The meaning of life has no completion.


If you think about it, any pursuit -- whether learning or the arts, science or medicine, chess or checkers, fencing or Karate, cooking or body-building--consists of an endless path, without possibility of final graduation or completion, whatever heights one may reach along the way. As the word itself implies, all our "pursuits" are lifelong paths with no end.
Japanese ukiyoe painter Katsushika Hokusai (1760-1849) lamented, looking back over his career,
Meaning of life Ukiyoe
(wikipedia)
"If Heaven had my granted me five more years, I could have become a real painter."

And the French painter Renoir is reported to have said, on his deathbed,
Meaning of life Piano
(wikipedia)
"I am still progressing."

Art is certainly not the only field where there is no finishing point; pursuits such as learning and sports also have no final, consummating goal. This suits most people just fine. To think you had arrived at completion would be harmful, the argument goes, because it would mark an end to progress. The path with no end is the path most worth taking.

Is the path with no end the path most worth taking?

Let us examine that last proposition. In fact, to claim that "the path with no end is the path most worth taking" is to glorify the lifelong search for something that is one hundred percent unattainable. When you think about it, the idea is patently absurd.

For example, if you know that you will never find a soul mate, will you keep on searching?
A search for a soul mate that is unattainable is meaningless.

Also, will you work hard for a job that is unattainable?
You would be better off working hard for a job that you can attain.

Any search must be predicated on the assumption that what is sought can be found. Anyone who would devote his entire life to the search for something he knew was unattainable might just as well keep on buying tickets to last year's lottery.
Some will insist that a search with no end suits them fine, because the process of lifelong betterment and striving is wonderful in itself. And yet such fulfillment is temporary and fugitive. It is different by nature from the joy in life that shouts out, "How glad I am I was born a human being!" Those who praise endless seeking do not know the joy of attaining life's true purpose.
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