The Meaning of Life (a talk from the tunnel)
Walking underground, under the Shinano River, in the tunnel, and thinking aloud.
Feel free to join me tonight. The weather is cool, no one's around, and the stars are out, so, what's it all about?
~KafkA
Graham Smith is a Voluntaryist activist, creator, and peaceful parent residing in Niigata City, Japan. Graham runs the "Voluntary Japan" online initiative with a presence here on Steem, as well as Facebook and Twitter. (Hit me up so I can stop talking about myself in the third person!)
I know the meaning of life, occasionally. Then I forget. Then I remember again. And unfortunately, I can't explain it to anyone else. But I think that anyone who's asking the question also knows sometimes. And somehow I also feel that the answer is also within the act of asking the question.
It is an interesting place to stop and think about where you are going, what you are doing. I can imagine the focus it brings without the distractions of the world, you drop the "white noise" of life and meditate. I get so focused and tunnel visioned on succeeding in things, I lose track of why. I think we all just want to be happy, but we somehow lose focus on what really does make us happy. The world is so fucked up and people are so fucked up, I think we're kind of lost in a way. I can buy a new car or trinket and be mildly happy for a week, I can get blasted drunk and be happy for a night, but none of that really lasts. Maybe it's about focusing our goals properly. Perhaps life is just about learning, what is important, what is real, about all the things we can do to fuck it up for ourselves and everyone else by our attitude and action. If we were all given a second chance at life, with none of our previous attachments and all of our knowledge, we would all make better choices (hypothetically) and therefore everyone would be more fulfilled.
The meaning of life, in my view, is to identify our purpose in this world, for ourselves, the people around us and specifically the ones who care about us, and ensure that our words or actions bring nothing but positivity during the time we have here. Life shouldn't be measured by the number of years we get to live, instead, it is "how" we choose to spend each moment that we are blessed with.
If we can learn to live our lives wisely and spread love all around us, we will be remembered when we're done here. If not, trust me, the world already has enough shit to deal with and we will be long forgotten!
I'll have to catch this on lunch today. Keep hustling.
Cheers, @chieppa1. Will do.
@kafkaanarchy84 - I can feel why that long tunnel make you think about life and direction. (You stated it a bit late - almost 2/3rds in into the video but I felt exactly the same way when I saw that long tunnel). Well said about life not being about drills, money or sex. I do think those things play a bit of a part in shaping our lives but they are not the end game. Reflecting on my own direction is something I have done but frankly, those reflections have not given me the ultimate answer. Let us keep thinking.
I also liked the concept of 'callouses of brain'. I think we deliberately force ourselves repeatedly in some situations and callous some parts of our brains so they become insensitive. Sad but true.
Thanks for this wonderful video. Upvoted full.
Life is nothing but love, Love and love. Love for kids ,wife, parents and of course friends which you may forget to mention. Friends,are intengel part of our lives, so life is true friendship too. Thanks for sharing I think you are becoming thought full in that particular place tunnel, yes some times we have to overcome with such thoughts, yes this is reality this is life. Wish you a very good time friend happy steeming
Todays generation be like.
Meaning is just thought and so can only exist in the minds of individuals. Because of this, there cannot possibly be any objective meaning of life. Each and every one of us can determine our own meaning for ourselves and we need not impose them on others.
I agree. I hope you don't feel such an imposition was attempted here. Just my thoughts.
That would be, by your own definition, your subjective view, as such an absolute statement depends on the transmission of meaning itself to be made, no?
The heart's "meaning" is to pump blood. I don't think anyone would argue here. To me, meaning and function are similar, if not the same thing, in many cases.
If morality can be objective, then meaning can as well. The heart's meaning is to pump blood. It "means" and "intends" to, biologically speaking.
The principle of self-ownership is an objective reality, but if nobody knows what it means, it cannot be anything at all.
As you say, though, "meaning" may be different from my "meaning of life," and it would be an exercise moral illegitimacy to attempt to foist and force my definition of "the meaning of life" onto others.
Words are packets of data that carry meaning that's agreed upon by the users of the language. So when I say "there cannot possibly be any objective meaning of life," it's a statement regarding the agreed-upon meanings of the words being used. In this case, the words in question would be "meaning" and "life." Ergo, the statement was one of objective fact, not subjective opinion.
The heart has an objectively observable function (pumping blood) but not a meaning.
Strictly speaking, I'd have to argue against morality itself being objective. To some cultures, the accumulation of power and the spreading of their genes are regarded as the highest good and ideas like the NAP would be disgusting to them. However, once we establish a common underlying moral principle, we can treat everything that follows objectively because of the agreed-upon meaning of the words used. In other words, once we establish a foundational principle like "using the property of others without their consent is bad," we can tie everything else logically back to this. This is why we should be highly suspicious of anyone that says "that's just semantics." Semantics are actually a super big deal because it's how we logically trace things back to our foundational principles and it's how we can spot logical inconsistencies and fallacies. It's how a subjective concept like morality can be explored, developed, and managed in an objective manner.
I hope this is making sense. I'd totally be down for a live chat sometime to hash it out over more bandwidth.
I like what you are saying here, and the clarification about your statement makes sense to me. We agree on the meaning of the words "meaning" and "life" and thus can understand your statement's meaning via shared definitions of terms (shared data packets).
I'll have to think about this some more.
That's cool that you are able to walk under the river like that and not in any danger. If we had something like this back in North America, I can see numerous problems that would arise.
Yeah, it's a pretty safe society here--unreal safe, actually--generally speaking.
Hi friend! Thanks a lot for making us a company of your evening walk, through tunnel... The 'life' in true sense is somewhere meaningless... Because death is the ultimate reality of birth.. I, e life... Knowing this have anyone stop to run in race of life? No... Never.... Everybody has taken part in" life race"...by legally or illegally.... Just running and running... But we should never try to win in race by indiscipline manner... And we should previously decide the route of our run... before start the run... Then none have the fear of fallen on ground... We will surely win...
there are two things with pairs , birth & death, good & bad , happy & sad .
Our lives full of these pairs.
Ya really friend... Thanks for your response..