Do you guys remember mail? 😂 I was bantering with some people about it the other day, and the consensus was clear: We need to dust off our flower-print papers and rock Posta (servers?) like we never left.

Speaking of elaborate feats in written communication, our Wageni Wednesday continues today with Wayne, whose striking and introspective perspectives I could read for hours. For more of his posts, visit his blog.

And remember: you, too, could be hosted on a Wageni Wednesday. 😉

“Job” Description

🍹Writing level: Can read and write and would like to express their opinions on here.

🍹Topics and format: Pretty much everything goes at Kessentials. That includes poems, fictional stories, entries from your diary, etc. Hatuwezi kosa kuelewana.

🍹Word count: ~500-700, ± where the story takes you.

🍹Why?: The Kessentials audience is a friendly, well-connected bunch. Who knows what else, apart from releasing your nuanced PoV, the experience could lead to for you?

Can’t wait to hear from all our prospective guest writers via:

🐣Instagram

🐣Email (DON’T click 👈🏼 Email; that’s just colored like a link for aesthetic reasons. :) DO reply to this one. And for our friends tuning in through the website 👀, the address is [email protected].)

LIFE AND ITS MEANING

Assuming your reading speed is 1 word per second, 54 people worldwide will have died by the time you finish reading this sentence.

At the end of the day:

• about 158,686 people will have died, and 401,300 people will have been born,

• 8.6 million lightning strikes will occur,

• approximately 18 million people will celebrate their birthdays,

• each person will laugh 15 times on average, and

• each adult person will inhale about 23,000 times.

You and I are all part of the statistics. One day, we shall be on the death statistics just as we were once on the birth statistics. Real bummer knowing you are not as unique as you thought you were.

If you are anything like me, you've probably had your fair share of existential crises, the long nights where you question everything and the reasons for anything. Such an existential crisis led me to read a book by Viktor Frankl titled Man's Search for Meaning.

Frankl recounts his experiences being a prisoner in a Nazi concentration camp in Auschwitz. According to him, man’s deepest desire is to find the meaning behind their life. If someone can find it, then they can survive anything.

He claims that life’s meaning is found through work, love, and suffering; thus, he persevered through the horrible experience. Nevertheless, it is easier said than done.

I have to admit that I was disappointed by Frankl's method of finding meaning in life. I had expected some holy grail that would immediately reveal the meaning of life to me once I finished the book.

Our ancestors, I bet, did not worry much about life and its meanings. They simply lived as those before them had. Meaning was primarily extracted from their respective religious beliefs.

Scientific advancements have brought about the understanding of previous phenomena attributed to miracles from God. Take, for example, the “rainmakers” who would pray for rain from God. Nowadays, cloudseeding technology can bring rain to deserts.

Still, those who are keen on scriptures will draw meaning from them. King Solomon, considered to be the wisest man ever to live, had this to say:

Biblical texts state that the sole purpose of man is to worship God. Ecclesiastes 12:13 tells us our purpose—the whole duty of man—is to fear God and keep his commandments. Thus, it can be seen how religion gives meaning to life and rids one of existentialism.

Philosophers have often tried to explain the meaning of life. Here are some of life's meanings according to different schools of philosophy.

Many people set maximization of happiness as their meaning in life. If Frankl did this, he would have preferred death to a life of misery in the camps.

The problem with setting happiness as your main goal in life is that you risk chasing it till you die. You get what you want, say a new car, then the happiness fades, and you want something more—an endless pursuit.

In conclusion, who's to say what the true meaning of life is? What is good for me might not be good for you, making sincerity an overrated virtue for those who claim to have sincere intentions for dictating “the true meaning of life” to others.

If there is no reason for doing anything, there is consequently no reason for not doing anything. You might as well be the best at what you do and live your life to the fullest since it all doesn't matter in the end.

Meaning is a sweater you must weave yourself; I wish you nothing but luck as you weave yours.

Here is a poem I wrote on the subject.

P.S. Check out Exurb1a and The School of Life on YouTube if you love philosophy.

Wayne Odhiambo on Kessentials.