The Meaning of Life?

Everyone is so busy talking about searching for the meaning of life, there's little time left for any actual searching. This seems odd to me on several counts. First, I have never wondered about it, not even a little. It seems to me that if there were a particular meaning we would all know it. There are so many people in the world, ostensibly searching, that surely someone would have discovered it by now. Like Oprah Winfrey, she would have come up with something already and written about it in her very own magazine. Instead she has spent much of her time losing weight and putting it back on and then losing it again and putting it back, and finally buying 6.4 million shares of Weight Watchers and becoming the third largest owner and the company's spokeswoman. She has found her meaning, and apparently it's involved with eating bread. She simply adores bread!

Second, lots of books have been written suggesting that life's meaning lies outside our own personal concerns, and that when we do something for the good of others we are fulfilling our purpose. I've tried so many times to do just that. Helping those less fortunate does make you feel good for awhile, until it starts getting depressing. For me, the worst was volunteering in a hospital. Spending long hours among the imprisoned sick while there was a beautiful day on the other side of the windows gradually became torture. (Rainy days were easier.) Eventually I stopped, especially after learning that Superbugs like MRSA were rampant on every surface inside the hospital.

I suppose I could always write letters to prisoners on Death Row, but hey, those are some bad people. What would I even say to them? So I paint. Shown here are two of my paintings. If anyone wants one, let me know and it's yours, name your own price. Maybe it will brighten your life somehow. They certainly do mine.