Man’s struggle to exist is characterized by a fruitless pursuit of meaning. Natural objects do not possess intrinsic meaning, they simply are. Attempting to ascribe meaning upon anything is simply an attempt to validate one’s own existence. We create mental models, symbolic systems, with characteristics attributed that extend beyond an object’s Beingness. These symbols do not exist a priori of the conscious mind; they do not exist outside of humanity. To actually experience life, one would have to strip his conscious perception of these manufactured signifiers, destroying arbitrary contrivances like language to return to the fundamental essence of Being.
A “tree” is not a tree, despite our vehement attempts to claim otherwise. A tree is much less and much more. Without the burdens of human meaning, a tree simply is, existing as part of the universal flux. This realization is radical. It would spell the end of society with man, but would reinaugurate society with nature. If everyone attempted to live this way, many would be destroyed and nature would finally be able to restore the equilibrium that meaning has disrupted for the span of human existence.
This philosophy certainly precludes “objective” experimentation in the prevailing modes of science. But what evidence is there for the truth of these modes? Science enables man to approximate and observe our universe in novel manners, but it brings us no closer to synchronicity with nature. Science’s ceaseless longing to understand, to affix significance to, is the magnification of that same base longing in man that yearns for self-validation and meaningful existence.
The very fetters of meaning that we so laboriously construct render us immobile. We consume, produce, and destroy to tell ourselves that we have a purpose, an end in life, while ignoring that existence is both the beginning and the end. The philosophers of the past succeeded in realizing that life has no intrinsic meaning. Existence is the only truth that can be derived from the human condition. However, they attempted to overcome the void that man is heir to by locating mechanisms to ascribe meaning. While they were so close to the ultimate realization, they fell prey to those incessant urges, fears, and flaws that characterize humanity.
In only denying intrinsic meaning, these philosophers failed to deny all meaning. The “meaning” we give ourselves is arbitrary, it does not truly exist. All that can be said to exist is that which is, what I would coin Being. Once a man divorces himself from meaning, he can begin to align himself with the tides and movements of the natural world.
