Spiritual leaders theologize again and again. Physicists equate and calculate. Yogis ponder atop cliffs. Philosophers think and answer every question but. It’s a question whose answer has haunted some and inspired others. A question to which there is no correct answer—or if there is—we cannot know until we leave this world. The quest to answer the meaning of life is perhaps the most constant in all ages. It’s the grandest of questions, which permeates all societies. Incans, Mayans, Americans, Chinese, Eskimos, Indians, New World, Old World.
In 1987, Life Magazine interviewed more than 650 people from all walks of life and perspectives—Rosa Parks, John Updike, Richard Nixon, poets, Nobel Prize winners, religious leaders to your next-door sage. Three hundred responses and more than 100 of the world’s best photographers submitted photos they felt answered the question. At its core, the book conspicuously titled, seeks to answer “the meaning of life.”
Now, 26 years later, I delve deep and look for my own answer to the baffling but energizing question. I’ve interviewed my own collection of people—friends, teachers, religious leaders and family and have selected a collection of photos—my own, my mothers and friends’—out best attempts as capturing life’s essence. At 22, I find meaning in the quest for truth and for beauty. I continue to learn from the responses I receive.
I find meaning in the alpenglow over the mountains, a dogs’ ceaseless curiosity, in an engulfing embrace and a tear evoking hug, in a child’s smile, in the smell of old books, in glittering snow, a full moon and in the celebration of a Mass. I find it in a family holding hands, praying before a meal, in loved ones greeting a traveler at a bus station, and in wet eyes waving goodbye. It’s in a map on the wall with tacks implying dreams, in a cradle Grandpa made and mindlessly picking sage with Grandma, in fishing and in picnics and jumpstarting a car, building a fire and looking toward an endless horizon.
I find meaning in the search for meaning itself.
The following are just a few of the responses I received.
