Well, as you may have guessed, the only objective meaning that can be found is "to die". As far as subjective meaning goes, that varies from person to person because it is a personal opinion. So guess what! I'm gonna tell you my updated version of "meaning of life" (for the original one, go here). Ok, so there are two contributing factors and then a final product, a final meaning.
Factor 1: Struggle. To do anything in this world, you have to fight. You have to consider, attack, and defeat.
Factor 2: Peace. At the same time that you are struggling, you must be at peace. That may seem like an oxymoron or a contradiction, but it's not.
Knowing others is intelligence;
knowing yourself is true wisdom.
Mastering others is strength;
mastering yourself is true power.
If you realize that you have enough,
you are truly rich.
If you stay in the center
and embrace death with your whole heart,
you will endure forever.
From Tao Te Ching, Chapter 33
As translated by S. Mitchell, 1995
So what is the result? What is the meaning there? The meaning is in the fact that you have completed a quest. You have sought and found. Ultimately, the combination of struggle and peace should give you at least some sense of success in whatever you do. The individual meaning will be individual and specifically different for all of us. I'm not even sure what my end goal is in life. I read somewhere that you are supposed to be able to look back on your life when you are old and smile at the memories (One of those motivational posters).
I have an idea, but it is not quite concrete, though I will attempt to give you a concrete end-goal: I want to be satisfied. I want to be semi-wealthy. I want to have a sense that I have made a difference--not on the world--but on lives. I want to help people that are like me--thereby helping myself. I want the affliction of people like me lifted. There is little purpose for it besides the sadism of an unfair universe.
So, I intend to lift that sadism from the lives of, at the least, a few decent souls.
I have to say I've lived my life more interested in objective meaning. But looking around me, looking in from the outside, I've seen people's own hopes and dreams be replaced by those for their kids. Propagating the species becomes the reason for being for many people, a biological hereafter, eternal life through your genetic line. Just like the theological hereafter, for many it is solace for an unsatisfying life.
ReplyDeleteI'm with you, I think. A level of material comfort, and, in some small way, to make a difference. One thing though, work will dominate your life. Too many people end up in jobs which destroy their soul. Make sure you get to do something that gives a little meaning to all those years.