What are you here to learn and who are your teachers? By 'here' I mean planet earth. Some, no doubt, feel that existance is meaningless but for those of us who feel that we were put on earth for a reason, what do you think your reason is? Is there anyone who you would credit for being your muse?
Good question. I always think that we are here to achieve something and learning comes with trying to achieve that something. What I mean I learn when I trying to brigde something, like a meaning or an idea. Passive learning where one is told to learn without being given a particular reason is not my idea of learning. I consider learning active where by the person is trying to link something to another. Existence is not meaningless what is meaningless is what you bring to yourself and existence . If the things/objects/language/interest in which one has encircled himself/herself with are pointless and dull then their existence by merit is meaningless too. I am still trying to understand the meaning of 'muse'.
I think we all have our reasons and that it's important to find a reason that is durable - living for your significant other might be fine but what happens if you suddenly broke up? People fall into severe depressions over having no direction in their life or reason for living, and it's becoming really common since now our lives are more isolated than ever - people living alone instead of in close family or community groups. It's good to find a reason that can't be disturbed like living to learn, or to try and just be kind to anyone around you. I know I sound a bit hippyish saying that, ha. Back on topic, I decided I'm here to experience the world and be an observer. There's people who dedicate themselves to changing things but that seems like too much effort to me. The world will go on. I also live to improve myself.
Well, nothing has a meaning, it just happened so that we 'evolved' to this state, and are still going forward. We don't have a preliminary 'reason', we just are. And so we, ourselves, take/choose a 'purpose' for ourselves. What better purpose would there be than to do whatever is necessary to ensure our survival as a reasonable species for as long as possible?
I think we are all synthesizer/transmitters. Each one of us has had different experiences, read different books, studied different subjects, etc. We take these threads of learning and make connections between them; we weave them into our own picture of our own reality. That's the synthesis. Then, we transmit that to others. Most people transmit it to their children, and it becomes part of the tapestry of their lives. Part of the reason I want to become a published writer is that I have no children, so I want to transmit my picture of my reality another way, to other people, through storytelling. If everyone on planet Earth did this, there would be a gradual synthesis and filtering of everyone's knowledge and wisdom, generation after generation, and at some point, maybe in the far future, somebody is going to have one damn big epiphany!
I thought one was already had on the 6th of January by the Christians of this earth. The twelve day to be precise but why 6 if it is twelve is another question.
I don't really no what I truly believe. I feel like whilst some aspects of my life have been good (enjoying writing, roleplaying and stuff) other things have been bad. Its come to the point where all I can do is blame myself for missing golden opportunities. I think we forge our purpose, and in our mistakes we learn to correct them to an extent. Still the meaning of life is what you make it. It's doesn't matter what a scientist thinks. Life is yours to experience.
Life starts and ends the same for everyone. There is no inherent meaning to life, you create the meaning yourself.
everything i possibly can... have always wished i could learn everything there is to know about everything, but realize the probable impossiblity of that! everyone who is and ever was... everything that is and ever was... to be useful... no one in particular, though the gandhis, mother theresa, princess diana, benazir bhutto, aung san soo kyi, among others, were/are certainly role models...
There is an idea I read recently, which I really love and becomes truer for me the more I think on it. We all have 5 great loves, 5 great enemies and 5 great teachers in our lives. But because we all look the same, we'll never know who these people are to us until we've loved them, fought them or left them. I guess I'm just trying to be open to everyone (within reason) because I wont know who my great teachers are until after I've learned whatever they have to teach me. And I suppose our reason is to be one of those things for someone else.
There is no meaning, no great plan, and certainly no 'divine' reason why someone as insignificant as myself, he equivalent of a microscopic piece of sand in the grand scheme of the universe, should be alive. Despite the melancholy start to this post, i'm quite upbeat really. I intend to make a name for myself, probably in the football world, and create atleast a small piece of glory for myself so that in ages to come perhaps somewhere, in a tiny book on the sports and stars of yester-year, I will be remembered. I'll enjoy every second I have on this planet, life is to be enjoyed! Oh, and hopefully I can improve something. Anything, no matter how small. Perhaps i'll set-up a youth academy in a poor area in Africa in my later years, see if I can give a platform to kids who might otherwise not have one. That kind of thinking anyway, too young to plan ahead just yet "What kind of man would I be, if I did not try to make the world a better place?"
Well, I'm a believer in reincarnation, which means that my soul is here to gain greater wisdom and eventually join with God (or the Higher Being, if you prefer). So while my physical self may not understand why I'm here or what lessons I'm learning, my soul does. I do try to keep that in mind when things get rough.
*nods* I believe in rebirth, a close cousin of reincarnation. And with that, I suppose it's time for me to weigh in on this thread myself. I've always felt I was here to learn more about love. My greatest teachers in that endeavor have been my father, daughter and wife.
"The point" is to do what humans have always done since the very beginning...learn, experience, conquer, challenge, invent, reinvent, push, etc etc "My point" is to help in this effort..(while securing a life that I'd find enjoyable). If you disagree with this answer than "your point" is to come up with a better one.
The lesson is compassion. The teachers are the weak and the broken. My attendance record is not so good. When I'm feeeling all spiritual and fuzzy - usually on a Thursday - I quite like Kilgore Trout's (Kurt Vonnegut's) take on the thing: We are here to be the eyes and ears and conscience of the creator of the universe. On days other than Thursday, just being me seems enough. I hope others - who entertain nothing deeper or broader -are able to feel the same too.
The Purpose of Being Human I am about to delve into the reasons why we humans are here on earth, trying to find answers to write about. I think all of us must find a way to express an individual answer to why we think we are here. I have for this taken the following approach to see if I can understand some of the meanings of life if you like. Human intelligence serves a purpose, in the same way that our physiological body from head to toes serves a purpose too. If would say we have eyes so that we can see, we have feet so that we walk and we have a reproductive so that we can reproduce and go on eternally on this earth and if we have a brain that is to help think and communicate for survival again. The idea I wish to debate links me to the other thread about 'the dark side', that all humans harbour dark sides within them, in that it cannot be helped. Having established that the human body and brain is geared towards a speficic function each in order to survive My question is this: 1)what is the purpose of a dark side if we all have it in us? in the same way as one might ask 2)what is the purpose of positive feelings/a lighter positive side?
Humans evolved on this planet, and we are suited well to the way things are here. To say we are here for any other purpose, or for some ultimate goal is to me self-aggrandising. We still have the aggression and tenancy to violence that - you know - stopped us from completely dying out as a species. We are here because our progenitors fought, and lived long enough to have children; we are not perfect, and nor are we in any way separate from the rest of life on earth. The only difference between us and the other life forms around us is that we have the genius to imagine possibilities, and build civilisation.
We are a coincidence. If not for the mass exctinction of the dinosaurs towards the end of the cretaceous (might be right) then our evolution process would have been hindered significantly, and if not for the ice age then our need for fire and adaptation would have halted our evoltutionary process. Taking a phrase from a advert I saw on television. We are all the sons and daughters of Catastrophe. Now onto question: the dark side in us can be seen as the reason we get angry and frustrated, it's our primal fear and our need to survive. Of course in extreme case mankind's evil has been witnessed by many. Belief, Idealogy and difference all impact our feelings towards one another. If not for the restraint during the cold war period then who knows what would have happened in Nuclear weapons had been launched. Where unusual in that we pride ourselves in our creation, our imaginative power told for generations through song, poem, or story tellers. and then on the other scale is our capacity to destroy, untemperable at times and unyielding (two of my favourite words for some reason, since they can have such an impact in writing...). Anyway, The French Revolution and the Great Terror is something Ive been studying in history, and then you got the Stalin's ruthless purges. Give humanity power and we abuse it. Give us reason to complain and we fight. We are animals at heart, we evolved from small creatures and he were are today. Foolishly believing we are the kings and queens of mother earth. Where not.
I'm not sure I even understand the question, but my very simple answer is that as a general rule of thumb humans need balance to be mentally/emotionally/physically healthy. Maybe we all have a dark side so that those of us who want to be good will strive to do anything we can to defy that part of us. Or maybe it's a survival mechanism that stays dormant until/unless we ever actually need it. On the other hand, I feel like people are neither good or bad. The concept of good and evil is very human idea. Good and evil, light and dark. It's all so very relative and objective but ultimately I think these ideas only coexist to give each other meaning. To me, things and people just are. They're neither good or bad unless we choose to define them.
