The Meaning of Life

Despite several decades of evidence to the contrary, I persist in the illusion that life has meaning and I can somehow figure it out.

Most of what makes sense to me these days comes from Osho, the crazy-wisdom teacher from India once known as Rajneesh. (In a brilliant feat of spiritual marketing, his followers changed his name shortly after his death. He had received a lot of undeservedly bad media coverage, and there was real danger the enlightening and amusing nature of his teaching would be lost with his death.)

Here's some of what Osho has to say:--

"Life in itself has no meaning. Life is an opportunity to create meaning. Meaning has not to be discovered: It has to be created. You will find meaning only if you create it. It is not lying there somewhere behind the bushes, so you can go when you search a little bit and find it. It is not there like a rock that you will find. It is a poetry to be composed, it is a song to be sung, it is a dance to be danced. Meaning is a dance, not a rock. Meaning is music... Millions of people are living meaningless lives because of this utterly stupid idea that meaning has to be discovered."--

"Life is just blank. It is just an opportunity. You can create meaning, you can create meaningless to. You can create freedom, you can create an imprisonment to. It all depends on you. Your freedom is total."

And this from James Taylor:

"The secret of life is enjoying the passage of time.
Any fool can do it, there ain't nothing to it.
Nobody knows how we got to the top of the hill.
But since we're on our way down
We might as well enjoy the ride."