We exist in tension between being and not-being, and meaning is the thread we weave between the two.
Summary: In a universe devoid of inherent meaning, human consciousness must reconcile the tension between existence and mortality by creating purpose. Drawing on celestial mechanics, the essay likens this quest to the chaotic three-body problem and proposes that life’s grace may lie in finding evolving points of inner equilibrium — our personal Lagrange points.
One of the privileges afforded by consciousness is awareness not only of our existence but also of our eventual end. Unlike the stars or the distant galaxies that seem indifferent to their being (at least that is what I think), we carry the burden, or the gift, of knowing that we exist, that we are, and that one day, we will not be.
Awareness of our existence and of our mortality brings them into an ongoing conflict. As part of that conflict, mortality can play strange games with existence. The cognition of mortality and its influence on existence could be like being pursued by a Dementor from myth — a formless, soul-sucking floating shadow that siphons not just joy but the very will to exist, especially if we do not have a meaning and purpose for our existence to protect against it.
Without a reason, a purpose, a meaning, a story to tell ourselves, even the lightest tasks can feel weighted, and the most beautiful mornings can get colored gray. Meaning and purpose are the scaffolding that allow us to build a portfolio of engagements to put vitality back into our existence. They allow us to believe and be immersed in our actions. They allow us to look forward to getting out of bed the next morning.
When the meaning behind our actions is clear to us, it brings a spring to our steps — a quiet vitality that can animate even the mundane. Meaning becomes both weapon and shield, an anti-Dementor force that infuses our existence with purpose and vivifies our moments.
But there is a slight problem: the universe does not offer us meaning. In fact, it may have none for itself. At birth, we are not handed a manual outlining our purpose or a blueprint for fulfillment. It is we who must craft meaning. And like all things made by human hands, it is vulnerable — it can fracture.
Meaning and purpose, then, are not fixed monuments but flickering flames. The universe, in its vast and silent indifference, is always testing the stability of the meanings we construct. Tragedy, monotony, boredom, or even a quiet flicker of doubt, can send fractures through our once-sturdy scaffolding. When it crumbles, we find ourselves standing amid the debris, exposed once more to conflict between mortality and existence. We must once again tend to build meaning and purpose, knowing they may falter yet again.
And so, the task begins anew: to rebuild, to reinterpret, to weave a fresh, and perhaps more resilient, meaning from the threads of experience from the past.
Thus starts the dance — delicate, elusive, and ever-shifting. It is the intricate choreography between three pillars of life: existence, mortality, and meaning. Existence is our presence in this world, moment by moment. Mortality is the knowledge that this presence is time-bound, finite. Meaning is the attempt to reconcile the two opposites, to bring them in harmony, to make them live in peace.
This triadic tension evokes a problem as old as Newtonian physics and as unsolvable as certain aspects of the cosmos itself — the three-body problem.
In celestial mechanics, the three-body problem involves predicting the motions of three massive bodies — such as stars, moons, or planets — under their mutual gravitational influence. While solving the two-body problem (like Earth and the Sun) yields elegant, closed-form orbits, adding a third body introduces complexity so great that no general solution exists. The bodies dance in chaotic, non-repeating orbits, their fates interlocked yet unpredictable.
How fitting a metaphor this becomes for our own triad. The dance between existence, mortality and meaning whirls between the two, sometimes harmonizing them, sometimes lost in their turbulence. The push and pull between existence and mortality is never fully resolved. We move through life, drawn by invisible forces we barely comprehend.
And yet, in the vast theater of the cosmos, even chaos sometimes finds pockets of grace. Enter the concept of the Lagrange points — named after the French-Italian mathematician Joseph-Louis Lagrange — five specific locations in space where a small object (like ‘meaning’) affected only by gravity can maintain a stable position relative to two larger bodies (existence and mortality).
In the Earth-Sun system, for instance, a satellite placed at one of these Lagrange points can “hover” in a fixed configuration with respect to Earth and the Sun. These points arise where the gravitational pulls of the two massive bodies and the centrifugal force balance perfectly. A harmonious equilibrium within motion.
But not all Lagrange points are equal. Lagrange Points L4 and L5 form equilateral triangles with the two large bodies and are stable — if an object drifts slightly, it oscillates gently back into place. These are like bowls in space: perturbations cause motion, but gravity returns the object to equilibrium.
Points L1, L2, and L3, however, are unstable. They are more like pencil tips — perfect balance is possible, but the slightest nudge sends the object tumbling.
Perhaps then, our quest is not about fully solving our personal three-body problem but about finding our Lagrange point within it — that rare and precious place of inner alignment. It is the point where our existence and our awareness of mortality, because of our chosen meaning, co-exist not in tension but in harmony.
To find those Lagrange points, particularly the stable ones, is perhaps to find Nirvana — a mental and spiritual condition of poise, detachment, and luminous peace. It is not an escape from the tension between mortality and existence, but a sublime positioning within it. Finding our Lagrange point, we are no longer dragged unpredictably between joy and despair. We orbit with calm awareness, we act with clarity, and we accept the finite nature of our existence with grace.
The quest for such a point is not linear, and certainly not permanent. The relative size of existence and mortality, and their gravitational fields change with age, with transitions, with experience, with loss etc. As we age, the cognizance of mortality gets larger. What was a stable Lagrange point at thirty may grow unstable at sixty. What gave meaning in youth may collapse when we get older. Transitions — retirement, bereavement, illness — are like cosmic perturbations. They nudge the location of our former Lagrange point, and we begin to drift, in search for balance again.
But perhaps the true mastery of life is not in staying fixed at one equilibrium, but in learning how to navigate evolving dynamics and stay with evolving Lagrange points, adjusting to each new configuration of forces as they change. With each collapse of meaning, we learn a little bit more about the engineering of constructing better scaffolding.
In youth, we might be good with residing in unstable Lagrange points — passion, ambition, and strength drive us into orbits far from the equilibrium. But as we age, we may begin to seek out the more stable Lagrange points, where small disturbances do not throw us into chaos but invite us gently back to stillness. We long for simplicity, for inner peace, for a meaning that no longer needs constant rebuilding but becomes an anchor.
And this is the quiet miracle of it all: that even in a meaningless universe, meaning can be created — not found, not discovered, but built, over and over again, like a lighthouse on shifting shores. We are the builders and the alchemist.
So let us keep dancing this intricate three-body ballet. Let us continue constructing and reconstructing the scaffolding of meaning. Let us accept the chaos, embrace the collapse, and seek again the stillness within motion. For somewhere in this vast cosmic play, each of us may yet find our own Lagrange point — a sacred equilibrium between existence, mortality, and the meaning that calms the tension between them.
Ciao, and thanks for reading.
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