The Guardian View On The Meaning Of Life: Easter And The Ultimate Question | Editorial

From Verdi to Douglas Adams, artists and writers have wrestled with why we are here. The Christian festival gives us pause to reflect

Christians are to be envied at Easter. The story of death and resurrection, suffering and rebirth is a beautiful and all-encompassing one. For non-believers, a diet of chocolate and wall-to-wall snooker, and the prospect of a perhaps drizzly bank holiday, do not have the same teleological logic. The religious narrative gives life meaning. The notion that there is a plan and purpose is deeply satisfying.

The last line of Kenneth Williams’ diary encapsulates the conundrum we all face: “Oh, what’s the bloody point?” James Bailey’s new book, The Meaning of Life, sought answers to that vexing question from a variety of what Bailey calls “extraordinary people”. Like a philosophically inclined Henry Root, Bailey – “unemployed, heartbroken and living alone in my dead grandad’s caravan” – sent more than a thousand letters to well-known artists and philosophers, and to people who had suffered some tragedy that might, he thought, give them special insight into life’s purpose and meaning.