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there is no inherent meaning to life.
i choose to continue living each day because a) i am still enjoying myself enough to stick around, b) i'm a chicken and nothing has motivated me to voluntarily face quicker death just yet, c) i am committed to not fucking up my kids in that particular way if i can continue to avoid it, and d) i do work that matters and eases the suffering of others to create meaning for myself.
I have so many goals man. I wanna travel the world, meat new people, stay in one of those hostels or that website where you can work to stay. I wanna scuba dive, rock climb, surf, run marathons, hikes and all sorts of stuff before I get too old to do anything fun.
I'm not religious or spiritual so I'm a pure hedonist. I work so that I can maintain a comfortable life for my wife and I with vacations and other treats. In my 30s but not very interested in having children; might be tempted to adopt in my 40s but will need to see where I am at that point in my life.
Essentially the goal is to be happy as a clam (that is a strange phrase now I consider it). It would be nice to author something to leave my name for future generations but I kind of get that from contributing to open source projects when I get the chance.
I'm no well read philosopher, but the idea that life has a meaning is repulsive to me. It implies that there is a correct state of affairs, and introduces the possibility that you've done something wrong, that you failed to fulfill some purpose. Nuts to that, there are no wrong choices, besides the obvious ones like murder and not brushing your teeth
Well mate I'm sorry to say you just funded a new philosophy school AND a new religion called shiny teeth.
Jokes apart, I agree 100 with you and the concept that only the person themselves can decide what is the purpose of their life. And 11 out of 10 times it won't make sense to anyone else, so no point in taking it too seriously.
This is one of my cats, do you think she's looking for meaning?
Life just... is. Don't look for a deeper meaning. Enjoy what you have.
Adorable picture :) Unfortunately my cat has found a purpose - being a bastard and knocking over anything she can, and loudly demanding attention at 2am. She's still wonderful of course!
Now imagine your life without the luxury of a pampered, beloved floof by your side?
Unfathomable, and thankfully not something I have to worry about (there are animal shelters near you that will just give you a cat if you give them money)
I'm going to throw a trigger warning on this next part just in case:
suicide ideation
I have been living with major depression for decades. I am taking medication for it, but that just makes it more manageable; it doesn't go away.
I am alive today because killing myself would hurt the people I love. Also, because I have a cat that I love very much, and I don't want him to have to miss me. Also, this is a much more minor driver, but I am excited for new seasons of my favorite shows and for movies I haven't seen and books I haven't read.
I find living to be a burden, but I feel obligated to do it because of my relationships. At the very least, though, I can find entertainment while doing it.
You might be underselling entertainment to yourself here. Experiencing creation and your own interpretation of these creations is pretty fucking magical when you think about it.
shrug
Foods pretty good, lot of things i haven't tried yet to look forward to. I like hearing/reading/seeing new stories, too.
I keep living at this point simply because God wants me alive. If He didn't, He would have killed me by now. When I was in a really dark place (I'm doing better now), I realised that killing myself was pointless, because if it was my time to die, God would take me from this life regardless. So God must still have a plan and uses for me and thus, I should still be alive, and that's meaning enough for the fact that my body continues to operate.
I've got a lot of respect for theists, and would truly love to be convinced of this sort of perspective. Thanks for bringing it to the table!
Thank you! I don't want to seem pushy or pressuring, but what eventually convinced me was the historicity of Jesus Christ (as opposed to scientific arguments, etc) and it kind of hinged off of that.
Not to bully your belief here but how would you justify this with the fact that God allows many really bad people to live? Just curious of understanding this mindset and I hope this doesn't offend you.
I tried to justify this (if one insists on the existence of a god), through the argument that dangerous and bad things exist in nature as well, such as storms, lightning, floodings, earthquakes, and chimps that go to war with each other etc. and likewise, violent and bad things exist among humans.
However, I cant really convince myself that it's comparable. Actual evil did not really exist before be came along and started torturing each other. (The church and christians have been through many iterations of hard questions and tough answers to their own riddles, and overall, I think it has been a sum positive for humanity, in trying to explain, and to figure out the question of evil in general.)
So no, I don't have a, from the hip, justification from god, why evil people would still exist. Perhaps the world just is a better place, with snakes in it, than without. It gives us something good to do?
I can however confidently state that really bad people have been here among humanity many times before, and they have all, in one way or another, left again, and somehow we manage to sustain a world, that is continuously improving and trying to become a better and better place. Getting rid of bad people, snakes, and natural dangers.
I know that there are serious crises and problems we still have to solve, but we tend to forget all the past evils that we have defeated. We are not being actively overrun by mongols from the east, and not every family loses several small children before they reach the age of 5. Most people have enough, and we still keep working to make sure that fewer and fewer people will suffer in the future.
Ngl that's a really unsatisfying position imo. There are and have been people who had nothing but suffered in their entire existence with zero meaning like slave babies born with extreme deformities. This thought exercise completely dispels any idea of a present god in my point of view.
By multiplying 21 by 2
I multiply 6 by 9.
First, great choice in reading (Im a fan of Camus as well).
As for the meaning of life thing...
Thats the neat part. You don't.
Thats why in absurdist fiction like Hitchhikers guide to the Galaxy the answer to life, the universe and everything is 42. Its not supposed to make sense and the universe is under no obligation to do so for you (the books even postulate that the universe does not want anyone to know so if someone figures it out it winks out of existance and replaced itself with something weirder, some scientists think this has happened before).
That goes back to Camus point about the remedies for the bleakness of early-mid 20th century philosophy. He proposed three options, Nhilism, a leap of faith (looking at you Kierkegaard), or absurdism, the last being what the doctor perscribes, but also requires the most effort because you have to find your question to the ultimate answer your self... Or not, who cares. Lets go spend some time by a lake that thinks its a gin & tonic.
I hope that I can come around to the absurdist perspective sooner or later, it does seem quite appealing to me, but I'm still yet to be convinced by Camus' argument that the rebellion against the absurd has any more value than your other options. How would you say you find that sort of value?
