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"The Meaning of Life is to find Meaning in Life."

Five miles up the canyon, the night fell quiet and dark. I lay in the snow on my back, staring up at the low clouds, watching tiny snowflakes drop silently onto my face. Straight, white aspens; tall, bare cottonwoods; and thick, low pines hemmed in the small meadow. I had only two things on my mind.

The first thing was the next two days, the last two of fall semester. These were both bad and good.

Bad because I only had a day and a half to finish my philosophy paper and it wasn’t going well. I was struggling with the conclusion and even considering choosing a new topic and starting over. I should have thought of that weeks ago.

Good because then the semester would be over and done, for better or for worse, and I could stop thinking about my paper and start enjoying Christmas vacation.

Bad because I hadn’t a moment to spare and here I was, laying on my back in the snow, breathing heavy, my coat zipped open, sweat dripping down my forehead, five miles up Green Canyon, far from the shimmering lights of the city, far from my apartment and the paper.

Good because I was five miles up Green Canyon, with hot blood pumping through my veins, millimeters from pure, white snow, three feet from the tracks of small animals that had played in this meadow earlier tonight, five miles from noise and distractions and work.

Bad because I could not stop thinking about the paper long enough to enjoy all this.

The second thing on my mind was the blonde girl in my philosophy class. The one with the beautiful blue eyes. The one with the pretty lilt in her clear voice. This was both good and bad.

Good because I could sit behind her in class and watch her hair fall across her shoulders and her hands as they cocked her pen, waiting to take down the next note. I could listen to her talk with her friends before and after class, I could dream about asking her out and actually getting to know her.

Bad because I didn’t have the courage to even introduce myself and talk to her. What would I say to someone that perfect? What could we possibly have in common and what would she ever see in me?

Good because it wasn’t too late to change. It’s never too late to change. I could take her to dinner and maybe…maybe the heavens would open and the sun would shine through the clouds and a miracle would happen.

Bad because class had ended, I would only see her again at the final exam, after that we would have absolutely nothing in common, and I had no compelling reason to expect any miracles.

A third thing soon crept into my mind—I was getting cold. I zipped my coat all the way up to my neck and folded my arms across my chest. I still wasn’t ready to get up and leave. I still hadn’t found the peace.

It always worked for me before. The exertion of skiing uphill, the trees, the canyon walls, and the breeze that sighed through them had a way of sucking the pressure out from inside me. Of blowing all the inner noise gently back down the canyon where it would soak into the deeply rooted mountains or float off into the atmosphere. In the silence left behind, I would find the peace. I would go back to my car with a fresh perspective; relaxed, breathing easy, smiling again, serenity seeping into my heart.

Tonight, for the first time, it had failed. I skied hard for five miles, trying to work out all the stress, but I felt no different than when I left the car at the mouth of the canyon over an hour ago. Sometimes life is just hard, I told myself. It was my own fault, after all.

I could have chosen an easy topic for my paper, I could have finished it a week ago with my English paper. I could have found a less intimidating girl to have a crush on. I could just be satisfied with feeling a little stress and forget about finding peace in the middle of finals week. I could have…well, no, I couldn’t have.

I don’t know when I made the decision, I don’t believe there was ever a specific moment of choice. It just happened. Somewhere in the path of growing up, I grew determined to do things well, to feel good and enjoy my life, to reach for the best and let nothing stop me or keep me down. I never even realized I had made that decision until I began noticing the patterns of choices in my life. By that time the mindset had grown deeply through my mind and heart and there was no looking back. Of course this wasn’t always easy.

As a matter of fact, it usually wasn’t. Sometimes I wished I could just let go of my high hopes, but even when I opened my hand, they would not fall. This left me standing somewhere in the gap between glory and failure, never quite reaching either side, always sprinting toward one and away from the other. Sometimes I felt choked, suffocated by my self-induced pressure and longing for my unreached goals.

When the pressure built up inside, I went outside. Soon the outside worked its way inside. Inside out and outside in, I finally felt myself again. But not tonight. Five more minutes passed and the cold grew uncomfortable.

When I was young, I used to lay on the grass after school, staring up at the sky, looking for something above the high clouds, trying to see God up there, trying to sense Him looking down at me. I always pictured Him sort of like my Grandpa, only with a long white beard and a sort of patient longing in his expression.

"Dear God," I half whispered, half thought. Even knowing I was completely alone didn’t make it easy to pray out loud. I know you can hear me. "Thanks for this beautiful canyon. Thanks for my good life." But I’m not quite as happy as I’d like to be. I think you’d like me to be happier, too. "I know we pretty much have to make it through life any way we can manage, and that’s fine, of course," but could you maybe teach me a few tricks to make it a bit easier? "Thanks again for everything."

I lay there for a minute longer, looking for some indication that my prayer had reached heaven, then shivered, stood up, and clipped into my ski bindings. I slipped my gloves through the pole straps and started back down the canyon. A hundred yards of skiing, I knew, would warm me up again.

The narrow canyon walls to either side and low cloud ceiling above created the impression of skiing through a dim tunnel. I kept one foot a few inches in front of the other for balance as I glided down a steep section of trail, then slipped into an easy step-glide, step-glide rhythm when the canyon floor leveled out. The new snow felt soft and smooth underfoot, just sticky enough to make uphill easy and keep the downhill sections under control.

Maybe that was the meaning of life. You can’t avoid the ups and downs, but when the downs come, just keep going till you warm up again. That was how I worked my way through life, but it wouldn’t serve as a thesis for my philosophy paper.

My paper promised to reveal the meaning of life, and what I had come to believe, almost, was that there was no meaning to life. You just have to make it through, learning what you can, and hopefully experiencing enough joy to make it all worthwhile. What I hoped to find and reveal was what makes life feel worth living, something universally worth living for. I hoped to find all this in time to include it in my term paper:

The Meaning of Life
By Spencer Cook
Philosophy 101
Utah State University

"Hey, Ben, ya just gonna sit and watch TV all night?"

Tormenting my couch-potato roommate was Ski’s favorite activity whenever he came by to visit.

"Yep," Ben answered without looking up from the screen.

"Well the least you could do is sit on the other side of the couch. I’ve been noticing that this side sinks down a lot lower than the other side."

Ben looked up momentarily, annoyed. Ski smiled, seeing that he had gotten a response. Ben got up and walked to the fridge for a soda.

"Hey Spencer!" Ski shouted toward my room, "I just saw Ben exercising! You told me he never did that!"

I walked out into the living room with my coat and backpack. "Ready to go?" I asked Ski.

"Where you guys going?" asked Ben, anxious not to be left out.

"For a ride in Spencer’s new car," Ski answered.

"Really? Why didn’t you tell me you got a new car?" Ben asked. I raised one eyebrow at him and waited. It didn’t take long.

"Where are you guys really going?"

"Study session," I answered.

"Philosophy? Why didn’t you guys tell me?" Ben knew philosophy was the only class Ski and I had together. That’s where we met. Ben was also in the class. Ben and I had met the day before class started when I moved into the apartment.

Now Ben became the picture of energy as he bounded to his room to grab his coat and pack while trying to tie his shoelaces. Ski looked at me as if annoyed that I had let Ben in on our study session, but we both knew there would be less work with him along. Ben’s life consisted of television, studying, and chattering away while trying to act like one of the guys. We could stand him being around as long as we didn’t get too much at once. Unfortunately for us, that was rarely an option.

Ski and I agreed to meet for lunch the next day. I picked up an enchilada and found an empty table at the food court. Ski spotted me and walked over to the table.

"How’d it go?" he asked.

"We agreed on a June wedding."

"Wow, that good, eh?"

"No, not really," I answered. "You gonna eat something?"

"Yeah, it’s coming. What really happened?"

"She only had one thing on her mind."

Ski paused for a moment. "You look serious. Are you serious?"

"Totally. But it’s not what you’re thinking."

"What, then?" Ski asked, glancing toward the food court entrance.

"You."

Ski looked back at me. "What do you mean?"

"I mean all she’s really interested in is you. Wants to know what you like to do, wants to get together after finals."

A pizza delivery guy walked in and looked hopelessly around the crowded room. Ski stood up and waved him over.

"Hmm," he said after paying for the pizza and opening the box. "I’m not sure I could go for the perfect type."

"You might as well give it a shot," I said, wondering if he only said that to be nice, to avoid gloating. "You never know till you try. And at least I’ll be nearby to look at her."

Ski took two slices of pizza from the box and folded one over the top so all the toppings were sandwiched in the middle. I admired the way he did everything differently, his own way. Ski was anything but traditional, and it seemed liberating. Maybe he’d have something valuable to tell me about the meaning of life. I still had to finish the conclusion to my paper right after lunch. I hoped I would find a computer free in the lab.

We ate in silence for a minute or two, and then I asked, "So, Ski, you seem to have opinions on just about everything. What would you say is the meaning to life?"

Ski laughed. "I just made up that law of the jungle thing last night ‘cause Ben was bugging me." He grinned, showing that he had enjoyed it. "But let’s see. The meaning of life? Yes, it’s to be great. I’m sure of it."

"Oh yeah? Like by achieving a lot and changing the world?"

"Not necessarily. That’s how most people think of it, but that’s just because of competition." Ski took another bite of pizza, then continued talking with his mouth half-full. "See, to be great in everybody else’s eyes, you just have to convince them that you’re better than they are. It’s just a race, a game. It’s fun if you’re a good player, but everyone else loses. Me, I don’t care what anyone else thinks, so for me, to be great would be to please myself as well as possible."

"And how do you do that?" I asked. I had entirely forgotten about the paper now—I wanted to understand this for myself. Ski’s ideas were unlike anything I had found in any boring, dead philosopher’s writings.

"By doing whatever I feel like. Usually, I just feel annoyed by stupid people, so I put them in their place."

"Kind of like Socrates? He was always putting people in their place and everybody seems to think he was great."

"No, I wouldn’t want to be like him—that’s different. He’s not my hero. After all, he drank poison rather than letting his friends buy his way out of prison. Thought he had some kind of duty to some stupid law. Why should I suffer because of someone else’s retarded ideas? I would have just paid off the guards, gotten out of jail, and had a drink of cold lemonade on the beach. I hear they’ve got some pretty nice beaches over there in Greece."

"And that makes life worthwhile—just doing what you feel like?" I hoped he was right, I hoped he would convince me. I sensed that there was some key here that might somehow free me from my own stresses and fears and limitations and let me get on with my life without it feeling like such a struggle.

Ski looked down at the table and thought for a second, just to make sure.

"What else is there?" he finally answered.

I packed quickly and loaded the car. I had nothing left to do but eat lunch and go. Home in Orem waited two hours away to the south. I looked through the cupboards for something to cook, but I didn’t feel like cooking. Instead, I just grabbed some granola bars that I kept on hand for ski trips and washed them down with a glass of milk. "Doing what I feel," I thought to myself.

Outside, I started the car and let it run for a second to get warm and defrost the windshield. It would feel good to get home. I could relax there and unlike being at school, I wouldn’t be surrounded by teachers and strangers, I wouldn’t be judged and evaluated every step of the way.

And I was tired. Tired of staying up studying, tired of work, tired of thinking. It was high time I took a break.

As I sat and thought about the drive home, a strange feeling washed over me. I suddenly didn’t want to go. It occurred to me that home might not be the best place in the world to take a break right now. My little sisters would pile all over me and never let me rest. I loved them, of course, loved playing with them too, but for the moment, I only wanted to kick back and veg out, not play and talk with them non-stop.

Then there was Dad. He’d expect me to find a job for the break, though I’d waste half my vacation looking for a seasonal job that would let me off during Christmas to go to Grandma’s. No, now that I thought about it, I definitely didn’t feel like going home.

Instead, another destination came to mind, and with it, a calm feeling of peace settled deep into my heart. And that was enough, the decision was made. I put the car in reverse and backed out of the parking space. When I reached the street, I didn’t turn west toward the highway and home, but east toward the canyon instead. I knew just the place where I could make myself comfortable, enjoy plenty of peace and quiet, and have no forced responsibilities. This year, I was heading for Wyoming and Grandma’s early and alone.