The Meaning of Life

“I want you to write down three goals you have for this year,” said my year three primary school teacher, handing out black sheets of paper.

As an unusually serious and highly inquisitive eight year old, with very spiritual parents, I already had a very clear goal in mind: To find out the meaning of life.

I just knew that all I had to do was find the answer to this one simple question, and then everything would makes total sense. Then, I could happily go about living the rest of my life.

So while other kids wrote that they wanted to learn their times-tables, I wrote (in complete sincerity) “To find out the meaning of life” and left the other two goals blank. Any other goal failed in comparison to this one.

Our goals were collected and nothing was ever mentioned of it. I’d expected as much. My teacher was way too unhappy to possibly be enlightened on the true meaning of her existence. My parents didn’t seem to know either. Although mum did try to explain it:

“You see,” she said, one hand holding a crystal and the other giving reiki to her left breast. “In your past lives, you may have needed to learn something…” - And then she lost me. Listening to her talk in new age speak, sounded vaguely like tearing up cotton-wool balls  and stirring them into a jar of honey. It just didn’t make sense to me.

I needed a real answer, damn it! I wanted hard evidence and proven facts.

Why were we here? What happens when we die? Why are some people born into terrible circumstances, and others spared?

Such questions have plagued me for as long as I can remember, and as a result, I never cared too much for small talk. If someone asked me about the weather, I’d draw a blank. “Tell me about love!” I’d have shouted back, if I wasn’t so shy.

Yearning only to learn about the deeper things in life, meant I found school rather boring.  Instead of listening to my teachers, I’d drift off into 'Ally world'… where I’d imagine the teacher jumping up on the desk and doing a disco dance! Then the whole room would join in! And I would be on a trapeze, swinging from the ceiling, and colored lights would be flashing!!!

It’s unfortunate I never learned to listen. It’s a skill that could have come in handy when conversing with people. It also would have made doing well in school a lot easier. (You can also see why I very much love the show Glee!)

As I aged, my search for meaning lost it’s vigor, and my goals started to resemble a sense of normality. Get a boyfriend, learn how to spell, exercise. Watching Oprah also helped, and on her recommendation - yes, I bought the book Eat Love Pray.

“Oh, I’m so tired of France!” a French girlfriend whined recently, in her beautiful French accent. “All they do is sit around and talk about the meaning of life, and love, and get depressed.” 

Heaven! 

I never did find out the meaning of life. And I never did make it through the India chapters in Eat Love Pray. But I did find some peace about two year’s ago, when it finally dawned on me that: Perhaps – no one* really knows the answers. Not even Oprah. What a relief! 

And from reading part of Eat, Love, Pray – it dawned on me that: Perhaps more than wanting to find answers / the truth, I much prefer to be wildly entertained!

(Glee!)

*Although my mum honestly believes she knows the meaning of life. Just this trip home, she happened to tell me that she knows “The truth about the universe – about everything - for sure.” My question to you mum is - then why are you so unhappy? Is the truth rather shitty? Because if the meaning of life is shitty, then maybe I don’t want to know.