What is The Meaning of Life?

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#604
An excellent treatment of this question can be found, of all places, in the Pixar animated film, ‘Soul’. Released, I believe, in 2020, although many people still have not seen it for some reason. The film is criminally underrated, as it’s spiritually enlightening, while avoiding any specific religious doctrine, in an entertaining way. Well worth watching with the entire family.
 
#605
I'd like to add something, although it's not an answer to the question of MOL (which, according to the newest AI, is 42,01), but rather an answer to the purpose of life: one's impact should in the end be smaller than 1. (Or, from a subjective point of view, there should be more after me than what was there before me)
 
#606
jotom750 said:
that some of us are blessed
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How do you know if a blessing is actually a curse ?
I've never had any luck finding romance, many years ago I met a woman who found it very easy, she seemed to use it as a coping mechanism for something, and as it was so easy, she didn't need to deal with the underliying problem. Her blessing, in the long run seems more like a curse to me now, and when I think back to my "bad luck" with romance, I sometimes wonder if I was saved from making bad mistakes.
Recently a "twilight zone" was shown on TV, a dead guy thought that he had gone to heaven, as he got everything that he wanted, however, in the end he found out that he'd gone "downstairs", and getting everything that you want, with no effort, was, in the end, no fun at all.
 
#607
Fast Eddie D said:
Interesting. I've been "dead" twice and remember one. I "remember" my life flashing before me in an instant, and I remember thinking about family and loved ones, pondering how they will take the news of my demise. I fully accepted that I was passing away without fear. In fact, I experienced no emotion at all; just memories.

I remember my last field of vision fading to white, one dot at a time. I could hear but not understand anything. Then, my experience of life just vanished, to be abruptly rekindled a couple days later. I didn't know if a day had passed or a decade.

I think these ersatz memories are artifacts of the last ditch effort of the brain to preserve life in a crisis. Unnecessary parts of the brain are shut down to keep the rest running. In fact we know that before the brain shuts down we often go into agonal breathing aka "death rattle" which sometimes revives the person.
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I have a single memory of death.
I have to assume it was a dream - just to make logical sense of it.
The memory detailed that once I knew the inevitable outcome of the sliding fall
my entire body & being slipped into > TOTAL - WARM - UPHORIC - BLISS - PERFECTION .
 
#610
To glean the true meaning of life is a long and difficult process. First you must live a long life and reach a geezerly old age. You must have suffered through life's challenges and travails. You must have much of your hair fall out, your joints must be stiff and painful, and your gut must overhang your waist by a large margin. Your memory must be fading and keeping track of your keys must be a constant struggle. These are simply the precursors. Then one morning, as you open the door to fetch the morning paper (none of this online news crap or you will miss it) and you spot a couple neighbor's kids you fling open the storm door, shaking with rage and spittle flying you shout, "Hey you kids, get the hell off my damn lawn!" Just as you finish, and the kids burst into uncontrollable laughter and roll on the ground in hilarious defiance it will be revealed. Good luck on your journey!
 
#612
However you need some capacity to ignore all the deficiencies.

If you cannot ignore the bad or imperfect and you cannot "look on the bright side of life" and you see clearly how it is you

must jump out of the window without any hesitation!
 
#613
Although rather gruesome & macabre, there is something called 'blood & bone' fertilizer.
If there was someone out there who could not see any point of life >
it is worth considering that even your bodily remains could be used to feed a plant
thereby allowing at least part of you to transform into future life with the potential
to seed and then continue on.
I like to think of something like a tree 🙂
 
#614
myleftear said:
There was a philospher, Feierabend his name i think, whos said „das Leben ist ein Jammertal“ ≈ „life is a vale of tears“
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I believe, that is also a fundamental Hindu/Buddhist philosophy. Life (by it’s very nature) is suffering. Therefore, the object of life is to ascend the soul out of this cycle of continuing reincarnation by living a ‘proper’ life, which then eventually earns release.
 
#617
I’m just relating that some major religions teach a concept similar to what that referenced philosopher thought. In my observation, life for most people seems a complex mix of suffering, joy and boredom. For too many people, however, I do not doubt that suffering decidedly dominates the other two. As for what I personally believe, that also is a complex (and, barely coherent) mix which has changed, and re-changed, over the decades. Since it is not set in stone, I’ll hold it to myself for now.
 
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#619
Maybe Tolstoy discovered that but he wasn't able to tell (anecdote):
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#620
Ken Newton said:
I believe, that is also a fundamental Hindu/Buddhist philosophy. Life (by it’s very nature) is suffering. Therefore, the object of life is to ascend the soul out of this cycle of continuing reincarnation by living a ‘proper’ life, which then eventually earns release.
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I don't believe in Heaven & Hell, but human life surely seems to contain aspects of - Purgatory.
With that said, it could make sense that 'heaven & hell' are just descriptive words of how life can be 😕
 
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