What is the meaning of life? I think there isn't a meaning. There isn't a purpose other than existing for no other reason than the purpose of existing. Give consciousness to a virus: ask it its purpose. That really isn't depressing to me. Why do you have to have a meaning to be alive?
I'd love to hear alternate talking points which aren't my own.
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Feel free to reply to any comment by clicking the "Reply" button.Well , I think my life has a meaning , and a purpose . It took me 500 yrs to find out what it was but I like it the way it feels !
I am here to support my friends and their troubles , I am here to laugh and think w my sister , I am here to nurse strangers , I am here to enjoy the company of my dogs , I am here to argue for what I think it's right , I am here to grow some flowers , eat great food , enjoy coffee / music / a good movie , a drink , a swim , love , sex , influence the young on subjects I know and protect the old if they need me . And when it's time to die , I ll just die . I mean , what else is there ? Or y this is not enough ???
I like been alive ! Is that bad or too litle for a " meaning ". Bcz I got tired just typing it ! Trust me it's plenty day to day ??
Pralina1
Level 9
Nov 10, 2018
5
Those things aren't wrong. 2 + 2 = 4, but your equation of life doesn't have to be the same as mine. My formula is far more basic at the moment, so I'm sometimes maintaining the illusion of a simpler formula being as exciting as a more complex one. I appreciate your perceptions and thoughts
You are something else.
I'm with you, honey. It's great to be alive. 
Love your careful post. Knowing that you have tried your best to do all of those things
, is as far as I have found the only comfort we will have on our death beds, but I do not think we need more or should expect more.
The mind boggles. There's only one thing I know for sure. None of us are getting out of this alive!
TheoryNumber3
Level 8
Nov 10, 2018
2
True life is a terminal illness.
We're on the clock from birth. We're in the process of expiring and going on to the next stage of life, if there is one.
At age 10, I laid on my tummy in the living room, watching President John F. Kennedy's Inaugural address. When he said, "Ask not what your country can do for you; ask what you can do for your country," his words hit me right in the center of my little chest.
I got a Master of Public Administration degree because I get the greatest reward from doing work that helps other people.
Since 2006, I have been a volunteer college mentor at Wenatchee High School. I help low income, first generation students write essays for college and scholarship applications. Also I teach them organization and the importance of completing deadlines early.
One of my best success stories is Brenda, who won $269,545 in scholarships in 2016. A sophomore at Wesleyan University in Connecticut, Brenda plans to become a medical doctor and pathologist. She hopes to cure diseases.
Often they are the first person in their family to go to college. It thrills me to send these kids to college.
I'm a rockstar! Last May, I was awarded the first "Scholarship Rockstar" award from the College Mentor Program, Wenatchee High School.
In June 2018, I took three students I previously mentored on a short, beautiful hike around Icicle Gorge.
From the left: Tammy plans to become a neurosurgeon; Elisabeth will be a pediatrician; me, and Teresa, is studying to be an accountant. An enthusiastic community volunteer, Teresa has been asked to run for public office as a Democrat.
Photo #3: I'm second from the left with other volunteer college mentors who won awards.
LiterateHiker
Level 9
Nov 10, 2018
2
Isn't that the fundamental basis of the "existentialism" and "nihilism"?
AtheistReader
Level 7
Nov 10, 2018
1
Arguably, yes, but nihilism does not draw the conclusions from that, that you probably think it does.
@mordant Hmmm... Ok. Nihilism doesn't believe that it needs to draw "the conclusions" from anything because everything is fundamentally meaningless, the state of absurdity. Am I right? Am I drawing the right conclusions ABOUT nihilism?
And please explain why you believe that [I] probably think it does?
@KenChang Of course I have no clue what you actually think (which is why I said "probably" ) but most people who object to nihilism, do so on the basis that (1) nihilism teaches there is no inherent meaning, therefore (2) one must give up and die. What it actually says is that meaning and purpose are found by the individual and that this is a noble enterprise. What Nietzsche actually said in promoting his thinking was that this is a robust, inspiring, liberating set of ideas. Since he invented it, he gets to describe it, and I'm willing to suggest that people who find nihilism depressing or ghastly, don't actually understand it.
@mordant I think you were assuming that I was objecting to nihilism.
But perhaps you can help me with this. I thought it was existentialism that responded to nihilism, by stating that "meaning and purpose are found by the individual and that this is a noble enterprise." I didn't think nihilism took that extra step. Nihilism is simply that there is no meaning, and that's ok.
And I am not sure whether Nietzsche can be credited with "inventing" the nihilism. Nihilism is a natural response to the understanding that "there is no god" and since there is no god, there is no absolute morality or value. Everyone had a bit of different response to that revelation, and Nietzsche had his own response to it in the form of amoralism with the central precept of "power." I think he is not exactly a father of nihilism, but a distant second cousin.
@KenChang I think Nietzsche can be reasonably credited with being the first to systematically describe nihilism. Of course ... all ideas are derivative so I'm sure he borrowed from others. We all stand on the shoulders of giants.
Since he said, for example, “A strong and well-constituted man digests his experiences (deeds and misdeeds all included) just as he digests his meats, even when he has some tough morsels to swallow", I conclude that he did not want weak, despairing people to come out of his philosophy.
I think the biggest problem with him is that his estate fell under the control of fascists and a lot of his work is misleadingly translated and wrongly associated.
I may well be conflating existentialism with nihilism, since Nietzsche was influential in the development of both ideas. I guess I end up on the side of Camus, and "imagine Sisyphus happy".
@mordant Well, people often apologize for Nietzsche and how he was misinterpreted by the Nazis. But Nietzsche, it seems to me, valued power and strength above all else. An easy idea to be "digested," as it were, by the Nazis.
You make your own meaning, whatever it is that matters to you
JurassicT4
Level 6
Nov 10, 2018
1
I wrote about this extensively in my books. Try going on your roof and staring up at the universe. What meaning could it possibly have and why should it have any meaning? IT JUST IS. [amazon.com]
Aristopus
Level 7
Nov 10, 2018
1
We need purpose / meaning for practical, motivational reasons. Fortunately there's plenty to be found, in the context of your own preferences and desires and needs, even if it's not externally bestowed and handed down from on high.
Ironically, in fact, that's the ONLY kind of meaning there actually IS, even for the religious. They just don't want to admit it.
I am currently finding purpose in deepening my understanding of data manipulation primitives like converting 4 byte integers to byte arrays, converting little-endian to big-endian so they're straightforwardly sortable at the binary level. This would drive many (most?) people to self-harm due to boredom, but it floats my boat. That doesn't make it objectively meaningless to me.
mordant
Level 8
Nov 10, 2018
0
To crush your enemies. See them driven before you. And to hear the lamentations of their women.
ThisIsPatrick
Level 6
Nov 10, 2018
0
I think the "meaning of life" is whatever we want it to be. It's an individual thing.
Mine sometimes changes daily, depending on what I've got going on.
I don't believe, for one second, that there is an over-arching, all-encompassing, "meaning of life".
I'm always highly-suspect of those who claim some philosophical explanation of what THEY think it is. Okay, fine, I am straight-up dismissive of them.
KKGator
Level 9
Nov 10, 2018
0
As to why we exist, I think the question is a deep mystery, probably unfathomable. It is however, a question worthy of being pondered.
So far as whether there is any value in existence—of course there is value. Every second of conscious awareness is a jewel to be savored and appreciated.
WilliamFleming
Level 8
Nov 10, 2018
0
@Sealybobo It’s ironic that so many religious people oppose abortion. Religious sentiment is usually that we are more than just our bodies. Yes, there can be too many humans, and nature will someday make a reckoning. That’s ok though.
Yep, we are in heaven right now—yippee!
@Sealybobo I’m happy for you. By all means, retire at 62. I retired at 61 and traveled the country. Bicycled from Anchorage to Georgia when I was 65.
And by all means, enjoy your sexuality while you are still vigorous. I’m almost envious.
Yeah, I think the worries people have like "life has no meaning without a higher power" are just from years of being conditioned to think that way. I was told when I was a child that there was one person I was meant to be married to. Tha made me think there'd be some kind of sign or something that showed me who I was supposed to be with. It really hinders you from making good decisions about things.
I don't feel like life has any kind of pre ordained meaning other than what we give it. I think everyone should work to try and make the world a better place, but I'm sure that's not the same for everyone either.
Eazyduzzit
Level 7
Nov 10, 2018
0
Not sure there is a meaning of life other than to enjoy it. What else are you going to do? Make yourself miserable? Make others miserable? Enjoy all you can stand. Eat, drink and be merry. Or be yourself, whatever that is.
david75090
Level 7
Nov 10, 2018
0
The meaning or purpose of life is what you yourself give it. It varies between everyone. Some it’s the family and others the career, etc, etc.
AdamWarlock
Level 5
Nov 10, 2018
0
If I take a biblical approach here can I ask who was the first disease germ? Can they find that germ and did he have a name? Did it take a second germ for there to then be three germs? How many of these did it take to make a virus? How long did it take? I'm taking the Adam and Eve approach to disease germs here in case you are wondering, but why do so many seem upset if you do not believe the Adam and Eve story?
Which came first, the chicken or the egg? I guess you have to have a chicken to have an egg. Maybe you have to have an egg to have a chicken. Why did the chicken cross the road? To get on the other side. (ha ha) Did the chicken walk across the road or did he roll across? IDK.
DenoPenno
Level 9
Nov 10, 2018
0
What came first was the chicken egg, which was laid by something which was not a chicken. The change was the evolutionary step which birthed the chicken
chicken and eggwise, it's the egg. something other than a chicken could have laid an egg that was mutated and produced the first chicken. the mutated egg could only have produced what it was bound to produce. so there was a chicken egg before there was a chicken, even though there was something that preceded the egg and laid it; that something was sort of chickenish but not actually a chicken.
g
Our world is full of circular processes where we're attempting to figure out a beginning or an end, when the circular process has neither. We know there's a chicken that came from an egg but we're unable to identify the starting place. It's the same with creation. If "god" created us, who created "god". No way of knowing.
We're alive because we are - we die because that's what we do - it's not any more complicated than that.
SLBushway
Level 7
Nov 10, 2018
0
In a nutshell my thought. We just exist. Not disappointing when you live life in perspective
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