The Meaning of Life

[Aksy]

So whats the meaning of life ? everybody has his/her own opinion about life so lets hear them.
I will keep mine short because when I start expressing myself about something it can take ages and in this case a very long wall of text.
Simple to me life has no meaning , and I'm not saying this because I feel miserable or I'm a lonely person , it just purely has no meaning why do we live , to what end ? Most of the things that exist nowadays are just a delusion created by humans ( ex: how awesome are cars etc , its just a piece of metal nothing more ). I can't say that you go through life ( to do good things ) so I can go in heaven for eternity because I don't believe in heaven or hell ( for those who know about Buddhism after you die , you will just reincarnate again and again ). Everything you do is just something that will last for a certain amount of time after which its over and you start again to try and find something that has meaning. So basically and this is a quote that I like very much " Life's a piece of honeysuckle , when you look at it " , it even rhymes.
I still made a wall of text not that big but still a wall of text ^^. So discuss.

 

[alwaysmiling]

pursuit of happiness. i think thats the meaning of life. I know everything i do is to make me happier which is subjective, and if its true, that there actually is no meaning, and life is honeysuckle, my goal is gonna be to make my pile of honeysuckle smell the best i can

 

[edgecrusher]

i am beginning to think there is no meaning as well. just like any other lifeform on this planet we just exist and then were gone. i dont think there is anything after that. id like to think im not alone in this world as far as that goes but it sure does feel like it. the best we can hope for is to find a place where we are comfortable and fit in and find someone special to share that with that understands us. i have yet to find either. maybe thats why i feel like i do, maybe not. all i know is, life just feels pointless and meaningless at this point.

 

[Aksy]

Another reason would be because society stripped us of everything. Everything is the lazy mans way now , you want to eat go to a restaurant , shop etc and get it with paper ( money ). You want to have a house , you just buy one ( where are the good old days when you had to build it ) . Anything you need society provides all you need is money. To me that's retarded to be able to have whatever you want with some paper that the people gave it valor when it actually hasn't. Where are the days when if you had a problem with somebody , you settled it you own way not in court where over 100 people will find out about 2 peoples problem and with the corruption nowadays even the "bad" guy can win and strip the other one of allot of stuff. I can go on with this kinda discussion for days , there are so many flaws in the way we live and how humans made life be that I can't understand how the hell nothing started changeing in good in so many thousands of years.

 

[Talus]

I don't believe for a second that lives have any pre-defined meaning to them beyond to simply live.

That's not a bad thing, because it means that we as individuals are capable of choosing what meaning to give our own lives.

As far as delusions go though. How are cars not awesome, especially if they bring some measure of happiness to those that drive them? That they're only made of metal and plastic has no real bearing on the issue.

Look at food, if you really look at it, we're eating dead animals, plants and a nice mixture of chemicals. I don't know about you, but good food is still good food.

It's too much of a personal thing to call it a delusion. I know each and every single guitar I own is, in the purest essence a block of wood. Many people would question why I own so many, but to me each one has some kind of meaning behind it, and none could easily be replaced. Do I care too much about these inanimate objects? Perhaps I do. But so what?

I'll say it again, life may have no predefined meaning, but that certainly doesn't mean we can't give it one of our own.

 

[mintymint]

There's no inherent meaning to our existence. You ask your own questions, you find your own answers. It's as profound or meaningless as you choose to make it.

 

[Bluey]

To grow spiritually. And just like in life growing can be painful, Joye's and fun.

Am not a religious person BTW. I just have a strong spiritual side to me.
Ye work that one out if you can hah

 

[Talus]

Another reason would be because society stripped us of everything. Everything is the lazy mans way now , you want to eat go to a restaurant , shop etc and get it with paper ( money ). You want to have a house , you just buy one ( where are the good old days when you had to build it ) . Anything you need society provides all you need is money. To me that's retarded to be able to have whatever you want with some paper that the people gave it valor when it actually hasn't. Where are the days when if you had a problem with somebody , you settled it you own way not in court where over 100 people will find out about 2 peoples problem and with the corruption nowadays even the "bad" guy can win and strip the other one of allot of stuff. I can go on with this kinda discussion for days , there are so many flaws in the way we live and how humans made life be that I can't understand how the hell nothing started changeing in good in so many thousands of years.

It all amounts to the same thing in the end. Except in modern society we don't have to worry about the plague or have all our teeth rot out due to the joys of dentistry. People were just as miserable back then than now.

Back then, you wanted a house, you built it. However, unless you were out in the middle of nowhere, chances are you still had to buy the land and pay taxes on it. Sure, you didn't pay with little pieces of paper, but really a $10 bill and $10s worth of gold, or trade amount to the exact same thing.

How long do you figure it'd take to build a house when you didn't have to worry about pluming or electricity? Months? How many years does it take for someone to save up enough money to buy even a small apartment these days? Years upon years?

It's just substitution. You work now liked you'd work back then, you'd just do it in a different way. People are no less lazy now than before either. Lazyness has and will always be your own choice.

 

[Animus]

...when I start expressing myself about something it can take ages and in this case a very long wall of text.

I feel your "pain" there, so I'll try to say it all short, too...
This is a subject I've been thinking about for a whole lot of my life. I've gone it through so so so many times I can't find the right words anymore... Buddhism, occults, the Bible, all those have been a great "inspiration" regarding my way of life which in this case is pretty much tied to my perceived "meaning of life". But I must say a lot I've found without any external help so I'm not really tied to any of those... And truly have I lived a long time without any meaning at all. My years of emptiness, still echoing..

In short, I have a Will (my real name is even derivative from that!) and I do not know if I was born with it, but I've found traces of it nevertheless. It isn't something I think is open to belief as it just is and is not, beyond it all. It's a path with uncountable possibilities. The more I think and the more I feel, the more I am alive and the more I'm closer to my death. If I'm going to babble about some "principle forces" or anything like that, I guess not many of you would understand what I'm trying to get at.. I wish to fight and to know and to understand and to love and to do what I will and to feel pain and to feel pleasure and to understand my will and to get to know myself and everyone else in the process as humans are alike. I want to experience everything and find the truth behind this all.. Make my own trail physically, spiritually and psychologically, be myself and to live and to die... both symbolically and in the real. Fulfill myself. It's all those things, and in the end, none of them.
Why, of course, that's just my "meaning of life". I think and I believe and I feel everyone and everything has a meaning and they can find it by getting to know themselves. Trying everything, feeling the extremes and constantly die and be born again in a very symbolic but descriptive way. The meaning of life, really? I guess it's just the reason we're truly alive .

 

[StarStrider]

I think the meaning of life is just something we have to create for ourselves as we muddle along.

If there is some grand cosmic reason, then to date, it remains well outside of mortal comprehension.

 

[Mike Moose]

oo heavy question!! As far as I'm concerned I've been given consciousness and it's up to me how I control this experience..I do not search for the meaning of life 'cause i think there's no point..everytime I have an answer for something i know there's gonna be an infinite number of questions behind it..
I just try to be myself and try to aim for what I believe I should be doing..what is right and what is wrong is down to me as the only one I have to answer to is myself..
Striving for some happiness is cool 'cause I'm sick of feeling honeysuckle and trying not letting the pricks in this world get me down too much is where I'm at.. and one day I'm gonna visit Transylvania and see Dracula's pad!!

 

[yesm]

The meaning of life is, decadent, delicious, cheeeesecake!!!

mmmmm (yum)

I want sum.

 

[Frodo Baggins]

I think Lord of the rings gives us meaning to live our lives by. Some do.

I do

 

[Primero]

I think about this question every day. Any species strives to survive, but what for? Is there a pinnacle, or an end? Why did life begin and where is it going.

How and why did bacterial life "begin"?

As for the purpose of the life of the individual, I am also at a loss. It feels as if things has no meaning when there isn't a clear goal. I might be taking this on from a wrong angle. As I do not know the answer of the origin of life, I'll just have to find and define my own meaning.

 

[Mysis]

Because english courses like to be exceptionally prying and personal with their assignments, I've recently had to write a few essays about this...

Basically I concluded that any possible reasonable answers all have in common a fundamental principal of love. Keeping in mind that love is a very broad concept which can be experienced to varying degrees on many different levels, to such variance that at times it can be overwhelmingly obvious, while others we may not realize it's there until years after things have moved on (ie. child has abussive parents, child grows up resenting and hating parents well into adulthood, parents die, child realizes their hatred was just love that had been twisted and corrupted).

Self love (no, for once I'm actually not talking about masturbation), and love of others seems to be at the deepest essence, with conditional love and unconditional love surrounding them.

With such a multi-faceted question, you can't exactly expect a 1 dimensional answer.

Someone previously said they believe that the meaning of life is "happiness", and that their purpose was to pursue happiness. Well, boil that down a bit, you have an answer that's fueled by love of oneself.

Likewise you could say "family", and that would directly be love of others, but also, love for yourself, because a healthy functioning family will give back happiness, security, peace, acceptance, etc. In which case love for yourself is still indirectly at the center of this answer.

I think you'll find self-love to be either directly or indirectly underneath or behind any answers you can think of.

Mind you, this only answers that question on a very relative and personal scale. If you want to shoot bigger, then for all we know we could be merely the bacteria in some cosmic entity's fecal matter. But on that scale we're basically just getting into pointless mental masturbation (See? You knew masturbation had to come up eventually... Just had to wait for it).

 

[SophiaGrace]

This is the answer I give to you. I do believe Dr. Frankl was onto something. He had to go through the German Concentration camps becuse he was a Jew. Afterwards he got out and wrote up a new therapy techique based on his experiences coping in the concentration camp. He was a psychologist and I have nothing but admiration for what the man wrote and went through.

"For the meaning of life differs from man to man, from day to day and from hour to hour. What matters, therefore, is not the meaning of life in general but rather the specific meaning of a person's life at a given moment. "

-Dr. Viktor E. Frankl