Meaning has been a theme on the winds the last few years.

The great danger of modern society is not so much that it pushes us toward evil—though it does—but that it sucks us into its unreflective, myopic, consumerist frame.  The popular understanding is that this is “bad because it leads us to sin,” but now I understand that blinding us is one of the primary aims, not merely a tactic. 

How much meaning do small events carry?   Is a chance encounter on a train foreordained, or simply one in a random stream of events?  Is there such a thing as coincidence?   And here is the real question: which do we hope, and why?

The conclusion I have arrived at is that we can live at different levels of meaning.  We can see ourselves as players in a great cosmic drama where all is knit together, worlds without end, or as nobodies in nowhere.  We can assign eternal significance to our daily actions, or treat them as not that important one way or another.

The chief virtue of the meaningless life is that it is relatively painless, at least in the acute sense.  There are no great tragedies, because there’s nothing to lose.

Meaning brings pains as well as glories.  Understanding the potential for heroism in our smallest actions also means acknowledging the possibility (and reality) of the gulf between who we are and who we ought to be.

So the question becomes: how much meaning can we stand?  How important do we want our actions to be?