The meaning of life (more or less)

I don’t believe in god – or at least not a divine, benevolent god. And I don’t really believe in the concept of Heaven and Hell as an afterlife. But I don’t really believe in re-incarnation either, so basically the next world will either be nothing, or possibly the world of fiction. I will get stuck in a book playing Harry Potter or Walter Blythe or Dr Slikowski for the rest of time. Which, actually, could be quite cool – and I might even start a whole new entry on this topic once I am done with this ludicrously self-indulgent one. 

But anyway – since I don’t really believe that you get rewarded in the next life for the life you have lived in this one, then I am of the opinion that all that matters is what you do in this life while you are in it. Not because you are working to get the golden parachute in the to the next life, but because the time you are allotted on this earth is all you have to make your mark and do what you have to do. 

Which – for me – is to try to leave the world a better place than it was when you came in to it. 

I know – that is a bit of a grand endeavor for one person (although some people have managed it. Martin Luthor King Jr, Joss Whedon, Steven Moffat, Geoffrey Howe spring to mind, along with a few others) but I am not talking about the whole world, just your little part of it. 

In fact – a better way to phrase it would be "to not leave the world a worse place than it was when you came in to it". That, if – when you have passed beyond The Veil – you can say the world is not a sadder place for having you in it – then your life has been worth living. 

And while this does pretty much cover everyone who has ever lived (again with some obvious exceptions. Murderers. Mass Murderers. Child molesters. Sun Readers. Tories. GW Bush. Rapists. The Christian Right. The guy who canceled Firefly. Genocidal Warlords. Tabloid Journalists) I still think it is a fair way to judge your life when you are done living it. 

If you try to make people’s lives better without doing it by making other people’s lives worse, then you are going in the right direction. If you can see the best in everyone, and – for those who have no "best" – point out their flaws without malice and insults then I think you could not do any better.

Well, I guess I kinda worked it out. If there’s no great glorious end to all this, if nothing we do matters… , then all that matters is what we do. ‘Cause that’s all there is. What we do. Now. Today. Because, if there’s no bigger meaning, then the smallest act of kindness is the greatest thing in the world.

This entry started off on a whole different topic – one I might get back to at a later point. And seriously – I am going to explore the idea of re-incarnation into the world of fiction in another entry as well, because it does kind of appeal to me, given the way I view the world and my "To Love Another Person" entry from a while back.

Also there is a chance that there will be an entry entitled "99 Problems" because there are just so many puns going round in my head, I think I have to write them all down.