When a baby looks at the mirror for the first time, according to Lacan, he sees himself, forms his “imago”, and finds the very proof of his existence in the world. That is the first step of our life-long search for a meaning to live for.
What is the meaning of life?
We can explore the issue by probing in depth the stories from others and seeking for the answers based on our personal experiences.
No doubt that everyone has his own interpretation of the purpose of life. As to Russell, it is the strong impersonal interests that keep the elderly from growing old; For James Murray, the man who made the greatest dictionary (the Oxford English Dictionary), it is a profound community from the past, at present, even to the future, of which all the members endeavor to build the best sort of monument to their mother tongue for the future generation; and for some artists, like the tailors in J.B. Priestley’s essay, it is to work for the perfection and the belief of “Art for Art’s Sake”. That without a purpose to live for, however, leads to subservience to authority in work, compliance to some principle and so on. That’s why, as Russell explained, the unhappy Americans lapse into an opulent melancholy.
The people mentioned above have a profound similarity --- to find one’s role in the society and play his part. It calls upon man to bring out the best in himself and the world by assuming the very resposibility of his own. And I have found mine through being a one-month volunteer teacher in a remote county in Guizhou Province, China. There I saw the wide gap between the rich and the poor; I felt the villagers’ struggle against starvation, illness and death; I was touched by the peasants’ kindness while angry with their cowardice in the face of authority; I was shocked by their indifference to their own sufferings; and I felt sadly sorry for the children, for they are cheated of their chance for a good education, simply by living in poverty. Having witnessed the reality of some serious social problems of our society like poverty, social security, education, I learned about the grassroots-level society and began to understand its people. Inside myself a heart is growing, a heart that not only beats for myself, but cares for others as well. There is little I can do for them at the present, but I know that I should shoulder the responsibility to provide more, to serve more for the improvement of their living condition.
As for me, the search for knowledge also lays great significance in my life. Linguistics, the major field I have been studying in university, offers me a valuable opportunity to appreciate language and help me develop the ability of critical thinking. It is a science where the search for the absolute goes on. There are men in this field who can annouce in all sincerity that language is beauty, beauty language. Syntax leads me to discover the inner structures of words, phrases as well as sentences and to appreciate the beautiful notion that language is “the infinite use of finite means”; pragmatics raises the question like “how the speakers can mean more than what they actually say in conversation?” to further discuss the use of language for communication.; phonetics enables me to conduct many experiments about acoustic features of different sounds to better understand how sounds achieve to materialize the meaning of language. The most interesting part lies in the relation between language and mind in which language is regarded as a congitive approach to human brain. Though there is still a lot to work on, the part is a promising land for expolaration. My major has engaged me in the quest for the ultimate. For the first time in my life, I had such a strong desire for the unknown --- both knowledge and truth. I have doubts and puzzles such as “Why should it be this not that?”, “How come?”, etc. The process of learning, despite its endless drugery and slow progress, holds surprises, delight and bittersweet. The pursuit of spiritual enlightenment strongly urges me to make the every hour count and each minute I trade only for something of value.
The seeking for love is another key step in the search for meaning in my life. The famous singer Roberta Flack once said, “To live is to suffer; to survive is to find meaning in the suffering.” Suffering brings pain, but it also sends us love, a fundamental element in the meaning of life. Being deeply sad about losing my beloved grandpa, I have realized how important family is to me. Love gives us hope and courage to let go as well as to move on. Love makes us be thankful to what we have now and learn to cherrish every moment being with our families. It imparts to us a fulfillment of inner peace and homely grace.
Through learning from others and introspecting myself, I have been analyzing the meaning of my life, evaluating which way and where I am headed, while questioning for what, to what, or to whom I am responsible. The exploration will never cease. As T. S. Eliot put it:
We shall not cease from exploration
And the end of all our exploring
Will be to arrive where we started
And know the place for the first time.
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