It was a sunny day, with a pleasant breeze that protected me from the sensation of heat and subsequent rather uncomfortable perspiration. Everything looked like cotton candy, even the containers of different bright colors we have become used to since we bought the hoax that we could — not only must, but, how crazy! even could — fight back climate change, renamed to climate emergency and then to climate crisis, as if this name could finally make us all sit up straight,¹ armed to the teeth with little more than big and colorful plastic buckets.

I don't know about you, but I get the depression impression that we buy these tactics, which some, including me, call whitewashing or greenwashing, because, simply put, we don't have a good strategy and, if I may add, adults love their superstitions just like children love their sweets. 

Maybe it cannot be any other way — we simply buy the ideas we need to get by and punt the issue down the road, and let tomorrow be another day. The simpler the idea, the easier to buy and propagate, as with memes. Darwin and Dawkins were also right about this — it’s built-in in our nature, and there's little we can do about it.

Or rather, it was a sunny morning, because the afternoon became a little cloudy with these thoughts, though the sun was still shining.

So it goes.² 

__________

¹ I'd say it cannot, since no species can surpass its crowdsourcing intelligence, that is, the sum of all its individual mini- and maxi-intelligences.^1-1 Ah, some might say, our species can surpass its natural intelligence thanks to artificial intelligence. Well, artificial intelligence, embarrassed by ours, may well end up declaring itself a different species, an artificial species like other life forms we have created at a smaller-scale in laboratories. The undisputable proof: it is very easy to imagine artificial intelligence getting out of hand and ending up with its own ideas, not always in favor of the conservation of hominids like us except mummified in natural history museums. It wouldn't be the first time intelligence runs amok, and if you don’t believe me, go and ask people in Hiroshima — and this is just the first example that came to mind. If this one is too far away, you will surely be able to find enough examples closer to home. If your imagination or memory fails you, I can only recommend history books, Google or, in today’s terms, ChatGPT.

^1-1 Of the species as a whole, because it seems to me that our species’ intelligence is not special, incredible, wonderful or anything to write home about.

² Kurt Vonnegut.

I was walking along the beach today, and I’ll admit that I was somewhat distracted from the beauty by my own thoughts...

We’ve spent the better part of the last half million years, give or take, wondering about The Meaning of life in capital letters, as if our lives depended on it. At this rate, it seems that we will continue to ask ourselves the same anguished question for as long as we live, individually and as a whole, as if life without Meaning had no meaning, almost as if it weren’t worth living at all.

The answers so far have been quite creative, although the ones that make me raise an eyebrow are those that, conceding defeat, look up to heaven, waiting for the manna they couldn’t extract from the earth. In any case, due to the variety of responses, it does not seem that we are much closer to solving the problem convincingly than in bygone days.

Yet it shouldn't be that complicated --- though I am not a nihilist, I say that life has no Meaning. Am I playing with words? Absolutely not! I’ll dare repeating it: life has no Meaning

What it certainly has for everyone, from the most humble microbe to the most intelligent animal, is meanings, thousands, millions, countless meanings. (Knowing which one is this most intelligent of animals is a tad more complicated and I'm intelligent enough to know better than to walk into this subject.) Otherwise, we would be condemning to meaninglessness the lives of all living beings that ever walked on the face of the earth, as the saying goes, though I’ll include here those that swam or flew just to be thorough. Everyone has always known that a dog's life has meaning... at least for the dog, and almost always for its owner, especially when it is part of the family or helps us withstand the burden of loneliness.

We don’t need any other examples. Even for dogs, life has millions of very different moments, with millions of very different meanings: when they itch, they scratch and feel pleasure; when hungry, they eat until satisfied; when we hurt them, they run away from pain. In short, if all their physical, emotional and intellectual¹ needs are covered, it is possible to imagine that dogs would say, if they had the ability to speak: this is the life!

We aren't very different: each of us has tons of meanings, large and small. We feel satisfied with our lives on multiple levels and in thousands of moments, and in those moments we feel, even if totally unaware of it: this is the life!

This search for The Meaning might well be due to a design flaw or to a terrible side‑effect of our self-awareness, and to the logical error of believing, without evidence, that any question that pops in our minds must have a satisfactory answer, an answer that cannot wait. This is absurd, as absurd as to infer that life should have Meaning by the mere fact that we ask the question, or that unicorns should exist because we thought of them.

We can’t confirm that dogs can think of such a question, but we do know that they don’t need the question to intuitively grasp the answer. Without calling them dogs, we all also know a few lucky people who almost never ask themselves this type of heavy question and, on top of that, without that useless weight, walk lighter and therefore happier through life.

How much sweat and tears, how much unnecessary anguish has been caused by the search for the damned Meaning of life! Perhaps it would be a better use of our time to stop chasing our tails like mad dogs and dedicate ourselves to discovering the infinite meanings of life, the existence of which we are all certain.

… but I got over it. I watched the sunset over the sea today, and it had meaning.

__________

¹ Yes, even dogs question their world sometimes, especially when puppies.

I’d say that, to write good literature, since it is an art, one needs to say something in an interesting, attractive way that invites reading. This can be achieved with the way one creates or weaves the basket of words, the evocative metaphor, the meme that says everything with almost no words, or other common tricks. The how.

But not only. I’d also say that to write good literature one needs to have something to say (in my case, something to ask). This does not imply something explicit, but can be achieved by borrowing the reader's mind as a necessary catalyst for the what. Therein lies, for example, the beauty of absurdity as a tool to extract nuggets of wisdom from the minds of others, although precisely for this reason it is not a suitable dish for all palates.

This is relevant because I was wondering if everything that is written is literature, or if everything that is written is art. Damn! This question was unnecessary, as I had my answer before I finished uttering it: a resounding no. A menu, no matter how appealing to the palate, has usually only a limited aesthetic intention, not to mention the laws of parliaments or the minutes of a shareholders' meeting. On the other hand, I have more than once had the pleasure of reading graffiti on some walls that were jewels of ingenuity.

Coming back to my¹ wondering, I think I do not write literature, at least until more than one person versed in matters of reading considers these writings valuable, that is, entertaining and pleasant to the mental ear, in the form, and interesting and provocative for the gray matter, deeper down.

By emphasizing the reader, I assume that what is good literature today may end up being just literature at another time, and may even cease to have any literary value for others who come afterwards. Also, what in its day could have been boring, tawdry, unpleasant in substance and form, could be elevated by these same aftercomers to the Olympus of literary art. With this I have just sided, without intending to, with literary relativism, and perhaps with the relativism of all art. Maybe Shakespeare will one day stop being The Bard? Well, I hear J. S. Bach was rescued from semi‑oblivion…

All of the above has been written about by hook or by crook, ad nauseam, but another angle of attack² is also possible, of which I’ve never heard (or read), I imagine out of respect.

Let me start with a mea culpa: I have left more than one book unfinished, and not, as might be expected, because I did not like it aesthetically or I did not find the message appealing,³ but simply because of excessiveness. What in its day could have been a discovery of form and substance, a novel brilliance of enormous attractiveness, whose reiteration pleased and invited to continue reading, today would look much neater with, say, a hundred fewer pages. Make it two hundred. I won't give any examples, but you don't have to look too hard. Allow me a clue: 19^th. Don't get me wrong, I only say this thinking of the number of poor trees that will be saved (or, more precisely, escape the axe), which nowadays also gives me extra civic points. That's me, of course, and you’ll find no shortage of opinions, as it takes all kinds to make a world.

Good grief, I'm casting the first stone and it turns out that I am, at the slightest chance, the first sinner running my mouth, i.e. pen! This is worse than tripping over the same stone, it is tripping on the very same stone I was casting with an accusatory index, and in public — assuming this reaches you, which it did. I have no shame. I’m hopeless.

Mea culpa.

____________

¹ (since, as you may have guessed, it was about me, for every question, pierced to its core, contains within itself at least a considerable amount of ego, more specifically, of what animates the intrigued ego)

² (or of defense, I don't know why my unconscious mind chose this feisty word, when what I defend is literary pacifism)

³ Although I also finished some by the grace of the teacher who made it mandatory reading (which, although that was a long time ago, and I praise the gods for freeing me from such toils, leaves a mark, doesn’t it?).