In this video, Alan Watts suggests that death and life are like the front and back of the same coin, and that accepting death can give meaning to life and a chance to understand what life is. According to the video’s description, the original audio is sourced from “The Inevitable Ecstasy.”
Our culture often lives as if only to survive, and hushes the idea of death as a topic to avoid. Alan Watts explores this taboo with a different approach: that death and life are like the front and back of the same coin, and that death gives meaning to life and the opportunity to understand what life is all about.
In a separate video, astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson answers the question “What is the meaning of life?”, asked by a 6-year-old child at the Wilbur Theatre in Boston in January 2015.
I think people ask that question on the assumption that meaning is something you can look for and then, I found it. Here’s the meaning. And it doesn’t consider the possibility that meaning is something you create, you manufacture it for yourself and for others.
So when I think of meaning in life, I ask, did I learn something today that I didn’t know yesterday, bringing me a little closer to knowing all that can be known in the universe? If I live a day and I don’t know a little more than I did the day before, I think I wasted that day. To think brings you closer to nature. To learn how things work gives you power to influence events. Gives you power to help people who may need it, power to help yourselves, to shape a trajectory.
So when I think of what is the meaning of life, to me that’s not an eternal, unanswerable question to me that is in arm’s reach of me every day.
Sean Fargo also leads a 21-minute death awareness meditation that begins with grounding in the body and breath, then turns toward impermanence, the fragility and resilience of our lives, which may help clarify what matters to you and deepen gratitude for the present moment. Please skip it if you are struggling with unresolved trauma or depression; it complements professional care and is not a substitute for it.
