I'm not sure how to begin. This is definitely a subject where I do not claim to have answers, and I can't shake the feeling that even discussing the subject is a shallow pursuit of a topic others have better explored already. Still, there are a lot of nagging thoughts I will commit to paper screen the blockchain here in hopes of sparking discussion.
There is a lot of turmoil in society. We see economic devastation, political corruption, substance abuse, poverty, police misconduct, mental health issues, and many other wrongs around us every day. We are told that the only solution lies in political action. As a result, partisan politics and vague social movements let people feel like they have a voice. They believe the use of government edicts will promote a better world according to their grand schemes, and if everyone would just do as they are told, we can create a paradise on Earth.
I think people cling to these factions and tribes out of a desire for not just community, but a more fundamental meaning to their lives. We are denied a sense of control over our destiny while being constantly told we matter by people whose actions indicate utter disdain for our well-being.
I have also seen people pursuing strings of failed romances in their quest for meaning. We are social animals. We need other people. But those who need those relationships the most are prey to both manipulative people and their own unaddressed problems.
We all know those who rely on alcohol or drugs just to cope with the world around them, too. There are many possible roots to addiction problems, but a lack of meaning in life is surely among them.
I suspect this starts in childhood with parents who often had no role model for being good parents themselves. Then there are mandatory schools that are little more than centers of indoctrination where we are subjected to the schedules of strangers and confined to the company of bullies without any escape. Our media is full of happily-ever-after fairy tales and adventurous Heroes' Journeys that are completely different from our lives.
As we get older, we learn that the "papers, please" villains of the past run our world, too. Our rites of passage into adulthood are built around begging the State for licenses and other permissions. We find ourselves hemmed in by red tape and threats of violence. Some of us can pretend it isn't there and parrot how free we are, but those of us who see past the patriotic veneer see the iron fist inside the velvet glove. yet when we point it out, we are condemned for revealing their cognitive dissonance.
But where do we really live? What makes our actions really matter to ourselves and others? It is in our families, our friends, and our local communities. It is churches and businesses and travel. It is liberty expressed through voluntary association and exchange. The very things crushed by the State.
As long as a person does not use force or fraud against others, he should be free to choose between virtue and vice, morality and immorality, wisdom and foolishness, and good and evil. After all, if God loved us so much as to entrust us with this wide ambit of freedom, under what authority do we permit Caesar to interfere with it? Does this mean that individuals will always choose correctly or morally when confronted with choices in life? Of course not. But it is only through a continuous process of having to choose, and of having to bear the consequences of choice, that the individual can ever hope to gain a high sense of conscience, responsibility, and morality.
We want meaning. Meaning can only be found through liberty, where we can see the consequences of our actions for good or ill. We may still fail to find it, but perhaps meaning is the journey, not the destination. In any case, we must be willing to let go of our own authoritarian instincts even as we demand we be released from the same by others.
Hopefully that was something more than mere word salad, and you could grasp my intended point in this meandering, poorly-edited screed. Please comment below.
