Rawr
I was bored so I made some changes to something I wrote a while ago…
If you do not care to hear my opinion, stop now.
What is the meaning of life?
Entire lives have been spent in the search for the answer to that question, and none of them have ever come up with a definite answer, with the sole exception of organized religion. What does this tell us? That the only people who can come up with a definite meaning or purpose to life are the same ones that commit the most macabre atrocities ever to be committed? Or perhaps it tells us that the only ones who can come up with a single purpose, are deranged crackpots. To me it sounds like the only ones who can decide upon a blanket definition are the ones that seek to steer your life in a certain direction. Doesn’t that sound a little fishy to you? It does to me. Alas, I did not write this to expound upon the glorious accomplishments of organized religion, I wrote this to offer up my opinion on life, it’s a shame to… I could go on for hours, on both sides of the fence, about organized religion.
To start with, think about life kind of like an immense spider web with infinitely many intersecting strings. When you are born, you are placed at a random point on the web; at times you aren’t even placed upon the web at all. Each different point on the web, is a single moment of your life, and every time you make a choice you travel down a thread to another point on the web. Throughout our lives we constantly transverse this web of life, usually without rhyme nor reason, constantly making new choices and moving to a new part of the web. Eventually, we find a part of the web that we like, and we decide to hang around there, then all of our choices keep moving us around in the same general area of the web. Sometime later, you die, and that’s the end of that. Where you fall from is entirely up to you, since the whole web is interconnected, you can choose to fall from wherever you want. Though, depending on your starting position on the web, some places may be harder to get to than others, but they are still reachable with enough work. This example can be extended on and on, but you get the general idea.
Now to address the much-dreaded question directly, what is the meaning of life? The reason that many people never come to an answer for that question is because they do not know what life is to begin with. They jump the gun and start looking for the answer to a question about something they know nothing about. It equates out to trying to find the answer to a math problem without any arguments (essentially attempting to find the value of Z when X + Y = Z and you have no idea what X or Y are). The reason I went over the light version of my “web of life” idea is that, at least for me, that the definition of life. That is my X and my Y. With that out of the way, finding Z, or in this case, the meaning of life is easy. If you choose to look at life the way I do, as an infinite number of choices leading to an infinite number of conclusions, then the meaning of life is literally anything you choose to make it. If life is choices, then the meaning of life is the end result of those choices. To use the web example, the meaning of life is the culmination of all the points you visited during your life. Looking at it this way, there is no such thing as a life without meaning, there is no such thing as a life without a point, because your personal meaning of life is made up of whatever choices that you make. For me, that means that my own personal meaning of life has four aspects, I want to be a good person, I want to be the kind of guy that people are proud to call their friend, I want to make a positive impact on someone’s life, and I want to be happy; that’s it, at the moment, that is all I want from life. Since that is what I choose to work towards, since that is what try and think about when I make my choices, that is my meaning in life, at least for now. Eventually, I will want something else, and at that time, my meaning of life will change to reflect that. This means that the meaning of life is two things, it is different for every person, and it open to change at the whim of whomever it belongs to.
Does this mean that there is no one final answer that will span your whole lifetime? Perhaps, but I am fine with that. The question is, are you? Before you looking for the meaning to life, seek to come to terms with what life is.
Rawr
If you do not care to hear my opinion, stop now.
What is the meaning of life?
Entire lives have been spent in the search for the answer to that question, and none of them have ever come up with a definite answer, with the sole exception of organized religion. What does this tell us? That the only people who can come up with a definite meaning or purpose to life are the same ones that commit the most macabre atrocities ever to be committed? Or perhaps it tells us that the only ones who can come up with a single purpose, are deranged crackpots. To me it sounds like the only ones who can decide upon a blanket definition are the ones that seek to steer your life in a certain direction. Doesn’t that sound a little fishy to you? It does to me. Alas, I did not write this to expound upon the glorious accomplishments of organized religion, I wrote this to offer up my opinion on life, it’s a shame to… I could go on for hours, on both sides of the fence, about organized religion.
To start with, think about life kind of like an immense spider web with infinitely many intersecting strings. When you are born, you are placed at a random point on the web; at times you aren’t even placed upon the web at all. Each different point on the web, is a single moment of your life, and every time you make a choice you travel down a thread to another point on the web. Throughout our lives we constantly transverse this web of life, usually without rhyme nor reason, constantly making new choices and moving to a new part of the web. Eventually, we find a part of the web that we like, and we decide to hang around there, then all of our choices keep moving us around in the same general area of the web. Sometime later, you die, and that’s the end of that. Where you fall from is entirely up to you, since the whole web is interconnected, you can choose to fall from wherever you want. Though, depending on your starting position on the web, some places may be harder to get to than others, but they are still reachable with enough work. This example can be extended on and on, but you get the general idea.
Now to address the much-dreaded question directly, what is the meaning of life? The reason that many people never come to an answer for that question is because they do not know what life is to begin with. They jump the gun and start looking for the answer to a question about something they know nothing about. It equates out to trying to find the answer to a math problem without any arguments (essentially attempting to find the value of Z when X + Y = Z and you have no idea what X or Y are). The reason I went over the light version of my “web of life” idea is that, at least for me, that the definition of life. That is my X and my Y. With that out of the way, finding Z, or in this case, the meaning of life is easy. If you choose to look at life the way I do, as an infinite number of choices leading to an infinite number of conclusions, then the meaning of life is literally anything you choose to make it. If life is choices, then the meaning of life is the end result of those choices. To use the web example, the meaning of life is the culmination of all the points you visited during your life. Looking at it this way, there is no such thing as a life without meaning, there is no such thing as a life without a point, because your personal meaning of life is made up of whatever choices that you make. For me, that means that my own personal meaning of life has four aspects, I want to be a good person, I want to be the kind of guy that people are proud to call their friend, I want to make a positive impact on someone’s life, and I want to be happy; that’s it, at the moment, that is all I want from life. Since that is what I choose to work towards, since that is what try and think about when I make my choices, that is my meaning in life, at least for now. Eventually, I will want something else, and at that time, my meaning of life will change to reflect that. This means that the meaning of life is two things, it is different for every person, and it open to change at the whim of whomever it belongs to.
Does this mean that there is no one final answer that will span your whole lifetime? Perhaps, but I am fine with that. The question is, are you? Before you looking for the meaning to life, seek to come to terms with what life is.
Rawr