Meaningless Life

Nick Lubic
Dr. Adam Johns
Seminar in Composition
14 October 2008

Human Meaning

A famous US cartoonist, Charles Schulz, once said, “My life has no purpose, no direction, no aim, no meaning, and yet I'm happy. I can't figure it out. What am I doing right?”. What Schulz means when he says this is that even though he is not getting very much accomplished and seems to be meaninglessly leading his life, he is still content. This individualized idea is a common thought in today’s society more specifically the youth. Many think that it is fine to live a meaningless existence, as long as they are happy. Bill McKibben introduces his opinion on this subject in his book, Enough. He believes today’s youth are more self centered and less communicable then the generations before them. Perhaps, I believe, technology has increase this distance between an individual and his community. Either way, I agree that modern society has lost the sense of meaning and community it once flourished in.

One way that it has done this is through the advancements in technology. McKibben would agree with me in saying life before such advancement as telephones and computers was much more sociable. Although it is now much easier to communicate with the use of this technology, the “quality” of the communication is suffering. For instance, the house visits of the 1920’s are long gone, as people would much rather call someone on the phone than meet with them face to face. The modern man is more prone to staying indoors in solitude watching TV, hindering his ability to find meaning in his life and to communicate with his peers. This is an unacceptable loss. Without these basic interactions, we have eliminated the very meaning of what it is to be human. It is our ability to communicate that separates us from all other species on earth. Of course, it would be ridiculous to propose eliminating these technologies, as they have provided us with immense opportunities and are a tribute to advancements in the past. Keeping intact the most basic modes of communication and interactions with our community is key in giving modern society a chance at finding meaning.

Chris Ware incorporates this meaninglessness in his graphic book, “Jimmy Corrigan”. The premise of the comic deals with the absurdly meaningless life of Jimmy Corrigan. Ware uses his life as a metaphor for the corruption of modern society and the meaninglessness of it. Throughout the comic, Jimmy is continually isolated from those around him, only truly communicating with his mother via the telephone. Not only that, Jimmy seems almost incapable of deriving his own opinion, adding to his overall hollowness. Ware often hints to modern society’s selfishness. He uses a conversation between Jimmy and a strange old man in the airport to display this. A newspaper displays several articles, the main headline reads “Superman leaps to death” followed by an earthquake in China that killed 3 Americans, along with 4,000 Chinese. The man says, “4,000 Chinese people die in an earthquake but the headline tells us that three of our brave soldiers cap it instead. Nothing wrong with that though, right? … we’d rather read about some guy in panties falling off a building” (Ware 32). This passage is trying to explain to the reader we as Americans are concerned more with ourselves than with humanity overall. Ware is using this old man to portray his view, which is that society is becoming more individualized and less in touch with the community as a whole. He emphasizes that this way of thought is corrupting human meaning.

Ware also uses Jimmy as a character to symbolize this continuing cycle of meaninglessness. Like I mentioned before, Jimmy often has trouble formulating his own opinions. For instance, Jimmy has a conversation with a man named Jack at work. Jack tries to give Jimmy “advice” to help his relationship with women. Jack states, “Chicks don’t dig guys that are nice… Plus, you can’t ever let a chick know you like her until you have sex with her anyway” (Ware 14). Ware uses Jack, who cares only about his feelings, as a way of displaying selfishness, adding to the lack of community the author is getting at. In this case, Jimmy just sits and listens to the terrible advice Jack is giving him, displaying his lack of opinion and meaninglessness. It seems as if Jimmy Corrigan is either in a state of complete boredom or absolute panic, which inhibits his ability to communicate. This idea can be connected back to McKibben, when he mentions Csikszentmihalyi’s notion of “flow”. He defines flow as the area between boredom and anxiety in which we can all find meaning. Jimmy lacks this area of emotion and because of it, symbolizes loss of meaning in every sense.

It is easy to see how society has changed from that of the past. We are more concerned with ourselves and in the process, lose a sense of meaning in our lives. Ware uses Jimmy Corrigan to symbolize the meaninglessness that McKibben speaks so urgently about. Until we lose this selfish outlook on life and lack of genuine communication, and focus more on humanity as a whole, society will continue its downward spiral towards the life of Jimmy Corrigan.