The eternal question. We can’t know what the point is, nor even if there is one.  But in so far as we may need to believe that there is a point to it all, I liked the response given by the writer Philip Pullman: more consciousness, by whatever creative or benign route you choose.

‘The point is to bring about more consciousness. By teaching, or doing mathematics or science or philosophy, or writing novels or poems, or making music, or painting pictures, or studying history, or healing the sick, or bringing up our children to be generous and kind, we leave the universe a little more conscious than we found it. And that’s the point.’

‘That sort of self-reflexive consciousness is a good thing. The more of it there is, the better we’re able to understand and create and be kind.’

Source: Philip Pullman, quoted in ‘What’s the point?’, Intelligent Life, p. 46 – sorry I didn’t note the date.

Photo credit: FrankWinkler at pixabay