Page 73 - Liberating Liberals V2
P. 73
Liberating Liberals
internal prejudices. Nothing is meaningful unless you, and you alone, assign meaning to it.
From this very extreme angle of reference, if all life on Earth is destroyed, and there is no other life in the universe, then the rest of the universe might as well not exist. If only earth-life gives it meaning the universe becomes an infinitely vast mass of meaninglessness.
But the gloriously positive side of this possible cosmic loneliness is that we are theoretically, entirely free to choose our own meanings. We could be entirely free if not for our desires, duties, loves, etc. Objectivity in a life that already has lots of meaning imposed on it is almost impossible.
As Joni Mitchell wrote: “We’re only particles of change I know I know, orbiting around the sun. But it’s hard to have that point of view when I’m always bound and tied to someone.57
We can still strive to choose our meanings freely. And our American founding geniuses freely chose their meanings when they wrested government away from the meaning known as the divine rights of Kings. Instead, they wrote their own meaning down in a Constitution.
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Buddhism apparently has the concept of meaninglessness, or at least lack of judgment, as a
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