The study of meaning is incomplete without relationships.
Why?
Because the meaning of life is in relationships.
Or, said different: There is no life outside of relationships.
(God to man, man to God, man to man – heck – even man to dog, maybe.)
Unfortunately, all the hand-wringing in the world will not get ethics and meaning out of physics and biology.
You need something else to guide “correct” behavior.
But of course, the rub is that correct behavior is the answer to a relational question.
Ethics makes no sense outside of you and others.
I mean, what is meaning and ethics to rock on Mars?
Understand: In the end, relationships are all there is.
Throughout college, my monastic, scholarly study of human meaning would conflict with my urge to forge and strengthen the human relationships that formed that meaning. If the unexamined life was not worth living, was the unlived life worth examining?
-Paul Kalanithi, When Breath Becomes Air (Amazon)
