Essence of life, Revisited

During one of those intense philosophical discussions that you somehow end up having with friends, I happened to revisit this class one: “What exactly was/is the essence of life?” Now, in Reductio-ad-absurdum, I did answer this question en-route reverse questioning. My contention is that the question cannot be answered whilst living. This is because if you did know the answer, what’d the point of your further life? There wouldn’t be any, and that’s precisely why I believe the question cannot be answered.

The reactions from different blokes to this piece of mental gymnastics varied from ‘Are you crazy?’ to ‘I don’t buy it’. Although most of them were meek resistances to something unconventional, one of my friends did hint at something logical. Metaphorically speaking, what he asked was “ Wouldn't the voyagers know the purpose of their voyage?” That was a pretty good question, I felt. Some thinking reinforced my view, though. This journey called life is an involuntarily initiated one. (The same reason for which caste segregation means a dust speck to me) The fact that we didn’t initiate it renders the parallel to a voyage irrelevant. I hope I made some sense in this post of mine, if not a lot. The point that I am trying to make is that the question is self-contradictory. Bouquets and brickbats, as always are welcome.