There comes a time, or even multiple times, in one's life when one has to ask oneself, "What's the point?". With the ins and outs of life, the daily routine, monotony, or boredom, it is easy to wonder if our lives are really all that meaningful. Even with a faith in God, and knowing that we have an eternal life after this one here on earth, we can struggle to find true meaning in our lives. Soren Kierkegaard, Gabriel Marcel, Jean-Paul Sarter, Nietzshe-- these are people who struggled with this question: how does the individual create meaning in the face of an apparently meaningless life, and being buffetted by despair, angst, boredom, and the absurdity in life?  These gentleman are credited with starting Existentialism in the 19th and 20th century, but as I read through Ecclesiastes, I find another, much earlier great thinker in the depths of existential despair: Solomon.

From the very beginning of Ecclesiastes, we find Solomon's despair at the apparent meaninglessness of it all, where he declares "all is vanity" (Eccl. 1:2).  A man works and labors his whole life, but how does it profit him? He will pass away and another will come, and no one will remember him. Nothing that he will do is new or truly ingenious-- for "there is nothing new under the sun" (1:9). In fact, Solomon, goes on to say that seeking wisdom, pleasure, riches and treaures, skills and works, and popularity: it is all vanity (see Ecclesiast 2:1-4:16). Solomon, a king with power and riches, who could probably have whatever he desired, decried the meaningless of his life.

Solomon also despaired at the Existential concept of the Absurd. The Absurd is the idea that there is no meaning to be found in the world beyond what meaning we give to it, and that it there is a basic "unfairness" instrinsic to world, in contrast to the karmic way of thinking in which bad things don't happen to good people. Rather, "rain falls on the just and the unjust alike". (scripture reference!!!). As Sololom says,  "All things come alike to all: One event happens to the righteous and the wicked; to the good, the clean, and the unclean; to him who sacrifices and him who does not sacrifice. As is the good, so is the sinner; He who takes and oath as he who fears an oath (9:2).  And further, "The race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, nor bread to the wise, nor riches to men of skill, but time and chance happen to them all" (9:11). Isn't this one of the main questions we have: why do good things happen to bad people (and vice versa)?  How is our goodness (or lack there of) meaningful, if it seemingly makes no difference here on earth?

In the end, Solomon came down to this: Fear God and keep His commandments, for

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