The Single "Meaning of Life" Perspective I No Longer Believe

How one conversation approached with honesty and open-mindedness can lead to growth

“Suffering is the Point”. That was the original title of this post. I framed it up and placed it in my drafts over the summer of 2024 and let it age. I would glance at the title every few weeks but never felt ready or compelled to dive into the topic.

It turns out, I needed to sit with this perspective and finally challenge my own understanding and perception about the world to be able to write about it. In going through the continued journey of grief of losing Lucy, it felt ironically comforting for me, at the time, to establish a perspective that the point of life is suffering. What mattered was finding joy, fulfillment, genuine relationships and meaning within that suffering. Or so I thought.

That was a healthy and helpful perspective for me to take when I first drafted the post. Alyssa and I hardly had time to build our own relationship up from the suffering that my lying and battle with alcoholism had put us through for nearly a dozen years before we had to deal with the suffering of losing a child. I can forgive myself for defaulting to this perspective during our journey of healing throughout 2024 because we were dealing with a lot of work in our lives as a result of suffering.

But, I have learned something, and feel like I had a moment of growth not long ago. Someone pushed back on this perspective and challenged my thinking. Honestly, my first reaction when I received this pushback was defensive and combative. My defensive, fear-ridden and fragile alcoholic thought patterns spun up. I took time to process the push back, but then I started to see how I had come to the perspective that life is suffering as a defense mechanism for myself to facilitate navigating the myriad of trials that 2023/24 had offered myself and my family.

With that realization, I was able to let go of the defensive and fear-ridden perspective and engage in meaningful conversation that has advanced the way I view life and the point of suffering. Plus, I feel like I created a meaningful relationship, and dare I say, an internet friend (don’t worry, Mom, I’m being safe and smart on the internet).

At this point I simply believe that life is simply life. There exists a beautiful combination of everything mixed in, it’s a stew of experiences, emotions and perspectives. Yes, suffering is in that mix, but along with it is so much else and it’s largely up to me what I want to focus my time and energy on. When faced with suffering, I am grateful that I have proven the ability to find grace, meaning and joy within those trial ridden times in my life, but it’s not all there is to life.

There is certainly worthiness in understanding, and finding comfort in, suffering that can be explored in subsequent posts. For today, I leave you with one of the more impactful excerpts from what is possibly the pinnacle piece of work on suffering, meaning, purpose and the human spirit that was written by man.

… it did not really matter what we expected from life, but rather what life expected from us. We needed to stop asking about the meaning of life, and instead to think of ourselves as those who were being questioned by life - daily and hourly. Our answer must consist, not in talk and meditation, but in right action and in right conduct. Life ultimately means taking the responsibility to find the right answer to its problems and to fulfill the tasks which it constantly sets for each individual.

-Man’s Search for Meaning by Viktor E. Frankl, pg. 77

Onto action, my friends.

That’s all I’ve got. Love to you all in this crazy and beautiful experience of life that we’re blessed to experience.

Kyle