Just finished Joan Didion's "The Year of Magical Thinking" and I am left raw. I realize that this feeling of meaninglessness that she is encountering so strongly now upon her husband's death - is something I have struggled with my whole life. Yes, we do create our own meaning in life, but the narcissism that comes from being alone (the question of self-pity she addresses) is antithetical to the creation of meaning. It destroys it. Our interaction with others is where meaning lies...
What story will you tell
at the end of the day
to no one?
And ending as it does
and being told to no one
what truth was there?
Can there be meaning without others? If everyone on earth was gone, even if one believed in God, would there be any possibility of meaning? We see ourselves through other's eyes...the eyes of those who love us and those who don't. We resist this, try to see ourselves objectively, without depending on approval from others, but this is only possible to a point. Our very existence is tied so intricately to the lives around us...and yet, at core we are alone. It is a terrifying paradox. Of course this existential fact can be freeing, but only to a point. The point at which our self-created reality collides with the emotional truth of human ties.
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