The Meaning of Life The most difficult thing in life is finding something worth living for. The second most difficult thing is knowing when you've found it...... by Jamie Andreas Okay, let's be light hearted for once. Let's not talk about some heavy subject. Let's pick something more down to earth and fun. How about the meaning of life? Yes, the meaning of life, and the purpose of our lives. Teen-agers (that group of people who are most likely to begin to play the guitar) love to think about this. Since they are about to embark on that part of life called "being an adult", they like to question whether there is anything about it that makes it worth the bother. A 17 year old student once put it to me very poignantly. He said, “When I look at the world, and I see what most of the adults I know are doing with their lives, and how they feel about their jobs, it is not very inspiring. I listen to people tell me I should play the game, and work hard to get good grades, so I can get a good job and all that. It all seems to have about as much meaning as going in to the library and memorizing the entire card catalog! What for? What's the point?" And I said to him “You are exactly right. There is no point. There is no meaning to life." And I firmly believe that. I am going to make two points now. One, there is no meaning to life; you must create the meaning of life, and most especially, your life. And two, there most definitely is a purpose to life, and especially to your life, but you must discover it. These two ideas work together. Once you find your purpose, you will be able to see the "meaning" of your life. What does the word "meaning" mean? People are always asking what is the meaning of life, what is the meaning of death, what is the meaning of me losing my job, losing my hair, etc, etc. Well, you see the point is, there is no answer to the question because it is the wrong question. Only a person who doesn't know what the word meaning means will ask that question. Meaning means "to recognize a significance beyond the thing itself, or in other words, "to point to something beyond itself" And the recognition of that significance, seeing how anything you look at points to something beyond itself, is a creative act on the part of every individual, and it is also the responsibility of every individual. When ... ... middle of paper ... ...ur purpose. Move toward what feels good. B.B. King, Eric Clapton, Jimi Hendrix, all have used nothing but the five notes of a minor pentatonic scale their whole lives! It is all they need for what they want to say. Maybe you need to learn to read music, maybe you don't. Maybe you need to know many chord inversions and scales, maybe you don't. It depends on what you want to say with your music. And what you want to say depends on how you feel. How do you feel? Maybe you are frustrated and confused when you think about this. That is good. Frustration is a push on the back, to get you moving, so you will look around and make discoveries. Make sure you use it that way. Don't stay in one place, or the push on the back will knock you over! The rule for the artist, for the musician, must be "if it feels good, do it". Following your feeling is how that feeling becomes "solidified" into a piece of music, so that it can be communicated and felt by someone else. Bad music is made by people who don't actually feel their feelings. They may not know it, but their music has no meaning, and no purpose. Have you found something worth living for? Is it waiting to be recognized?
Richard Taylor, an American philosopher and author of, “The Meaning of Life” believes you can live a meaningful life as long as you realize your will and are completely involved in it and enjoy it, then you are no longer needed and your life was a successful one. “This is surely the way to look at all of life- at one’s own life, and each day and moment it contains; of the life of a nation; of the species; of the life of the world; and of everything that breathes” (Taylor p 27). He proves this through the ancient myth of Sisyphus. Sisyphus was sentenced by the Gods to spend an eternity rolling a stone repeatedly to the top of a hill and once it reached the top, it would roll right back down once again. Taylor calls Sisyphus’ life as an “endless pointlessness.” Taylor relates human life to Sisyphus’ life. He believes that both of our lives can have meaning. Taylor asks us to look at Sisyphus’ story in a different way. For example, while the Gods sentenced him to rolling this stone up a hill for an eternity, what if they gave him a “strange and irrational impulse” to roll the stone repeatedly. Now, according to Richard Taylor, Sisyphus’ life would now have meaning and if we were to be as invested as Sisyphus in rolling the stone, then our lives have meaning as well.
"People say that what we're all seeking is a meaning for life. I don't think that's what we're really seeking. I think that what we're seeking is an experience of being alive...." Joseph Campbell made this comment on the search for meaning common to every man's life. His statement implies that what we seem bent on finding is that higher spark for which we would all be willing to live or die; we look for some key equation through which we might tie all of the experiences of our life and feel the satisfaction of action toward a goal, rather than the emptiness which sometimes consumes the activities of our existence. He states, however, that we will never find some great pure meaning behind everything, because there is none. What there is to be found, however, is the life itself. We seek to find meaning so that emptiness will not pervade our every thought, our every deed, with the coldness of reality as the unemotional eye chooses to see it. Without color, without joy, without future, reality untouched by hope is an icy thing to view; we have no desire to see it that way. We forget, however, that the higher meaning might be found in existence itself. The joy of life and the experience of living are what make up true meaning, as the swirl of atoms guided by chaotic chance in which we find our existence has no meaning outside itself.
e. Tala - There's always a purpose to your life. You live for the same reason the way that some people die for some reasons. Where you are today is a combination of all your past actions, decisions, as well as those of the people around you and how they have affected
The meaning of life is to find the meaning of life. Is it not? We all go through each day trying to figure out which road out the infinite amount of paths will lead us in a better direction where happiness is prominent and society is flawless. However, not every single human being is going to fit on that narrow, one-lane highway to success. Bad choices, accidents, fate, family matters, society, temptation, anger, rage, addiction, and loss of hope can all be deciding factors in opting to choose that wrong path to self-destruction. The adverse thing is, once you've traveled so far down the road, you get so discouraged that you feel like you can never turn back or make up for the "lost time."
Philosophy – a subject that had driven people insane for as long as humans know their history. All the time people try to find a meaning, and later controvert it. For example, critics view a novel by Lewis Carroll Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, as a quest for maturity story, Carroll’s view on Victorian Society and even existential meaning on life. All of those interpretations come from philosophical “drive” of the critics. The truth is that anyone can point a finger at the book and come up with their own “deep” meaning of the story, but if one looks at facts, well known, and obvious things – it is clear that the story is simply a children tale intended for entertainment and nothing more.
To define one's purpose is at the very least human nature and at the very most the meaning of life. Humans seek the significance of existence and try to define it in many ways. There are thousands of religions and countless seminars to help people discover the point of human existence. The idea that we may all be irrelevant in the grand scheme of life or to the universe is not a popular position. In his short story "The Open Boat" Stephen Crane shows a universe that is unconcerned with the struggles of four men within a small boat lost at sea. Through the characters' experiences Crane shows the human struggle to survive as viewed in a naturalistic perspective as opposed to other prevalent 19th Century concepts.
Where did it all begin? The creation of mankind has been and continues to be the most told and most changed story of all time. How did man come to be on Earth? How did Earth come to be in space? Who or what created all of this? There has to be some kind of explanation because without one, then nothing else makes sense. There has to be a purpose to life because without one, there is no point in living. Most importantly there has to be hope because without someone or something to believe in, you lose all belief in yourself.
Many people wonder: what is the meaning of life? What is the human purpose on this earth? At least one time in our lifetime, we all look at ourselves and wonder if we are living our lives the way we were meant to live them. Sadly, there is not a definite answer to the principles of human life. Every human comes from different backgrounds and different experiences throughout their existence.
Uexküll, Jakob Von, and Jakob Von Uexküll. "Theory of Meaning." A Foray into the Worlds of Animals and Humans: With A Theory of Meaning. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota, 2010. 139-205. Print.
The Musician: Not your thing? Honey, listen to me, music is most definitely your thing. You can't escape it. As the volume goes up, your soul goes under, submerged in tone and rhythm and rubato (if you're lucky). It takes over your breath.
...case, especially if we concede that certain things from which we derive meaning were created without intent or purpose. Perhaps our concept of meaning is a manifestation of our tendency to make up stories to explain things, or desire as humans to fill emptiness and to expand. We certainly don't have all the puzzle pieces yet; hopefully our understanding will evolve and expand as more information becomes available.
The meaning of life is a very confusing question but to be able to answer it you must realize that it differs for everyone. There is never only one real answer. Everyday it can change for each individual. Everyone has their own way of living; they have their own thoughts and beliefs so therefore each persons answer to the meaning of life will be their own private version.
Have you ever wondered, what is the purpose of our life? What do we truly exist for? Socrates, the ancient Greek philosopher did just that, he believed that the unexamined life is not worth living. Quite the
The abstract idea of life cannot be explained by such simple ideas as being animated, breathing, or speaking. Ordinary machines in this century can perform all of these basic functions. The quandary with defining death is not as abstract and elusive as that of life. The problem of defining life and death has plagued philosophers and the religious bodies for thousands of years for one reason; each philosophy or religion has tried to define the meaning of life and death from only their certain perspective. The seemingly appropriate approach to this problem would be to understand the ideas presented in various philosophies and religions and through this knowledge create a new definition for each idea of life and death. The movie Blade Runner has taken this exact approach in its attempt to finally define life and death in a logical and un-spiritual manner. By taking the position that death is a concrete idea that can be explained, Blade Runner accomplishes the task of interpreting the idea of life in terms death. Through this approach, the meaning of life is redefined to accommodate for the existence of the replicants. Also, as a result of this novel notion of life, it is apparent that humans and replicants never actually live, even though they are alive.
I have always been to asking myself what is meaning of life? or what I supposed to do ? or what I have to achieve? . Meaning of life what 's you have been given? what you have given by different kind of human? Or what I believe or what I do not believe in life .Everybody have Meaning of life it depends between person to person, I found myself when I was young because my parents always talk about experience in their life.Throughout my entire life ,I have wondered about the significance meaning of life that has beneficial for the people, because the life is beginning odds and ending odds .Even though struggle of life, I believe meaning of life are ,regional ,ambition, participate ,achievement ,and happiness .Due to this, I