I mean, there is no meaning in nature, it was man who invented it, and often it appeared because of a scarcity, for example, the point is in a beautiful woman, because you are unlikely to find another one as beautiful, right?, or can you find a person who will support you and accept you as you are, like your loved ones? The examples are not the best, but I hope you get the idea.
In addition, I will say that about a year ago I watched the film “The Seventh Seal”, and now sometimes I feel in the place of a character named Antonius Block. I dismissed the inevitable by refraining from suicide as a teenager, thinking I could find the meaning of life, but what was to be expected, nothing worked out. But especially now, how shall I put it… in the age of AI, it is impossible to escape the truth, self-deception no longer works, at least for me personally.
Chess Game with Death:
I see a lot of responses mentioning optimistic /absurdistic nihilism, so I’d like to share the egg.
Fun fact: the author also wrote “The Martian”
Meaning is whatever you want it to be. You have the free will to create your own meaning in your life.
That being said, reading your post, I mean no disrespect, but please seek professional help. This goes beyond “finding your own meaning” and dives into “something is wrong”.
I aspire to live to see a future much more futuristic than science could have predicted
Why does life in and of itself need to have meaning (beyond the obvious “survival”? Why can’t you, with your abilities of thinking and reason, assign your own meaning to it?
Subjects grant meanings, objects are assigned meaning. I create meaning for myself because I am a thinking agent, setting goals and tasks for myself to accomplish based on my own values and decisions. Just because an event ends doesn’t undermine it’s importance or meaning while it’s occurring.
And even if there could be some object or set of circumstances that assigns meaning, being assigned some universal or objective meaning would be oppressive, undermining my own subjective meanings to be replaced with some forced or necessary objective. Just because some of us have an intuitive desire to be assigned an objective meaning due to a desire for our lives to follow a narrative structure with closure like fiction doesn’t mean otherwise there is no meaning. If anything the meaning is more important if it comes from you and isn’t assigned to you.
“Here’s squire Jöns. He grins at Death, scoff at the Lord, laughs at himself, and leers at the girls. His world exists only for himself. Absurd to all, even to himself. Meaningless to heaven, and of no interest to hell.”
I think the problem, to be quite honest with you, is that you’ve never actually known what the question is.
I think the key is to find something you are passionate about. You can think about the meaning of life all you want, but in the mean time, that little life time we have will pass by. And I think is the key is in connecting and caring about people. That’s one of the quite few thing you can excel in. No other person in the planet can fill the position you are in with your family and friends. :)
You can make your own meaning, an act that is also inherently meaningless but often satisfying, or you can just relax and enjoy the things that are enjoyable.
I used to try and explain it in more detail, but I’ve failed to get the point across often enough that I wonder if it really can be explained. I think people just have to sit down and think about it until it snaps into focus for you.
To some degree, what is important, enjoyable, and satisfying to each of us is determined by something immutable, but if we apply ourselves many of us can examine, reason, and understand things to a degree that we have broad control over what we let matter to us.
Focusing on what we choose to let matter to us is key to living without meaning. But we must also embrace the other parts of life, because without them, the things we believe matter most would lose their meaning.
Without the contrast of suffering, we would struggle to understand joy. I think that’s the hardest thing to accept for most.
I really like that poem “Ozymandias”, by Percy Bysshe Shelley. The point of it is: no matter what kind of outsized impact you have on the world when you’re alive, eventually no trace of you will remain, and everything you ever were and everything you’ve ever done will be forgotten.
It’s a heavy, depressing message, but I find it to be oddly freeing. If nothing you do will matter in the very long run, then you’re free to do whatever you want. Maybe you decide that you don’t care about the people 25,000 years from now and focus instead on the people in your life right now. Maybe you make it your goal to make their lives better.
You could succumb to depression and fall into a pit of despair and heavy drug use… but if nothing matters, why not spend your time making other people’s lives better instead? It feels good to make other people feel good.
My mentality exactly. My legacy doesn’t really matter at the heat death of the universe. Take it day-by-day, dream, care about those you love, but know that literally nobody will care about your mistakes 40 quintillion years from now.
you create meaning in your own life
I don’t have a profound answer, and other commenters have covered my thoughts pretty well. I will share a small lesson I learned from my mom as a kid. First time wearing a new shirt, I jumped off the swing on our playset, and the hook at the end of the chain tore a big hole in my shirt. Naturally, I was upset and started crying. My mom told me, “You can either cry or you can laugh, but it doesn’t change what happened.” I’ve taken that to heart over the years and generally try to find the humor in everyday situations. Meaning of life? Nope. Just making life more entertaining.
i decided to live vicariously through trump and act like i’m winning all the time regardless of reality, like my white trash brethren
I stopped asking myself what the meaning of life is, and started asking what I want my impact on this earth to be.
I keep coming to the same answer. I want to live a quiet comfortable life with the people I love, and when I die, I want my only legacy on this earth to be memories.
Currently falling way short of that last goal. I make a lot of trash, currently have a conventional house with a lawn, which takes ridiculous resources to maintain. Ultimately, I’d like to build an earthship that can provide food, water, and comfort for me and my wife for the rest of our lives. I want to own things that care for me, instead of being owned by things I need to care for.
