If the phrase “meaning of a life” is analogous to the phrase “meaning of a word” or “meaning of a sentence,” then none of us have that much control over the meanings of our lives. Just as everything you say can be misheard or scrambled by differences in connotation or dialect, your presence in the world rarely says what you intend. You are a walking contradiction between aspiration and effect. The actual you orbits the intended you, the firm and defensible you, the serious you; or perhaps it’s the other way around. This is a quality you share with me, and with everyone, and that makes all of us that desperate and self-deluded and wholly compelling phenomenon: the bad movie.