn’t exist independently of our will to create it? What if the very act of seeking meaning is what brings meaning into existence?
… We don’t need cosmic validation to find music beautiful, love fulfilling, or justice worth pursuing. These experiences carry their value within themselves rather than deriving it from external sources.
While this element of chance is undeniable, I’ve recently come to understand that the meaning of life still exists. Few people (throughout human history in the past and the future) could, can, and will be able to understand this argument, but the conclusion that life has no inherent meaning is right, but at the same time wrong. To be more precise, it’s not not-right, nor not-wrong for the reasons that I will lay down in my arguments in the below paragraphs. It transcends the binary of right and wrong for reasons that defy verbal and logical articulation; here we encounter the limits of language to capture certain fundamental truths (as Wittgenstein pointed out).
The current phase of my understanding builds upon but transcends both the religious and Buddha’s perspectives I previously explored. It recognizes that meaning is neither inherent in the cosmos (as religious traditions claim) nor entirely absent (as nihilistic interpretations), but rather something that emerges through conscious intention and creative activity.
(In hindsight, this position draws insights from existentialist philosophy while avoiding some of its more extreme implications, but somehow I have known this even before I visited their philosophical achievements in detail.)
Jean-Paul Sartre’s famous declaration that “existence precedes essence” provides a starting point for this understanding. For Sartre, human beings are fundamentally different from other objects in the world because we exist first and then create our essence through our choices and actions. A hammer has its essence (hammerness) determined by its creator’s intentions, but humans are “thrown” into existence without predetermined purpose and must create their own essence through radical freedom and responsibility.
However, Sartre’s existentialism, while insightful, tends toward an overly voluntaristic view of meaning creation. In his framework, individuals create meaning through pure will and choice, as if consciousness operates in a social and historical vacuum. This approach underestimates the extent to which meaning emerges through relationships, culture, and intersubjective experience. We don’t create meaning in isolation but through engagement with others, with traditions, and with the world around us.
The phenomenological tradition, particularly the work of Maurice Merleau-Ponty, offers valuable corrections to pure existentialism. Merleau-Ponty emphasized that consciousness is always embodied consciousness—we encounter the world through our bodies, not just our minds. This embodied engagement creates meaning that isn’t purely intellectual or volitional but emerges from our full being-in-the-world. Meaning, from this perspective, isn’t something we think into existence but something we live into existence through our embodied practices and relationships.
Martin Heidegger’s concept of “thrownness” (Geworfenheit) also contributes to this understanding. We don’t choose the circumstances of our birth, our cultural context, or many of the fundamental conditions that shape our lives. We are “thrown” into a particular time, place, and situation. However, within these given conditions, we have the capacity to project ourselves toward future possibilities. Meaning emerges in this dynamic between thrownness and projection—between the given and the chosen.
The fundamental error that I, and virtually everyone on the earth and throughout the human history, have made is asking “What is the meaning of my life?”, “Why do I live?”, or “Why should I live?” whereas the right question to ask is “Do I want meaning of my life?” This reframing represents a crucial philosophical move that shifts the entire ground of the discussion from metaphysics to pragmatics, from discovery to creation, from obligation to choice.
Traditional approaches to life’s meaning assume that meaning is something to be found, discovered, or revealed. Religious traditions locate meaning in divine will or cosmic design. Philosophical traditions often seek universal principles or rational foundations for meaning. Scientific approaches might look for evolutionary purposes or natural functions. All of these approaches share the assumption that meaning exists independently of our choice to embrace it—we need to find the right answer to the meaning question.
But what if meaning doesn’t exist independently of our will to create it? What if the very act of seeking meaning is what brings meaning into existence? This perspective draws on the philosophical tradition of pragmatism, particularly John Dewey’s insight that ideas should be evaluated by their practical consequences rather than their correspondence to abstract truths. From a pragmatic standpoint, the question isn’t whether life has objective meaning but whether believing in or creating meaning produces valuable outcomes in human experience.
The reframing from “What is the meaning?” to “Do I want meaning?” also reflects insights from contemporary philosophy of mind about the active, constructive nature of consciousness. We don’t passively receive meaning from the world; we actively construct meaning through attention, interpretation, and intention. The question “Do I want meaning?” acknowledges this active dimension while preserving genuine choice about whether to engage in meaning-creating activities.
Several prominent philosophers would likely object to this position. Thomas Nagel, in “The Absurd,” argues that the search for meaning inevitably leads to an infinite regress—any meaning we create or discover can itself be questioned from a more ultimate perspective. From Nagel’s viewpoint, my reframing merely postpones the fundamental problem without solving it. If we create meaning rather than discover it, what makes our created meaning worthwhile? Why should we want meaning rather than embrace meaninglessness?
Nagel’s objection deserves careful consideration because it points to a real philosophical problem. However, it may rest on an overly intellectualized understanding of meaning. The infinite regress problem assumes that meaning must be grounded in something more ultimate than itself—but this assumption may be mistaken. Many valuable human experiences and practices don’t require ultimate justification to be worthwhile. We don’t need cosmic validation to find music beautiful, love fulfilling, or justice worth pursuing. These experiences carry their value within themselves rather than deriving it from external sources.
Albert Camus would likely raise different objections to my position. In “The Myth of Sisyphus,” Camus argues that we must fully acknowledge the absurdity of existence—the mismatch between human need for meaning and the universe’s silence about meaning. For Camus, the authentic response to absurdity is neither suicide nor philosophical escape (including religious faith) but revolt—the decision to live fully despite meaninglessness. Creating meaning, from Camus’s perspective, might represent a form of philosophical escape that fails to honestly confront the human condition.
Camus’s objection illuminates an important distinction between acknowledging meaninglessness and embracing meaninglessness. My position doesn’t deny the absence of inherent cosmic meaning—it accepts this absence fully. However, it suggests that recognizing the absence of inherent meaning opens up space for created meaning rather than requiring us to live in permanent revolt against meaninglessness. The choice to create meaning isn’t a denial of absurdity but a creative response to it.
Arthur Schopenhauer would likely dismiss any attempt to create meaning as another manifestation of the blind, irrational Will that drives all existence. For Schopenhauer, life is suffering precisely because it is driven by ceaseless striving (Will) that can never be permanently satisfied. The only escape from suffering is the denial of the Will-to-live through ascetic practices or aesthetic contemplation. Creating meaning would represent, from his perspective, another form of willing that ultimately increases rather than decreases suffering.
Schopenhauer’s pessimistic philosophy deserves respect because it honestly confronts the reality of suffering in human existence. However, his conclusion that all willing leads to suffering may be too sweeping. Some forms of willing—particularly those involved in creative activity, loving relationships, and meaningful work—seem to generate satisfaction rather than suffering. The Buddhist concept of right effort suggests that not all forms of striving are problematic—the key is distinguishing between wholesome and unwholesome forms of intention and action.
The Agency Living the Question
… We create meaning not in isolation but in relationship—with other people, with cultural traditions, with the natural world, and with possibilities that call us forward. The meaning we create is genuinely our own, yet it emerges from and contributes to larger patterns of human flourishing.
… The meanings we create in youth may no longer serve us in middle age; the purposes that drive us in health may need revision in illness; the values we embrace in prosperity may require reconsideration in adversity. This dynamic quality of meaning prevents it from becoming dogmatic or rigid while requiring ongoing attention and care.
The meaning of life isn’t an inherent truth waiting to be discovered. It isn’t universally accessible or predetermined. Rather, it’s something we actively create through our will and intention. The meaning of life is what we create as active and autonomous agents, not something bestowed by others, even by some absolute being endorsed by holy scriptures.
This understanding draws on but goes beyond existentialist philosophy by recognizing that meaning creation is both individual and collective, both chosen and given, both rational and embodied. We create meaning not in isolation but in relationship—with other people, with cultural traditions, with the natural world, and with possibilities that call us forward. The meaning we create is genuinely our own, yet it emerges from and contributes to larger patterns of human flourishing.
The practical implications of this understanding are profound. If meaning is something we create rather than discover, then we bear responsibility for the quality and direction of our meaning-making activities. This responsibility is both liberating and demanding. We are free to choose what matters to us, but we must live with the consequences of our choices. We cannot blame God, nature, society, or fate for the meaninglessness of our lives—but we also cannot credit these external forces with providing our meaning.
The creative view of meaning also suggests that meaning-making is an ongoing process rather than a one-time achievement. Just as artists continue creating throughout their lives, we continue creating meaning throughout our lives. The meanings we create in youth may no longer serve us in middle age; the purposes that drive us in health may need revision in illness; the values we embrace in prosperity may require reconsideration in adversity. This dynamic quality of meaning prevents it from becoming dogmatic or rigid while requiring ongoing attention and care.
Finally, recognizing meaning as creative rather than discovered opens up possibilities for dialogue and mutual enrichment across different meaning-making communities. If no one has privileged access to the ultimate truth about life’s meaning, then different approaches to meaning creation can learn from each other without necessarily competing for exclusive validity. Religious and secular, individual and collective, traditional and innovative approaches to meaning can all contribute to the rich human project of creating lives worth living.
The question “Do I want meaning in my life?” preserves genuine choice while opening creative possibilities. The answer might be yes, leading to active engagement with meaning-making practices. The answer might be no, leading to acceptance of meaninglessness without despair. Most likely, the answer will vary over time and circumstances, leading to a dynamic relationship with meaning that evolves throughout life. In all cases, the question locates agency where it belongs—not in cosmic forces beyond our control, but in our own choices about how to live.
- Duḥkha (/ˈduːkə/; Sanskrit: दुःख, Pali: dukkha) is an important concept in Buddhism, Jainism and Hinduism meaning something like "suffering", "pain", "unease", or "unsatisfactoriness". However, (for obvious reasons) there is no English word exactly describing it. ↩