Meaning
I.II.III
MEANING
During my second rotation, I had my fair share of time to think about my practice as a doctor and about my personal life – one I had been neglecting for quite a while.
You see, working in a hospital with dying patients has you thinking about many things. As the great Meredith Grey puts it, “In staring down death every day, we’re forced to know that life, every minute, is borrowed time.” With that in mind, I found myself wondering if I was making the best use of my time. What was my life’s meaning? “Who am I? Why am I here?” I’d ask myself, much like someone who woke up from a decades-long coma. That said, I felt as though I could answer that question easily. I was an aspiring surgeon. Everything I had done and everything I was doing was in preparation for that. I was dedicating my life to my craft, my one true goal.
I think I was always so resolute and steadfast in this regard because I had an answer to another seemingly unanswerable question – what is the meaning of life? The way I see it, on the grand scheme of things, our lives are most probably entirely meaningless. The universe has existed for billions of years and will go on to exist for billions more – with or without us, completely unfazed by our existence.
The only way in which my life could possibly impact the grand scheme of things would be if I were to invent something capable of destroying the universe itself or something along those lines. But hey, this isn’t The Umbrella Academy. So unless that happens, my life is entirely inconsequential. Think about it – even the most influential people, say Churchill, Bill Gates, or Hitler, or anyone else you may or may not have heard of – do you really think their names will hold any meaning in a billion years’ time?
So yeah, as life itself has taught me, I don’t think there is a meaning to it. Or at least not a definitive one. It all depends on how you choose to look at it.
There’s the biological one – reproduction and evolution; adapting and improving in order not to fall behind, become obsolete, and die; trying to defy natural selection. Then there’s a plethora of other meanings. For some, life is a bridge leading to an afterlife. For others, life just is – something that happened, something that must be endured and experienced. For others still, it’s an adventure or a game. But really and truly, there’s no single definition that fits the bill.
Hannah Montana was right – life’s what you make it. We give life its meaning. Some people are born and simply ride the wave without ever questioning it. School, work, marriage, kids, death – that’s it. Then there are those who find something that becomes their raison d’être, whether in love, adventure, or wisdom. Speaking for myself, I’d say mine was medicine. I chose a field that would expand my knowledge in such a way that I’d have to dedicate my entire life to it. And so, it became the answer to my existential crisis. Medicine was both who I was and why I was.
Working as a doctor only seemed to reinforce that idea – that life is not meaningless. It was the ardent will of dying patients to cling onto life that made me rethink everything. Why would anyone want to live on despite so much pain and suffering? Why would someone who is actively dying go through hell just to gain a few more weeks, a few more months? Is it denial? Fear of death? For some, certainly. But the more I encountered such people, the more I realised there had to be more to it. For some, it was about spending more time with loved ones. For others, tying off loose ends so as not to burden those left behind. Others simply wanted to pursue their passions for as long as they could. How could I ever think of life as meaningless after witnessing terminal patients do the impossible just to get more out of it?
And so, in realising my own limitations, I still choose to give meaning to my nevertheless inconsequential life. Whether that’s hubris, an attempt to make sense of reality, or simply the only way I know how to cope, I’ll never really know. But I wouldn’t have it any other way. Because that is to be human – to find meaning where there is none.