It's a common feeling. The one that you get when you look up at the night sky with its countless stars, or when you stare at the ocean with its seemingly endless expanse of water, or when you gaze at the view from the top of a mountain with its awe-inspiring panorama of majestic peaks: the feeling that compels you to ask "What's it all about?" "What's the meaning of life?" "Why am I here?"
Well, if you're standing on the top of a mountain you may indeed ask "Why am I here?" Climbing to the top of a large and dangerous mound of rock purely so that you can go down again is an activity of seemingly lunatic pointlessness (especially as the summit is probably shrouded in cloud so that you can't get a glimpse of the awe-inspiring panorama anyway).

Think about those questions though: "What's it all about?" "What's the meaning of life?" "Why am I here?"
I have another question to add to them: "Why do I ask?"
Maybe you need to answer that particular question before you can attempt to answer the others. After all, before you can answer a question you need to know why you ask it in the first place.
Why do you want to know what the meaning of life is?
This book is to some extent an attempt to answer that question.

In the following pages I try to explain how we perceive the world around us and how we react to what we perceive. I try to describe how we see our position in the wider universe, and I delve into the subject of how we came to be in that universe in the first place. And I explore the issue of why some people think that there are spiritual or supernatural forces behind these things.

You're probably reading this book because you're interested in the meaning of life yourself. You're intrigued to know more about the greater, deeper truths that define existence: you're gripped with fascination about life, the universe and everything. Hopefully the book will shed a small amount of light on these subjects.
Intriguingly, you're reading this book because you want to know why you're reading this book.