What do you keep living for? Is there a specific person, goal, or idea that you work for? Is there no meaning to life in your opinion?
Context: I’ve been reading Camus and Sartre, and thinking about how their ideas interact with hard determinism.
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I live to be in peace, hang out with my cat and have fun. That’s pretty much it. Right now having fun is trying to fix an old radio.
Im not sure. I stay for my family and husband and my animals.
But I wouldn’t mind dying. Eternal rest from all the grind. Even if there is nothing after death. It would be nice to just sleep forever.
I’m not sure if believe in a “meaning” to life, but I’m here for a good time. I’m married (2nd time) with 3 kids. I work to support us and pay the bills. But why do I keep living? Why not kill myself in leiu having a cup of coffee? Because death is inevitable and if it’s going to happen anyway, I can use the brief time here to experience all that I can.
I figure the Universe is going to go on with or without me and there’s not a thing I can do to change anything. But I’m not here to change the Universe, I’m here so it can change me. I’m a bird soaring through an infinite void with a brief passing through a bright window. Why not appreciate the view while it lasts? And if I can, why not try to make anyone’s else’s brief time out of the void a good time too? Life is absurd, existence is chaos, and it’s all just funny as absolute shit.
I think really, there’s no reason for anything but ice cream is good, hikes in the woods are rad, hanging out with pets and friends is joy. Why stop doing that just because nothing matters?
Because death is inevitable and if it’s going to happen anyway, I can use the brief time here to experience all that I can.
There it is. As far as we know, this is the one chance we have at existence. Revel in it.
This is my philosophy. I credit George Carlin for summarizing it with “People who see life as anything more than pure entertainment are missing the point.”
Damn. I’m saving this in my notes.
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.
Interesting perspective. I think I kinda agree.
I have a logical view of the universe as deterministic and that nothing matters, but my feelings contradict this, which is fine.
However, the thought that life HAS to have meaning as something negative is a new perspective, in that it implies moral and ethics.
Meaning to me necessitates having gold teeth. You don’t need anything else in life if you can glint at people.
I currently live to make life a little better for animals and other people. And when I have time left over I use creative outlets to create stuff.
Meaning must be generated, not found.
It’s a great relief to come to the realization that there is no grand inherent meaning to life, and no need for one. No constant worrying about what the meaning is and how much time you have left to “figure it out”, no need to feel like there’s some big thing you have to accomplish, no pressure to be someone important or make an impact on the world. No need to find the correct religion or moral code. It’s simple: we’re all (humans and animals) just trying to live our lives in peace and find happiness, so as for goals: Live and let live. Try to not hurt each other, and better yet, help each other–helping1 someone isn’t always easy but it’s a good feeling. It creates a feeling of meaning/purpose better than most anything else I can think of.
1: besides doing some task for someone, it could also be as simple as a smile, a kind word, or just listening/being there.
Ecclesiastes is a good read. I found “Everything is meaningless” to be very liberating. The book does go on to say what is good: to love God of course, but also to eat, drink and enjoy your work. But the whole thing is worth a read.
I think “What is the meaning of (my) life?” is not a question that we should be focusing on. It assumes that there is meaning to life. Neither is saying “Life is meaningless,” as it assumes exactly that. Both approaches presupposes an answer.
I’d rather think about “What can I do today/tomorrow/this week/this year/in this life?” That is a lot more digestible than chasing a meaning, or dismissing what could be meaningful about my actions.
I’m already here, so… What is it under my control that I can do something about? What can I do about it? Something along those lines.
PS:
The overall tone of my response might be nihilist, or having shades of stoicism, but I am personally biased towards Epicureanism (not the present-day meaning, but the more classical meaning) which gives emphasis to ataraxia, or put very loosely, that state of contentedness. It’s not about avoiding pain and preferring (temporary) pleasure, but rather a more stable state absent of pain and having pleasure that is brought about by mindful actions. I am not exactly learned in this so please take my words with a pinch of salt (or several).
🥰
The purpose of life is not served by fretting about what its purpose is.
It’s a bit like sitting on a roller coaster rubbing your chin and wondering how to monetize the experience. Just put your hands up and scream. It’s nice.
I have a lot of books left to read.
Books and computer games for me
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.
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)
Unfortunately, it doesn’t always work.
For example, I’ve had fairly good success upon a range of animal companions going back to early childhood, but a few years ago, I made the mistake of taking on a ‘problem cat’ from a family friend.
Such a beautiful creature, but she just couldn’t… settle down, I guess are the words. Now me, living with a terminal disease is already hard, but unfortunately, that rascal just turned it up to ‘11,’ bless her lil heart. So in the end, I had to donate her to a local no-kill shelter. Not my finest moment, but the lack of sleep was pretty-much the lynchpin, for me.
I love cats, but I just… haha, kinda got spooked hard by that experience.
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!
Well, Camus and Sartre are not exactly about finding meaning, but dealing with the world with no inherent meaning.
No advice here, but I suppose it would be rather difficult to argue for objective meaning of life under atheism, which seems prevalent here on lemmy, so I would consider the feasibility of the existentialist project, in creating meaning or living with the condradiction between our desire of meaning and the meaningless world.
This is it. You die and you are gone, gone, gone. Make every day count and don’t waste time bargaining with an imaginary god for a preferred place in her cinematic universe.
It’s not grim. It’s extremely freeing. ‘Now’ is all there is.
Make every day count
But that’s such horrible pressure.
But those days where you just relax and enjoy yourself count as good days so that’s ok too.
I have felt that once upon a time. But since there is no external meaning, I have decided our main purpose is to fart around a lot. I greatly enjoy those days when I can just be, without pressure to produce something.
Maybe that’s inner peace?
Ive been lucky to have discovered Stoicism early in life and that what has been driving me for decades now!
To put it shortly Stoicism focuses on self growth with things like identifying natural human virtues (need for knowledge, justice, temperance, courage) and focusing life around improving those. This is expressed through a princicle called dichotomy of control which says that there are things that are out of our control like death that we shouldn’t focus on and things that are like natural virtues that are something we can do to improve upon.
It also deconstructed and included all of the cool contemporary ideas like mindfulness and being cosmopolitan two millenia ago so its a really great suite of natural philosophies that survived the test of time.
Stoicism is also low key Idealist as in your natural perception of your own virtues and state is the only real thing that matters which is what makes this ideology so much more freeing. You don’t judge yourself against some mystical ideal but to your own perception of purpose and growth.
It’s an easy, frictionless and a highly rewarding way to live :)
Stoicism can sometimes read like a very early form of cognitive behavioral therapy
You’re not far off - it was put together by dudes who just wanted to socialize and talk philosophy and metaphysic on a porch which is called Stoa thus literally Stoics.
CBT is actually heavily inspired by Stoicism and the author openly credits Stoicism and especially Epictetus :)
It’s interesting, I think I’ve tried engaging with Stoicism before, but it feels to me that it kind of ignores how sometimes the romantic should take control? I can’t remember which Stoicist (Epictetus I think?) said that we should be so detached that the death of a child should feel like a glass breaking, but I don’t think I would be able to rationalise and internalise that personally. Do you think there’s space for strong feelings in Stoicism?
That’s a common misunderstanding and Stoicism is not about detachment. The quote you’re referring is mostly a thought exercise to illustrate that dwelling on past is unproductive even in extreme circumstances.
Though contemporary Stoicism acknowledges importance of ritual and grief but it still has to be within reasonable context of dichotomy of control as in you can’t change the outcome no matter how hard you grief and you’re just losing finite minutes of your life but you can spend this time to fairly honor the event and memories.
Temperance is a key virtue here and its heavily inspired by Aristotel’s Golden Mean which says that extremes are really inefficient and should be avoided at all times.
As for strong feelings - Stoicism has nothing against them either. Justice is one of the virtues and its really impossible to get to a just conclusion without strong feelings like sympathy. Though, just like Buddhism, Stoics practice mindfulness and have to choose to go to strong feelings not obey. This is again due to dichotomy of control where thoughts and feelings just appear and we can’t do anything here to stop that but we can choose how we react once we process them!
Stoicism is a very powerful framework cause it doesn’t really tell you what to do exactly just gives you a logical framework based on human nature. It doesn’t mean you becoming a robot - quite the opposite - you should become more human not being hijacked by unfair processes.
Wow, really interesting, thank you!
