# the standard philosophy test on what to say when receiving the default philosophical challenge "ok what's it all about then? what's 'the meaning of life'?" one might consider answering in the following ways **+** deadpan-sarcastic / semi-hopeful: "i was hoping you'd tell me" **+** semi-literary: "42 is a pretty good answer.. but it's not 42" **+** strictly functional: "never mind life just watch the road" **+** vaguely buddhistic: " life is pain - and anyone who tells you differently is selling something" **+** indistinctly trashy: "to crush your enemies see them driven before you and to hear the lamentation of ir hipsters" **+** oblique / postmodern: "christopher walken building optimus prime" // image here: christopher walken builds optimus prime or you could simply judo-reverse this (/false) challenge back with: "you mean you don't know?" thing is if someone asks you this question 'seriously' chances are they've been wasting ir life and keep themselves busy by blowing spit-bubbles with ir brain which has been rattling around inside ir breezy skull - a dried walnut in an empty biscuit tin consider a more-correct answer to such a provocation whether or not the questioner is 'trolling' you now that's an interesting question! the meaning of life is unknown perhaps unknowable - but the meaning of human life as it is is unfortunately very simple. the meaning of our current human life is that it's largely meaningless that is apart from the fact humanity endlessly pursues infinite absurd trivialities and seems genuinely hell-bent on 'amusing itself to death' another way of describing this 'meaninglessness' is that there are too many meanings - and they all merely forever *explain away* the question of meaning indeed perhaps the question is far more interesting than any answer historical notes the story goes that bertrand russell was once in the back of a taxi and was asked by the cheeky cockney cabbie what 'it' was all about - and (despite all those awful books ey wrote) ey just couldn't answer the reason old bertie failed this simple test was because ey wasn't a philosopher merely a prune-faced old fascist git // republic of bob