Ultimate Meaning

It is life alone that can have meaning.

There is no meaning in the infinitely big or the infinitely little, nor in the banal matter of our daily environment.
Neither the orbits of the planets nor corpuscular movements correspond to any history (only people, not matter, have and make history), and therefore they have no meaning.
They have no signification or orientation, for their changes and evolutions are directed to no end.
There is nothing ultimate about them from which we might deduce such an end.

This is why it seems so futile and unimportant to try to find links between the stars and us (astrology) or to try to find in the chances of the material world mysterious meanings or indications of the way we should live or decide.
All these things are neutral and blind.


But I am well acquainted with those who, coming up against some absurd and unexpected event, a simple play of circumstances, begin at that moment to examine their life and choices, so that if they do not find the meaning of this chance event in itself, they do at least come across some truths about the meaning of their own lives.

— p.18 Jacques Ellul, "What I Believe"