The Meaning of Life

What makes people despair is that they try to find a universal meaning to the whole of life, and then end up by saying it is absurd, illogical, and empty of meaning. There is not one big, cosmic meaning for all, there is only the meaning we each give to our life, an individual meaning, an individual plot, like an individual novel, a book for each person. To seek a total unity is wrong. To give as much meaning to one’s life as possible seems right to me. For example, I am not committed to any of the political movements which I find full of fanaticism and injustice, but in the face of each human being, I act democratically and humanly.

— Anaïs Nin, The Journal of Anaïs Nin Volume 1, 1931-1934

The full text can be found here.

The Secret of Life

The secret of life is to have a task, something you devote your entire life to, something you bring everything to, every minute of the day for your whole life. And the most important thing is — it must be something you cannot possibly do!

— Henry Moore, quoted in Donald Hall, Life Work

Discontinuity of Existence

Am I the same person I was a year ago? Maybe not.

DCI Tom Barnaby: Lady Annabel says that you dropped in on her for a cocoa round about midnight.

Teddy Butler: Oh, really? Oh, well, if Annabel says it, it must be true.

DCI Tom Barnaby: Well, don’t you remember yourself?

Teddy Butler: Yesterday is another country, Mr. Barnaby. Borders are now closed.

Later that same day:

DCI Tom Barnaby: Look, Teddy, please – the rifle, the rifle. Please concentrate.

Teddy Butler: Oh, sorry. No, never even held one. I mean, you can’t love nature, and then embrace something that would destroy it, can you?

DCI Tom Barnaby: Amos says that when you were a young man, he taught you to shoot.

Teddy Butler: Oh, yes. When Teddy was a young man, he did all those things. But as we go through a complete molecular change every seven years, that Teddy isn’t this Teddy.

Midsomer Murders, episode “Vixen’s Run”, series 9, episode 3, broadcast 5 March 2006 (https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0647513/)
You can read the script here: https://www.springfieldspringfield.co.uk/view_episode_scripts.php?tv-show=midsomer-murders-1997&episode=s09e04