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the meaning of life?

Still 42...

From my "spiritual" perspective, the big problem you're having is one of meaning - things either do or do not have meaning. Things simply aren't that polarized into yes and no. There is simply experiencing of the gradual flow of life and anything we care to label it is an afterthought.

Right now you feel like an isolated unit of flesh that is born and will die. You can gradually change your perspective to that of the infinite experiencing life through a body through prolonged self observation/therapy/meditation/etc. So perhaps you should look not just for a meaning, but also for why you feel driven to find a meaning, what is going on inside of you emotionally, who you are. When you have a different perspective, you'll probably regard the question of meaning as a meaningless semantic game.

Eh, but I'm stoned and no enlightened deity myself. Take it as you will.
 
To search for the meaning of life is to ask "why" -- Why are we here? What is our purpose? This has given people lots of trouble, both mental and physical. Sometimes people fight wars to try to impose their answer on other people. Sometimes people find this question to be an endless spiral where a seeming answer on one day gives way the next to a sudden thought of how that answer is incomplete or inconsistent or otherwise flawed. Some people even fall to answering the question with an inherently contradictory answer, such as saying the meaning of life is to find the meaning of life.

Instead of asking, "What is the right answer?" maybe we should step back and ask, "What is the right question?"

Maybe we are not supposed to ask "why" but rather to ask "why not." Why is a question that looks backwards at your past. Why am I here? Why does my arm hurt? Why did my lover dump me? It is a question that has you stop in your tracks, turn around, and look at the direction you came from rather than the direction you are going (figuratively speaking). Meanwhile, you are still moving forward into the future, albeit with your back to it.

It is like you have been walking along for a long time and suddenly you realize you don't have any destination in mind. So you look backwards and try to make out your footprints because if you can, then maybe you can treat them like a connect-the-dots puzzle, draw a line from those footprints to where you now stand, and the result will be a line that points in a particular direction to show you where you were headed. Then you can turn around and keep walking the same way you have been headed.

The problem should be obvious. You were as ignorant of your destination in the past as you are now, looking back at your past. In the past, you just did not dwell on your ignorance, you did not feel as great an urge to have a sense of some ultimate destination or purpose to your journey. You are now stopped, confused, not because you FORGOT your ultimate destination, but you suddenly realized you have never bothered to figure out your ultimate destination.

Your past footprints are likely to be a random weaving path that points no clear way to the future. Even if, by chance, your footprints tend to form a straight line, it is still a line pointing a random direction and if you choose to stick to that direction, that will still be an arbitrary choice since you still don't know where that path will be taking you.

But, as they say, life is a journey not a destination. Asking "why", seeking some ultimate purpose to life, is to try to find a destination that does not exist. You might as well ask why the moon orbits the earth. Every answer can be further answered with a "why?" question until you realize the string is endless and can never be completed. "Gravity." Why is there gravity? "It's a natural force." "Why?" "Uh....it just is..." (Meanwhile scientists busily try to figure out why natural forces exist, not realizing that it is just one more domino they are seeking to knock down in an endless series of dominos. Because they are looking the wrong way. They are moving forward in time and looking backwards.

The point is, the past is not supposed to have meaning. Only the future has meaning. Because meaning is related to intent. ("What did you mean when you waved at me?") And intents are about the future, what you plant to do, what you mean to do. You cannot look in the past to find meaning. Meaning is inside you, and it pertains to the future.

When you stand there, asking why, studying your past, you have your back to the future. And you are not standing still. You can stop and stand in place when you take a walk, but not on this walk through time. Time marches on whatever you do, whichever way you face. When you face the past, you are still moving into the future, but with your back towards it. Maybe the secret is not to back up to the past.

Maybe we are not supposed to ask "why" about life or existence. Maybe we are supposed to ask "why not." That is a future-facing question. Why not climb that mountain? Why not cross that stream? Why not go roll in that tall grass? Why not chase that butterfly? Why not stop and build a house here? "Why not" questions have you choosing your future instead of backing into it blind while you study your past.

I'm not saying that the correct approach is hedonism or doing anything or everything. A"why not" approach to life does not mean anarchy. Because there ARE often very good reasons why not. Unlike the "why are we here" question, these why not questions are very answerable. Why not swim in that lake? Because it is full of freezing, stagnant water that will make it an unpleasant experience. Why not jump off a cliff? Because I don't want to do. Why not have random sex with a bunch of strangers? Because I don't want to risk a lifetime of STDs for a night of physical pleasure.

So you look at your future, see all the different directions you could go, all the places on the horizons that surround you, and find what appeals most to you. Ask "why not go there?" And unless you can think of a damn good answer, go for it.

I'm not saying life is meaningless. To say life has meaning, or that life is meaningless, or even to ask, "What is the meaning of life," is to presume a relationship between the term "meaning" and the term "life." If there is no relationship, because the two terms are just inherently unrelated, then you can spend your whole life searching for a relationship that does not exist. And THAT would really be meaningless. If I'm right, then asking "what is the meaning of life" is like asking "what is the color of an E chord." What would you say if some one spent their whole life in a hopeless quest to find out what color an E chord was? Hopeless because musical chords and color are wholly unrelated.

"Why" is a destination question, a past question. Life is a journey into the future, not a destination decided upon some time in the past. Ask a journey question, a future question. Ask "why not."

~psychoblast~
 
Wow psychoblast, that was really well written and a very interesting perspective on the question posed. I think I need to read it a few more times to fully grasp it, but it's given me a lot to think about. Thanks.
 
'On this bridge, Lorca warns, "Life is not a dream. Beware. And beware. And beware." And so many think because Then happened, Now isn't. But didn't I mention the ongoing WOW is happening right now? We are all co-authors of this dancing exuberance where even our inabilities are having a roast. We are the authors of ourselves, co-authoring a gigantic Dostoevsky novel, starring clowns. This entire thing we're involved with called the world is an opportunity to exhibit how exciting alienation can be. Life is a matter of a miracle that is collected over time by moments, flabbergasted to be in each other's presence. The world is an exam to see if we can rise into direct experience. Our eyesight is here as a test to see if we can see beyond it. Matter is here as a test for our curiosity. Doubt is here as an exam for our vitality. Thomas Mann wrote that he would rather participate in life than write 100 stories. Giacometti was once run down by a car, and he recalled falling into a lucid faint, a sudden exhilaration as he realized that at last, something was happening to him. An assumption develops that you cannot understand life and live life simultaneously. I do not agree entirely. Which is to say, I do not exactly disagree. I would say that life understood is life lived. But, the paradox is, Bug Me, that I can learn to love and make love to the paradoxes that bug me, and on really romantic evenings of self I go salsa dancing with my confusion. And before you drift off, don't forget, which is to say, remember, because remembering is so much more a psychotic activity than forgetting. Lorca, in that same poem, said that the iguana will bite those who do not dream, and as one realizes that one is a dream figure in another person's dream, that is self awareness.'
-waking life
 
I think that the meaning of life is simply to effect things with your presence. If you had not been here who knows how the world would have been? Something you did without noticing could have set off a chain reaction that drastically changed the world.

There are many people whom are long gone that have affected human civilizations and our environment dramatically. Their existance changed the face of our existance. Some of these people were Isaac Newton, Thomas Edison, Leanardo Da Vinci, Albert Einstien, etc..
 
Human nature is definately selfish....infact all life forms are selfish by definition. In order to survive they have work in thier own best interests which always comes at the cost of something else wether it be food, resources, or other life forms. Since we first crawled out of the primordeal swamp we have been interested in nothing bu ourselves.

But now for the first time in history (by "now" i mean the last few thousand years) we have come to observe ourselves and acknowedge ourselves. We can observe that we are behaving like this. We understand that any life form must infact take more from it's environment than it gives back to sustain. We can easily watchg ourselves using up resources and killing other life forms which is a feature of evolution that few (if any) other life forms have been privy to... "watching ourselves"

So here we are faced with a paradox. We realise the futility of what it is to "live" and yet we are driven by this primal instinct to do so. We know quite well that long term sustainability of any one organism (ourselves) is totally impossible beyond total domination (whcih would end in a form of death anyways) Our minds are faced with a paradox, knowing that we are taking over this planet like a virus, yet it is all we have ever known and change is hard if not imposible.

At this stage we are still controlled by our instincts to control and reproduce...they still rule us beyond the logic which we understand to be true.

And they wonder why so many people are lost and confused in this life....the human condition is the greatest paradox of all.
 
There is no meaning, I often feel that most of it is just a waste of time.
 
I think that the point of life is to experience... whatever the experience is. To feel, to see, to know, and to understand something or nothing. I see God as the universe, which exists in infinite forms. God is all and all is god. When I say namaste, the divine in me recognizes the divine in you. Thus, we all all god, experiencing existence in all its combinations, one entity of many attempting to understand what it is.
 

There is no meaning, I often feel that most of it is just a waste of time.


In the objective sense, you're probably right, considering the possibility that the universe might not even exist anymore someday, and all evidence of the existence of it will go with it.

However, I like to think that you give your own life meaning. The meaning is whatever you decide, and so is your purpose.
 
holy shit-- i think those exact same thoughts all the time and i can never fully get them out of my head and stop thinking WHY THE FUCK ARE WE HERE! like the whole cycle of life- birth, school, college, job, marriage, kids, retirement, death....it just seems to go on continually and the cycle really doesnt interest me...i wish i could do somehting to like "break the cycle"...but whenever i try everything always seems to fall back into place
 
The meaning of life is to collect enough gold rings that you can power up to a new level of hit points.
 
DrUgMeSaNe said:
the whole cycle of life- birth, school, college, job, marriage, kids, retirement, death....it just seems to go on continually
Click to expand...

Merely 50 years ago thie "cycle of life" was different, and it will change again before any one of us grows up. Don't worry, if any of those things don't interest you, then don't do them.
 
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japanese chicks make me want to reproduce as well;)
 
good luck if you havent heard of me, you know my views on the asian male anatomy(or lack thereof).
 
Funnily enough, the meaning of life just came to me the other day.

It wasn't a collection of thoughts, it wasn't logical thinking... it came to me in a state of mind. A moment of realisation.

I was driving down the motorway, listening to my favourite music, watching all the fields around me, the animals, the people progressing in their cars... and it suddenly came to me. In this euphoric moment everythig came to me. Everything made sense.

I got slightly scared at how deeply i had discovered. Overwhelmed even.

If you try thinking logically about "what is the point of life", you'll get no-where. You'll realise that the Universe will one day end and everything will seem a little pointless. To know the meaning of life, you have to experience it. Not think about it.

Anyway, enough of the crap... The MEANING OF LIFE IS...

...well here's the thing, if I do actually have it I might try and sell the idea off for thousands of pounds to some hippy or something. Or at least use it in some way to give me advantage over everybody else. So for now i'm keeping it to myself... sorry.
 
There's no meaning except what you impose on it. Purpose is a human characteristic -- your purpose is whatever you want to accomplish, so it's your job to come up with a purpose which satisfies you. I find purpose in being happy and making other people happy.

dp84 -- If the meaning of life is to reproduce, is the meaning of the moon to orbit the earth? It's just what it does.
 
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