"Rather than asking for the meaning of life as if it were a single or comprehensive pattern that permeates all existence a priori, we do better to investigate how it is that life acquires or may be given a meaning. This meaning is generally ambiguous, as Simone de Beauvoir argues in her book The Ethics of Ambiguity. Criticizing the absurdists, she states: 'To declare that existence is absurd is to deny that it can ever be given a meaning.' Beauvoir prefers the idea of ambiguity because 'to say that it [existence] is ambiguous is to assert that its meaning is never fixed, that it must be constantly won.' In other words, ours is not an absurd existence in which we seek for absolute meaning although we are convinced that the universe does not afford any such thing. Rather we are creatures who create meaning for ourselves without having objective and unambiguous criteria by which to determine how we should do so."
Meaning in Life: The Creation of Value by Irving Singer
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