Is life meaningless?

live is evil backwards

also you didnt too many drugs

peb peb

Is life meaningless? I would say that life is full of meaning.

It seems like people get fixated on meaning as a concept or some sort of narrative that can easily be grasped, like one would grasp a scientific theory. But what about meaning as a felt experience? You feel it when listening to music, when you are with your girlfriend etc. In that sense, do those experiences of meaning and beauty need to be explained within some sort of narrative or conceptual framework?

To me, this type of meaning is deeper and more satisfying and more profound than any sort of simple answer can express. And thank goodness this is the type of meaning we are dealing with, right? I mean, how silly would it be to say "oh life occurs because X reason or Y explanation". The type of meaning that is all around us, that is in us, that perhaps IS us is something so much more real and mysterious.

Sorry to hear you seem to be in a bit of a rut. But be careful when making wide generalizations, especially about something so wide as the entirety of life. Just keep doing what is important to you, maybe exercise/create/meditate/read or something besides the escapisms you mentioned. Not that there's anything wrong with a little escapism here and there. Try to do things that will give you a new perspective on things, or at the very least, make you feel good about yourself.

yes, life is meaningless.

the best you can hope for is to die knowing that you have left an impact on the world (einstein, newton, darwin, sagan)

or on a less grand scale die happy knowing that you have led a good life and raised offspring with a good moral sense, and hopefully provided for them to a degree.

Like I said: define meaning, and you'll have your answer.

Here's some more music to ponder that by

if life WASN'T meaningless it would be far more horrific. I think life is meaningless and this is a comfort

overall morality is really the most important aspect as well as beauty and color

you're confused, life IS horrific because it's bubbling with meaning

if there's absolutely no meaning to life, you wouldn't exist to say so, blud

  On 10/4/2011 at 4:24 AM, Murveman said:

I wrote about a page of stuff, and then deleted it all.

 

Have any of you struggled with the feeling that life is meaningless? How do you find meaning? Or how do you find happiness?

 

 

As of now, I am not enjoying any hobbies (uninspired as far as making films/music/qbasic games goes). My recreation lately has been smoking pot with my room mates and playing minecraft, but I'm not really getting anything out of that. It's more of an escape than anything else.

The only thing I feel truly happy doing is hanging out with my girlfriend or listening to music while I drive. And I think I've been in that boat for the past 2 years. Only difference was I listened to music all of the time and saw my girlfriend everyday.

 

 

Maybe I'm just depressed/chemically imbalanced, or maybe something in my life needs to change.

 

1st World Problems, I guess.

that is where i am except replace pot with booze and girlfriend with nothing/random girls. i'm at a loss!

maybe you should replace the booze with pot, or no substance at all, and go celibate. also, the occasional psychedelic journey, heroic doses, all that jazz...

and what LARRY said

I could just as easily kill myself.

don't do that cuz!

I know the meaning of life.

It is to have a happy life.

What does it mean to be happy? To be complete.

Meaning... To do what it takes to feel complete.

Usually meaning if Friend A has an Xbox I must get an Xbox to feel Happy or if I don't have a GF i must get one to be happy. It can very from person to person what it takes to make them feel complete. Like for Richard D. James, it was to make a shit ton of music.

Shit like that. Always obtaining what we don't have to make us feel complete to make us happy to put meaning to our life.

Yes?

find meaning

  On 10/4/2011 at 8:13 AM, essines said:

I could just as easily kill myself.

true, find meaning in nothing and you'll have already died. instead of "sorry, i tried...

what if you cannot find something in which there is meaning?

  On 10/4/2011 at 8:34 AM, ZiggomaticV17 said:

I know the meaning of life.

 

It is to have a happy life.

What does it mean to be happy? To be complete.

 

Meaning... To do what it takes to feel complete.

 

Usually meaning if Friend A has an Xbox I must get an Xbox to feel Happy or if I don't have a GF i must get one to be happy. It can very from person to person what it takes to make them feel complete. Like for Richard D. James, it was to make a shit ton of music.

 

Shit like that. Always obtaining what we don't have to make us feel complete to make us happy to put meaning to our life.

 

Yes?

if i might just step out of my existentialist being for one second (did you know camus rejected that label?) I'm not quite sure how you compare creating original pieces of music to a material good which has hundreds of millions of identical copies.

But if it's a zen paradox you wish - what if in striving to rid yourself of the desire to gain something, you realize that the pursuit of that goal is yet another thing which you are merely striving to obtain? I know I've recommended this story to someone else on here, but have a gander - it's a quick read:

Kamo no Chomei "Hojoki"

is the meaning of life to give life meaning?

the meaning of life is fluid. the meaning of life for me is to be in a place where you're able to assign 'the meaning of life' a value that you're happy with.

Meaning is a human concept.

  On 10/4/2011 at 8:34 AM, ZiggomaticV17 said:

I know the meaning of life.

 

It is to have a happy life.

What does it mean to be happy? To be complete.

 

Meaning... To do what it takes to feel complete.

 

Usually meaning if Friend A has an Xbox I must get an Xbox to feel Happy or if I don't have a GF i must get one to be happy. It can very from person to person what it takes to make them feel complete. Like for Richard D. James, it was to make a shit ton of music.

 

Shit like that. Always obtaining what we don't have to make us feel complete to make us happy to put meaning to our life.

 

Yes?

wrong

no

maybe

i dunno

stop looking for meaning and start looking for a porpoise.

A lot of insightful posts from watmmers in here.

I think to an extent it's the meaningless of life that has created the world that we live in. Barring the need for food, shelter and procreation, pretty much 99% of what we fill our lives with is to fill a background existential boredom. If we didn't have jobs, friends, interests etc, I think we'd probably be so screamingly bored that a lot of people would find everyday living problematic. It's this need to fill our lives with something that has created economies, entertainment industries, driven technology forward. Perhaps without this meaningless element to life that has driven individuals to question and create things, the world would be a very different place indeed.

I know all about being in a funk in your personal life, and when things are like this it's pretty easy to see all the wasted time, the pointlessness of it all. The trick is not to fall into the trap of comparing your life to those around you, thinking how awful it is that your not earning X, don't have Y, and lusting after Z. All you can do is live your life in a way that keeps you moving forward, and in a way that you are keeping yourself challenged and motivated, only this way will you find some kind of meaning for yourself.

As others have said, the only meaning to life is the meaning that you find in it.

  On 10/4/2011 at 2:44 PM, keltoi said:

stop looking for meaning and start looking for a porpoise.

 

lol. best post of thread. so insightful.

  On 10/4/2011 at 4:24 AM, Murveman said:

Have any of you struggled with the feeling that life is meaningless?

lolz

  On 10/4/2011 at 10:58 AM, chenGOD said:

  On 10/4/2011 at 8:34 AM, ZiggomaticV17 said:

I know the meaning of life.

 

It is to have a happy life.

What does it mean to be happy? To be complete.

 

Meaning... To do what it takes to feel complete.

 

Usually meaning if Friend A has an Xbox I must get an Xbox to feel Happy or if I don't have a GF i must get one to be happy. It can very from person to person what it takes to make them feel complete. Like for Richard D. James, it was to make a shit ton of music.

 

Shit like that. Always obtaining what we don't have to make us feel complete to make us happy to put meaning to our life.

 

Yes?

 

if i might just step out of my existentialist being for one second (did you know camus rejected that label?) I'm not quite sure how you compare creating original pieces of music to a material good which has hundreds of millions of identical copies.

But if it's a zen paradox you wish - what if in striving to rid yourself of the desire to gain something, you realize that the pursuit of that goal is yet another thing which you are merely striving to obtain? I know I've recommended this story to someone else on here, but have a gander - it's a quick read:

Kamo no Chomei "Hojoki"

Wow, crazy. Ive had that same page bookmarked for a year, never read it all the way through. I bloody will now! Its not like that page is some kind of major website. Perhaps you've just given some meaning to my life.

  On 10/4/2011 at 5:52 AM, eugene said:

life is meaningless, but you can still enjoy it