In mid-2021 The Sciku Project teamed up with the Literature and Science Hub at the University of Liverpool to run the ‘Research in Verse Poetry Competition’, open to staff and postgraduate research students across the university to submit poems about their research subject. The competition saw poems addressing all sorts of topics, ranging from gravity to slavery to life in the lab.
First prize was won by Professor Michael Hauskeller for his poem ‘Digging for Truffles’:
Digging for Truffles
Do something important, we’re told,
Be a Shakespeare, a Newton, a Plato.
Only greatness can fill
The vast empty spaces.
The little lives are lost.
Cure cancer, make history,
save the world, make it count.
Don’t just laugh and love and live
Like any other
Ordinary person.
If you do, your life’s pointless,
A dog’s life, a pig’s, barely human.
Life’s worth living but for those
Who shine bright and bold,
Saved by the glory of their accomplishments.
You and I, though, we carry on,
Quite content with not being special,
Chasing balls in the fields and
Quietly digging for truffles
That will only last for a day.
Background
Objectivist accounts of meaning in life strongly suggest that nothing is worth doing or desiring that cannot be evaluated on a scale of better or worse, nor is it worth doing or desiring if it ranks low on that scale. It is assumed that a life can only be meaningful if it is good for something other than itself. Objectivist accounts thus accommodate our deep-seated fear of insignificance and our desire to receive some public affirmation of our existence and its value. As a corrective, I am developing a subjective account of meaning that is more democratic and inclusive. More information can be found here.
Prof Michael Hauskeller is Head of the Department of Philosophy at the University of Liverpool, with an interest in the broader issues around ethics.