skizziks

Sitting around the park watching humans doing their thing, it occured to me:

If I work super hard and amass a huge fortune and a hot ass wife who is a gladiator in bed and a bunch of friends who will all willingly die for me, I die in the end.

If I sit around doing nothing and no one knows I exist, I die in the end.

Once we have achieved the first few rungs of Maslow´s hierarcy of needs, food, shelter, maybe security, the rest is just futile actions to keep up busy while we wait to die.

Yeah, a big house and lots of things might, maybe, make you a bit more comfortable as you spend your years in the prison of the meat sack, but it really amounts to nothing.

I´m currently in Palenque, Mexico, a poor small border town. Every night in the town square, there is a band that plays happy music, and people sit around, dance, pretty much just "be." During the day, there are people sitting around, doing nothing, just "being." I can assume they are not starving, but they also aren´t really doing anything, and they are smiling, and appear happy.

Living out of a backpack, I have nothing, yet I´m comfortable, not suffering, and overall not bad off.

I have worked for 20 years, amassed enough cash to live modestly in a "poor" country. I cant see any reason to do anything else but drink coffee, smoke cigarettes, sit around, and wait patiently to die.

Jetée

There's nothing better than being; apparently you want more—memories, experiences, knowledge, love, goals & desire, I can't offer them to you, but most if not all people existing learn to feed off these and strive throughout their whole lifetimes in order to attain some measure of happiness that can be extracted from any of the above. You say you have reached your zenith, gone and gained as much as you can? Envision an even grander scheme of life that not only satisfies you, but seeks to better the communities in which you interact and influence.


Although you make the argument that nothing matters because we all must die eventually, I could see it conversely, in that every single moment in our finite time of breathing and being is significant because the end only comes once, and we'll never remember it anyway.

__________________
As human beings, our greatness lies not so much in being able to remake the world (that is the myth of the Atomic Age) as in being able to remake ourselves.

—Mohandas K. Gandhi

Baraka_Guru

It all depends on whether your efforts are for your own benefit or for the benefit of others.

There are things one can do so that long after people will say that such a life mattered.

I hope you continue to "enjoy" existentialist Mexico. I've gone through the same thing in local dance clubs.

__________________
Knowing that death is certain and that the time of death is uncertain, what's the most important thing?
—Bhikkhuni Pema Chödrön

Humankind cannot bear very much reality.
—From "Burnt Norton," Four Quartets (1936), T. S. Eliot

Dexter Morgan

Life is a pursuit of pleasure, in my opinion. Whether you're living off a fortune and spending the rest of your days lounging and relaxing, or you're feeding orphans in a third-world country, apparently that's your pleasure. Be it physical/sensory pleasure, or the pleasure that comes from a salved conscience or sense of accomplishment, most of us make life an exercise in maximizing our level of personal pleasure or satisfaction.

So I say, do what makes you happy. If sitting around smoking cigarettes, drinking coffee, and watching people is what makes you happy - who's to say that that's not a perfect life (for you)?

Zeraph

You assume that it all ends in death. I am not a religious person but I believe death is just another part of life. That what happens here matters afterward. We just can't see it. Now how it matters is up to you, if you think "doing" is best or just "being" is, up to the individual. But we always, always make the choice. If you feel unfulfilled with your current life, do something about it! Nothing is stopping you but yourself.

ratbastid

This seems to be one of the insights common to those who are on-the-go as a lifestyle. Certainly was for both Thoreau and Kerouac. So you're in good company, skizz.

Life is empty and meaningless. There is no inherent meaning or value to that thing called "my self" or that thing called "my life". Any meaning we add to life is meaning WE add to life. Including (and here's where the Existentialists went off the track) despair over the meaninglessness of it. Meaninglessness doesn't mean anything either.

If you can really get that, it's VERY good news.

Jimellow

Life is what I make of it, and for that reason, I love being alive.

__________________
Desperation is no excuse for lowering one's standards.

Dexter Morgan

Makes perfect sense to me. In fact, it's actually more of a comfort to me to think that life is completely inherently meaningless than to believe there's some grand design. I might not like the grand design, or the person/thing that designed it.

A meaningless life is a free life. Being able to add meaning means that it's all a blank canvas waiting for color.

abaya

Yeah, I'm the type who likes to have a "mission" in life, but that's not the same as needing my life to have meaning. I'm okay with meaninglessness. Maybe a strange line to draw, but it's mine all the same.

__________________
And think not you can direct the course of Love;
for Love, if it finds you worthy, directs your course.
--Khalil Gibran

jewels

If life is merely an unknown timeframe between birth and death, why not make it a journey worth remembering?

I'm a little shallow and would like to leave a couple of people smiling when they think about me after I'm gone. I also enjoy a sense of accomplishment when I do things that have meaning to me and those I love.

Sometimes I do the cigs and coffee at home, and sometimes I do it somewhere else.

__________________
We are always more anxious to be distinguished for a talent which we do not possess, than to be praised for the fifteen which we do possess.
Mark Twain

skizziks

If we dont remember it anyway, what does it matter? We wont be rotting in the ground, burning in hell, partying in heaven, or whatever we do when we die, and think "Damn, I should have seen cats on broadway when it was still playing." any accomplishments i make or fail to make wont exist for me after death.

ratbastid

Why have that mean "shallow", if it's what you want?

Listen, when my grandfather died, his funeral was in the Episcopal cathedral in Salt Lake City that seats like eight hundred--and it was standing-room-only. That place was PACKED with people I'd never met, but who Granddad had loaned money to fifty years ago that kept their business afloat, or who he'd hired when nobody else would, or whatever. There was all this LOVE for the man, and the mark he'd made on the world was unmistakable.

Since then I've attended a couple funerals that were the same way. One for a retired Navy captain--who was PROFOUNDLY loved by the people he left behind.

All these events have gotten me very clear the kind of funeral I want. And the kind of life I need to live between now and then to have that.

Now: that's NOT "good". It's not "meaningful" or "important". I want that because I want that, and for no other reason. Not having that wouldn't make me a lesser person, or have my life be less meaningful or worthwhile. I just want that.

skizziks

I dont think Dali, or Shakespear, or Ghandi or Hitler are getting anything out of what they did. We can talk about them, maybe we think thier life mattered, but what we think doesnt matter to them.

roachboy

did you really just figure this out?

__________________
a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle
spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear

it make you sick.

-kamau brathwaite

jewels

I said that with a hint of sarcasm.

There is a reason why you want that. You can't just say because.

Damn, you guys are so jaded.

__________________
We are always more anxious to be distinguished for a talent which we do not possess, than to be praised for the fifteen which we do possess.
Mark Twain

skizziks

Good point, but I wasnt going in that direction. If we are accountable when we die for what we do here, then what we do matters to the extent of if we do "good" or "bad."

I´m assuming you shouldnt do anything "bad," meaning classical murder, theft, etc. I´m saying that, to the extent of "living a full life" and accomplishing goals and gaining wealth, knowledge, power, anything, even killing becuse you are insane and you like it, it all is just what we do to keep ourselves busy until we die.

ratbastid

I don't know if you're still being sarcastic, but... Of course you can! That's you saying the reason, it might as well be you saying "just because". If life has no inherent meaning, then all reasons are made up anyway.

jewels

You said life has no meaning. By my definition, you do have to have a reason as to why you want that. Does it feel good? Does it make someone happy? Will it look good in your Memoirs? If nothing had meaning, you wouldn't want any of it, would you?

__________________
We are always more anxious to be distinguished for a talent which we do not possess, than to be praised for the fifteen which we do possess.
Mark Twain

ratbastid

That's one perfectly valid view.

It's different from the view I'm proposing here.

I'm proposing a view in which people do what they do because that's what they do, and then mostly what we say about it afterward is justification and rationalization, and there really IS no "why".

If nothing has meaning, then I get to say what the meaning/reason is. Very different from looking and finding out the "real" reason that was there before I started looking. But I have to start from, there's no "real" reason, but I DO get to say what I'm here for, and that's not "true" either--that's just me saying something, which is all I'm really doing all the time anyway, I just THINK that's The Truth...

roachboy

just to clarify, i didn't mean "are you just figuring this out" in any sarcastic way--i just want to know if you just realized it as a function of how your voyaging and the fact that in making the voyage, you stepped outside your other life.

one thing that's clear from the responses so far is that much of what you make of this recognition that there is no meaning given along with yourself in the world is a function of the scale you choose to lay over it--if you get all christian about it and think in this kind heidegger direction about "authentic being" as "being-toward-death" then there's one set of options that open and another that gets foreclosed.

interested in getting a better sense of where this thread is coming from.

__________________
a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle
spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear

it make you sick.

-kamau brathwaite

Baraka_Guru

Okay, so it's about you. Fair enough.

Are you enjoying yourself? Does that matter to you? If it does, do it while you can. If not, what do you think you need to do to truly enjoy what you're doing.

Maybe none of this matters after all.

Why don't we all just stop what we're doing?

Guys, why don't we just stop?

__________________
Knowing that death is certain and that the time of death is uncertain, what's the most important thing?
—Bhikkhuni Pema Chödrön

Humankind cannot bear very much reality.
—From "Burnt Norton," Four Quartets (1936), T. S. Eliot

Jetée

Why does it seem that you are treating existence as some sort of race, in which whatever we do along the way either registers to a win, or in your case, an inevitable loss?


What we accomplish in life is most reasonably only servicable to us in life, so you hold that in your contention, but it doesn't quite argue the point of why we strive for our every experience in the first place. First and foremost, what we do and what shapes us is our drive to survive. Considering we have accomplished that task and will continue to do so regularly, we are free to accumulate and tally more of our perceived needs, depending on our goals and cultural influence, it will vary accordingly. Need for wealth, need for security, need for family, need for status, need for meaning; without any pursuit to happiness, you are further indulging into your theory of nonexistent living is equated to overall irrevelance.


Whether you define it as mere sustanation, or being able to fish with more ease, or selling arms and living the kickass lifestyle of a warlord, whatever brings you satisfaction, and you have the necessary applications to fulfill yourself continually, it will elevate your overall sense of being. It's foolhardy to debate your worth living if you continue thinking that it won't matter once deceased, so why should I even bother now? Would a prominent civil leader state to his people, "Hey, I know the nation looks bleak at the moment, but what does it matter now since you will all die eventually in the future? Why should we work for a better tomorrow if not all of us will even realize it, so there's no point in change now"?


Despite your argument that once we die, everything we toiled for will immediately count for naught, I'd say a fair amount of individuals seek to make one's mark in the minds of those left behind. I don't know what will happen to any of us once our corporeal form expires, so I can't speculate on any one theory since not a one holds sound; but if you would like to experiment on your theory that ultimate death equals the ultimate disregard of our life's meaning in the first place, go ahead and proposition it for discussion.


I stated that once we encounter demise, it will not be registered by our living self in the least; it is who we leave behind, and the legacy of our actions, that will continue, only so long as you worked for that prestigious endeavor, instilled within those that cherished you the most. Be proud in what you accomplish because while not everyone will take notice and spread your undying word, you at least you appeased yourself, and that warrants some measure of honor.


Pursue what you can in life, do what it takes in order to attain your ideal self-realization. Life isn't fair—why would you expect any difference in death? If it is true that you can't take anything with you to the beyond, do as much as you can until reaching the terminal (or in an another manner of speaking, which utilizes metaphors: leave the buffet full and hearty, and don't spend time worrying beforehand of why you should even partake in the meal because you won't even savor the taste of it later).


Be. Free.

__________________
As human beings, our greatness lies not so much in being able to remake the world (that is the myth of the Atomic Age) as in being able to remake ourselves.

—Mohandas K. Gandhi

stellabella1978

What does death have to do with life? Who cares if your accomplishments in life have no meaning to you after death? You can enjoy the fact that you saw Cats now and if you missed it you can enjoy something else.

Cynosure

Be careful, there, staring into that abyss – it stares back.

levite

Doing something with your life-- anything you find meaningful, whether it is just sitting around experiencing the moments, or helping others, or working toward some goal-- makes life more than just a waiting for death.

I recommend to your attention the book Man's Search for Meaning, by Viktor Frankl.

__________________
Dull sublunary lovers love,
Whose soul is sense, cannot admit
Absence, because it doth remove
That thing which elemented it.

(From "A Valediction: Forbidding Mourning" by John Donne)

Amaras

Wow, great thread. I spent years delving into the "meaning of life". Here is what I came up with
(short form, and shaped by my present circumstances).

Life inherently has no meaning to the one who lived it, once it is over. Life, in the larger sense, exists only to propagate itself,
to create more life. The instinct to mate and have children is the biggest reason humanity is here to ask these types of
questions.

I cannot come up with any reason why "existence" exists. That's not to say it's unknowable, I just don't know it.

If my reason cannot justify it, I then go to feeling, or emotion, or that which lies within and defies reason and logic.
In my case, if I do not do so, I become depressed, ask my self "Why bother?", and lead an existence which "feels" dull,
useless, and painful. I spent years that way. My "logic" deemed all actions to be useless. It lead me to a hedonistic
lifestyle, selfish, and of course, empty.

After a lot of pain and numbness resulting from my addictive hedonistic ways, I recovered a certain balance, physiologically.
I've learned if I'm here anyway, I might as well enjoy my body as it is constitued. Not abuse, enjoy. It is "mere"
corporeal existence, subject to the programming of biology, of course. I'm well aware of that. Those of you who know me a bit
can imagine where I'm going next with this.

The ultimate, for me, reason is my daughter.

Nothing from outside my body can match the feeling I had Dec. 29th, 2007 at 10:52 AM when my daughter was put into
my arms. Too easy an answer to what matters?

Perhaps, or maybe it's just that easy. Maybe deep thought is not is required. Perhaps our intellect is our biggest obstacle
to living, those of us who seek a rationale for everything.

It can be argued that we are an evolved set of atoms, created in stars billions of years ago. Highly organized matter, self
aware and capable of thought. Kind of like gravity (amongst other forces) is the hand of "Mother Nature, or God".

How much is programming (subjective thought), how much is truly objective thought, as defined in philosophical academia?
That needs to clarified, or at least discussed, before any technical discussion of existence can proceed. In my humble opinion.

So do I have answers? No.
But I've evolved a thought process that allows me to step back from the abyss for the short time I am here, for otherwise
I would be Narcissus by the side of the pond staring into it.

I was very inspired by the posts you folks did. It allowed me to post this.
Thank you.

__________________
Propaganda is to a democracy what the bludgeon is to a totalitarian state.
-Noam Chomsky
Love is a verb, not a noun.
-My Mom
The function of genius is to furnish cretins with ideas twenty years later.
-Louis Aragon, "La Porte-plume," Traite du style, 1928

Cernunnos

Before even touching upon why, we may need to establish certain facts.

While I do not have a thorough understanding of the biological sciences, I have enough of a foundation to state that we are carbon-based lifeforms that have evolved over a period of millions of years. We as individuals were not involved in the creation of our current form and, as individuals, did not exist prior to birth. We as individuals do not exist in our current form after death, though other forms of existence are debatable in metaphysics.

So, here we are. We did not choose to be here. I've answered what we are. Where are we, now? On Earth, a planet like billions of others in certain ways, yet extremely unique in other properties, such as the capacity for supporting human beings and other lifeforms.

How are we here? Through a consciousness that enables us to perceive ourselves as individuals - self-consciousness, awareness that we are an individual lifeform. One might ask how we are conscious of ourselves, and that is through interaction with the world as we experience it. We rely on the external world to define ourselves as individuals, without which we would cease to be capable of discerning between this self that we exist as and anything else, a rock or another person, a star or the dirt beneath our feet.

Why are we here? As individuals, I do not believe that this can be answered. As members of a collective species that has evolved over a vast span of years, our self can be seen as nothing more than a continuation of our genetic coding for the purpose of, well, continuing the genetic code. The human species is governed by an innate necessity to propagate and expand the complex code within us.

Our biological purpose is replication, expansion, evolution. Our genes drive us to do this, for reasons that can be attributed to chemical reactions and other effects at the molecular level. Through consciousness, we have developed a mechanism that can vastly assist in the process of expanding the human species. One must only look at the dominance of the human species on Earth to see that this is true. Our minds have evolved and we can utilize them to advance the genetic lineage that makes us who we are.

I believe that one can view self-consciousness as an extension of evolution, a method by which we are capable of interpreting the world through reason instead of mere instinct, and that this is ultimately beneficial to the continuation of the human species. Our genetic code has gifted (or cursed) us with this strange, unique concept to advance itself.

That is a crude explanation of the biological reason for consciousness, but in the explanation lies the purpose and thus the meaning. One might say, this is not enough. I don't wish to be here to advance some genetic code that I had no part in creating. Look at what has spawned from that genetic code, however. Self-consciousness, awareness, reasoning at a level never seen before the human species came about. Is that not incredible?

Each of us is a part of this evolutionary process of advancing the species, whether we care to follow it or not, but the possibilities are truly endless aside from defying the laws of the universe (assuming the theories and laws as we understand them hold). We have the chance to contribute to the playing out of an extremely complex chain of events, perhaps leading to the transcendence of our biological form and, through technology, mastering the very workings of the universe.

In our lifetime? Perhaps not, and in the eyes of many, almost certainly not. Yet science has enabled us to glimpse into the future, and it has the potential to be fascinating, revolutionary. Through technology, we may be able to seize control of our genetic lineage and transform it to serve us as individuals, instead of us serving it as a species.

By contributing to humanity in any form, indeed, by merely propagating through conception, you are contributing to the advancement of our species and allowing us the opportunity to, at some point in the future, potentially escape from our biological restraints. Where that leads is anyone's guess, but I am quite fond of the unknown.

In closing, I am not certain if my train of thought has been sufficiently explained to be understood and followed, but I hope that it has at least served to stimulate your own thoughts.

Halx

"In and of itself, nothing really matters. What matters is that nothing is ever 'in and of itself.'" - Chuck Klosterman

__________________
You have found this post informative.
-The Administrator
[Don't Feed The Animals]

Baraka_Guru

I think the universe just reversed its course.

__________________
Knowing that death is certain and that the time of death is uncertain, what's the most important thing?
—Bhikkhuni Pema Chödrön

Humankind cannot bear very much reality.
—From "Burnt Norton," Four Quartets (1936), T. S. Eliot

Cynosure

The older I get, and the more I deal with death, loss, suffering and sorrow – and not just on a personal level – the more I find platitudes like that to be useless and even annoying.

roachboy

i don't think it's exactly a platitude...klosterman isn't a fool by any means. if you think about it through kant, the thing itself is unknown and unknowable--we only know things, phenomena which are not us, through particular frames of reference, so these things are all beings for us. so even at the most basic level, in the most basic interaction between you and a single object floating in some abstract space, that object is as it is relationally. if you think about the features that are selected to define an object, it is kinda obvious--general physical attributes, something of the relation of parts to a whole, etc.---these are defining features *for us*--which isn't to say that they're arbitrary--but it's also to say that they aren't other than arbitrary, particularly when you shift from something like a rock to a living system.

so now that i typed that, i have to respond to the op---i don't think there is any particular purpose given to ourselves or the world. if there is some god out there somewhere, we don't know anything about it so functionally it's as if there isn't one. i think nietzsche was right about christianity in that the idea that the purpose of life is death or what awaits along with death or after it is a wholly nihilistic way of seeing the world that makes this life secondary and cheap. we're here and we're in this giant circus together--we make the rides, we keep them going, we repeat the logic of the system that enables the circus until we figure out that this is the case and start the slow process of trying to figure out how to be and think otherwise. assuming that's your reaction to repetition. to my mind, repetition elicits that response.

if that's true, then we make the purpose that we take on. we make it in our relations with others and with the world, in what we do, in what we love and in the way we love, in what we devote care and attention to and in what we do not. because the world is big and its time-scale is far bigger than ours, there are possibilities of resonances, with others, with a sense of the past, within the present---some folk think this means there's some higher purpose. i don't, but i don't object if others do--it's the sort of thing that is as you imagine it to be.

there are bigger phenomena that i'm curious about, but i don't necessarily consider them to be Big Questions--they're just interesting and engaging to think about.

__________________
a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle
spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear

it make you sick.

-kamau brathwaite

Cynosure

I didn't know who Klosterman was; I was merely commenting on his quote, in and of itself. (Ha!) But now that I've looked up Klosterman and learned more about him, e.g. he was a senior writer at Spin magazine and he's the author of the book Sex, Drugs and Cocoa Puffs: A Low Culture Manifesto, I'm even more opined that his quote is indeed a platitude.

roachboy

i confused klosterman and chuck klienhans, who writes about documentary and pop culture. not the same, not the same.
had i not made that mistake, i wouldn't have been inclined to run out the interpretation above, but i think the interpretation stands anyway.

__________________
a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle
spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear

it make you sick.

-kamau brathwaite

Halx

Its only a platitude if you disagree.

Nothing DOES matter if your scope of understanding is limited to your own existence, which will end in a definite way. However, your impact on the world around you will continue to matter, if you've done enough to ensure your lasting impression on the world. There are a few individuals who can claim to have altered history, civilization and our current way of living. This all will calculate into how we approach the future.

Help or hurt; do enough of either and your actions will live forever.

__________________
You have found this post informative.
-The Administrator
[Don't Feed The Animals]

Cynosure

Not necessarily. According to wikipedia, a platitude is a trite, meaningless, biased or prosaic statement that is presented as if it were significant and original. The word derives from plat, the French word for "flat". Whether any given statement is considered to have meaning or not is highly subjective, so platitude is often — but not always — used as a pejorative term to describe seemingly profound statements that a certain person views as unoriginal or shallow.

See, it's not that I disagree with Klosterman's quote, it's that I find it trite and shallow.

So, then, this is the sort of philosophy that Harris and Klebold, i.e. the killers at the Columbine massacre, would've subscribed to?

In time, even that, too, will pass away. Why, on the cosmic scale of things, the time span of a person's – or even an entire civilization's – impact and legacy is like a drop in the ocean.

Haven't you read Shelley's "Ozymandias" or heard the Kansas song, "Dust in the Wind"?

Halx

Yet we remember various names throughout history and who these people were and what they did.

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You have found this post informative.
-The Administrator
[Don't Feed The Animals]

Willravel

Subjective worth is still worth.

skizziks

You asking me? I know you werent being sarcastic.

Yes, it occured to me as i watched people walking around doing stuff that once we have achieved basic needs, food, shelter, some type of security, anything after that is just filler to keep us occupied, keep us entertained. As I am now living out of a backpack, for all intents and purposes homeless, with no direction or purpose, it struck me that there is nothing left for me to attain, except for my own personal pleasure. If i want to work hard and become a black belt in karate, or master a second language or cure acne, sure, i can put in the effort to do that, and when i´m done i can say "check it out, i´m a blackbelt, and i speak another language fluetnly, and no one will ever have pimples again" but it doesnt really matter if i attain my goals or fail. in the grand scheme of things, whatever i or anyone else does in this world is for this world only, and this world is temporary.

kind of like going all out decorating and improving a rental house. you can spend time money and effort to improve the house and decorate it, but then you leave and your efforts are for naught, at least to you. if someone else gets to enjoy the well decorated house, they enjoy it, but you get nothing out of it, you dont even know if they enjoy it.

skizziks

Oh, and i got to thining about some of the other points brought up, about doing good with your life and leaving a legacy and such.

We are looking at that from our current knowledge. We praise the guys who invented the lightbulb and penicillin because we grew up with them, only knowing life with them. IF they were never invented, we wouldnt know any better, and so we wouldnt miss them. We can say how great penicillin and the art of Salvador Dali is now, and say how life would suck without penicillin NOW, because we can look back and see how crappy it was before. The Mayans and Egyptians and all those folks, they might have had it hard, but they dealt with it and lived their lives. Who knows what will be invented 100 years from now and afterwards everyone will think "how did they get along without this modern convienience", but right now, we think life is good and we are content.

So, if nothing new happend, it still just wouldn´t matter.

Master_Shake

Leaving a legacy isn't a very satisfying thought to me. I've known for a while now that fundamentally I am just not a good person. I don't feel any desire to change this, because I don't see how it will improve anything. Any "legacy" I leave will be a bad one, so I think it is probably best to have as little an effect on this world as possible.

Of course, I'm not going to go around raping and killing people because I don't want to go to prison.

__________________
-------------
You know something, I don't think the sun even... exists... in this place. 'Cause I've been up for hours, and hours, and hours, and the night never ends here.