The leaf blower and the meaning of life

Every Tuesday punctually at 9:30 a.m., an especially interesting phenomenon can be observed outside the window of my rented flat in Würzburg. A man engaged by the building management combats the leaves on the ground with an apparatus resembling a rocket backpack. This activity not only constitutes an assault on the ears, it is also highly damaging to the environment. Through the swirled-up leaves, countless small creatures lose their habitat. In addition, there is the swirled-up fine dust and the additional generation of fine dust by the combustion engine.

If I had to describe leaf blowing with one word, it would be: "pointless". And that is exactly what I do. Every Tuesday at 9:30 a.m. By now so often that I eventually began to put the leaf blowing into a larger context: "The man with the apparatus on his back suffers at least three times as much from it." Or: "How would our society actually benefit from forgoing leaf blowing? Or would it even collapse completely?" Until I finally came up with the thought: "I am standing here in the kitchen musing about the sense and nonsense of leaf blowing. What am I actually doing with my life? What is the point of my life anyway?"

Good question. What is the meaning of life?

It would certainly save a lot of time and nerves if one could simply ask an all-knowing supercomputer this question, as in Douglas Adams' novel "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy". In the novel, the answer to the question after a calculation time of 7.5 million years is simply and plainly "42". But since we humans have only existed for about 300,000 years, it will probably take quite a while before a supercomputer presents us with this answer. Therefore, for now we must content ourselves with finding the answer to the question about the meaning of life ourselves. Since there is no one right answer to this, unlike in "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy", it is quite natural that different people also have different ideas about the meaning of life. 

One of the oldest and most enduring meaning-giving institutions is certainly the Church. In this article, I would like to focus particularly on Christian faith as a source of meaning. Since I personally have little to no connection with Christianity and religion in general, I asked my friend Simon about this in this context. He lives in Berlin and directs his life strongly according to his Christian faith. When asked what the meaning of life represents for him, he answered briefly and pointedly: "my Christian faith". He is convinced of the existence of the Christian God and believes that He has revealed Himself to humanity in the form of Jesus Christ. Jesus conveyed to people God's conception of life on earth. Simon describes this as follows: "This faith gives me a greater perspective, which shifts my priorities. To put others above myself, to love and support them." At first glance, this may sound as though believing Christians must live a life of God-given rules and restrictions. In fact, the opposite is true for Simon. He experiences his faith as enormous freedom. "Trusting that there is someone who is more powerful, more loving and wiser than I am takes away my fear and worry about things I couldn't change anyway." The process of meaning-making is thus taken away from the human being; the meaning is therefore already determined before birth and springs from an otherworldly authority. 

I find the belief in the Christian God so impressive precisely because for me there are more than enough reasons in the world to reject it. Despite all the suffering in the world, to believe in a great plan or connection speaks of a trust that has no equal in the world. 

Not every person believes in God. However, thanks to the unique composition of his mind, man is a being that can question the meaning of life and must do so for the sake of his mental health. "The two most important days in your life are the day you were born, and the day you find out why." Mark Twain is said to have once said this. 

If one does not believe in the existence of God and sees the earth and humanity not as His creation, but as the product of a long series of scientifically explicable events, then the idea of a great meaningful connection between the world and its inhabitants also loses significance. The art now lies in filling this seemingly meaningless world with meaning oneself. This task can initially seem overwhelming. Every person will doubt themselves and the entire universe at some point in their life. The important thing is simply not to despair.

For with the pressure that comes from the challenge of giving existence meaning comes also great freedom. The freedom to do exactly what one believes to be right. The existentialist philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre sums up this state of affairs with the sentence "To be free is to be condemned to be free". On the one hand, the freedom that has its origin in the non-deterministic existence of man. On the other hand, the duty to use this freedom responsibly in order to design the essence of life itself. 

For Sartre, therefore, existence precedes essence. Man thus defines himself only after he appears in the world. Meaning-making in this context is therefore not a one-time event that takes place before birth. Rather, it is a process that runs through the life of every person and thus also looks different for every person. The goal of existentialist philosophy is thus, put simply, to give one's own life meaning and to orient oneself by the goals that arise from it. 

There are a whole host of other schools of thought that philosophise about the meaning of life and existence. For example, absurdism, coined by Albert Camus, which largely shares the basic assumptions of existentialism, but arrives at a more pessimistic conclusion. The search for one's own meaning, which in existentialism is seen as a means against despair at meaninglessness, must from an absurdist perspective always remain futile. The art here does not lie in finding a personal meaning, but in not taking the logically seeming path of actual or philosophical suicide, by which Camus means belief in all things metaphysical, in the face of an inexplicable, meaningless world. What can we learn from this wealth of information about different views on the meaning of life about leaf blowing? Does leaf blowing put others above oneself or practise Christian charity? Probably not. Probably even the opposite. Is leaf blowing merely a product of scientific progress and thus completely meaningless in itself? More likely. Can individual meaning be derived from leaf blowing, which is meaningless in itself? For me, the answer here must unfortunately be "no". Is the search for meaning in completely meaningless leaf blowing thus an absurd farce, which cannot possibly lead to a satisfying result? This thought does sound a bit too pseudophilosophical.
It seems that philosophers and leaf-blower lobbyists still have some work to do in this field, for it is quite regrettable that we can say so much about the meaning of life, but are at a loss when we want to find out something about the meaning of such an everyday activity as leaf blowing.