My friend Avi asked me something along the lines of what I would say the meaning of life is in one word. At first I was tempted to say, “Love,” but that word has too many different meanings or connotations. I felt then that I should say, “Support,” to single out a specific kind of love. Then it occurred to me that if we’re all just around to support each other’s being around, it still seems to beg the question of why we’re doing it at all. This train of thought is what I have been grappling with all day today, subconsciously.

I realized, however, that I was universalizing my chosen purpose to be the purpose of all lives in a way that the question doesn’t call for. The reason why I did this subconsciously goes back to Kant’s categorical imperative: to act in such a way that you can simultaneously will to be a universal law. In this case, I checked the “rationality” of my felt purpose by imagining the logical coherence if it were everybody’s purpose. But just as there need not be a capital-T “Truth” of Reality in the sense of there being a complete and true description and explanation of Reality, there need not be a capital-M “Meaning.” Both truth and meaning can be matters of contextual coherence, rather than transcendental Reality. In this way, there is nothing wrong with my declaring “Support” as a one-word answer to the question of the meaning of life—because I am only answering for my life, in my circumstances.

But here is an alternative one-word answer that came to me: “Create.” This highlights the participatory nature of our existence in the world, and our role in shaping what comes about and goes on. It also has a general aura of moral goodness, though of course one could say, “Create havoc” or “Create evil.” Thus if I am allowed two words (and the meaning of life really calls for at least two words), I would say, “Create good.” This both highlights our participatory role and a general moral direction for our action, while leaving open the interpretation: what is “good”? In what sense and how should we “create” it? These are further questions whose working out, both individually and dialogically in community contexts, is precisely part of the purpose of life.

Weighing these factors, I think the concise answer I would give to the question of the meaning of life is the following: “Create good.”

I’m curious what you think: how would you distill the meaning of your life into 1 or 2 words?