“What’s the meaning of life?” Such a deep question to ponder but one that most people will ask themselves at least once, if not many times throughout their lives, and one that I have been thinking about a lot lately.
The first time I heard that question was probably at a church service during my dependent days on my family as a kid. Frankly, at that time, I couldn’t really have cared less about what the meaning of life was. The only concerns and purposes I felt then as a kid prior to leaving for college were to please my parents, get good grades, and make myself stay busy by doing chores, reading, or partaking in some type of sport.
During my college years, I discovered alcohol and drugs and the meaning of life changed depending on how “high” I was on either of them. Sometimes I did marijuana or various forms of hallucinogenics which many times put me into a state of pondering this question for hours on end. I never really got much farther in finding any answers to it during those times though because I was generally too wrapped up in my own self with the feeling those drinks or drugs were providing me. I had a good laugh the other day when I remembered long ago telling friends one night when I was taking magic mushrooms that I believed I could find the cure for cancer and other diseases if I tripped more often. After graduating from college, I moved to Virginia where the meaning of life took on a new direction and one that I thought everyone was supposed to have at some point in their early adulthood. I got hired at a good paying corporate job and my focus was then on wealth and what it could get me. Life threw me several curve balls though over the next three years which began to shape the initial answers I would ever truly face to what the meaning was for why I was here.
The first was when I realized I was an alcoholic and drug addict and knew the usage of them was slowly killing me, so I quit them entirely. The second was when I faced the reality that I was gay and couldn’t hide from it anymore, so I came out of the closet. But the third was what changed everything. It was what made me really begin to ponder life and why I was here in the first place. It was the day I got a phone call from my sister and informed my father had committed suicide.
My Dad’s death was tragic. He had always been someone I had hoped to become like. My meaning in life was quite often to follow in his successful footsteps. From having been a high paid business executive to changing it all up later in life by becoming a social worker, I had strived to do what I could those first few post college years to be just like him. His death broke me and all those molds I had created in my brain of what I felt I was meant to do in life. For awhile, I stayed broken, I became depressed, and was suicidal too. Several years passed and on desperate measures, I decided to go on a men’s retreat hoping to find some great purpose for my life. During that retreat, I forced myself to face those demons within me surrounding his death. All that anger, all that rage, and all that poison came to the surface and suddenly exploded out of me leaving me feeling a lot lighter, a lot happier, and filled with total joy and love. At that point, I had the first truest answer for what my meaning of life was. The only thing I wanted to do at that moment was to spread all that joy and love to everyone else, especially to those who still needed healing from something that had broken them. And while I did that for awhile, I got lost again soon after.
Five years passed after that retreat and the light within me had become very dim again. The only focuses I seemed to have then were to either stimulate myself with sex and caffeine or make more money and spend it on what I thought I needed to be happy. I had become depressed again and thoughts of suicide had crept back in as well. I tried to engage myself on and off again in church, prayer, and meditation and found slight moments where the light began to get brighter again as the memories came back of those feelings I had after that men’s retreat. But life again would throw me another tragic curveball when a phone call came in from my sister who told me my mother was dead. She had fallen down the stairs while she was drunk and broke her neck dying instantly. Darkness quickly swept in and around me and I did what I could daily to numb myself from it and the pain. On another desperate attempt to find myself and maybe even prevent my own suicide, I went on a ten day silent retreat in the mountains. By the end of it, the lightbulb had become very bright just like before and I remembered fully those same feelings I had felt all those years before after that men’s retreat. All I wanted to do was to love everyone and help all those who were broken and needed healing. Sadly, it didn’t take long for that light to grow dim once again as I drifted away from what was good and healthy and instead got closer to what was toxic and unhealthy.
Another four years passed where the only meaning of my life was focused solely on getting whatever it needed to stay numb. My mind, body, and soul became sick and frail and my life felt directionless. I did the only thing I believed would help me get back on track at that point. I got on my knees and prayed to God to have me go through whatever I needed to, so that lightbulb would grow bright once more and never go dull ever again.
Over the past three years since then, I have found so much greater of a meaning to my life. While a retreat wasn’t in the cards this time to catapult me out of the dregs of life I was living in, I have instead been experiencing a much slower ascent. One that has helped me to slowly see and avoid all those dark paths I had fallen down year after year. One that has slowly helped me to grasp and understand the knowledge around why I fell down those dark paths in the first place. One that is bringing me the healing I have sought after my whole life. But most importantly, one that is continuing to show me that the meaning of my life has always been, and will always continue to be, to love everyone equally including myself, and the one who brought me here, which is God.
Peace, love, light, and joy,
Andrew Arthur Dawson