October 25, 2004
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To be happy.
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We have known the answer since 1983.
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Earth is perhaps God's favorite reality TV program. If you are not useful or entertaining enough you get voted off the planet.
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To attempt to understand the purpose of the contingent universe.
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As soon as these people find out what life is, they should get one.
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life is a gun
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'Plant a tree': check. 'Write a book': mmhhh... well, maybe if I printed out every single post or comment I've made on the net in the last 5 years... could it be exchanged to 'publish a video'? 'Have a child': Ah, now there's a big one... I think I'd have to settle with 'make someone happy at least once in their lifetime'. That one's easier. And more enjoyable.
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What is the meaning of life? Who really knows, I think each individual comes up with their own answer and I doubt any two people see it the same. Sometimes I think life is a joke, and you really don't know the meaning until the punchline is delivered at the end of your life.
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What was that about hats again?
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Here is the answer. Well, in that case, what is the question? -- Gertrude Stein, alleged to have been her last words
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Earth is perhaps God's favorite reality TV program. disturbing thought has crossed my mind as well. Here is the answer. [WARNING: Spoilers!] I thought it was either this or this.
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When you get there, there isn't any there there. --Gertrude Stein
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42.
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When you get there, there isn't any there there. --Gertrude Stein So, Oakland, California is the meaning of life? Who knew?
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"Dr. Vonnegut said this to his doddering old dad: 'Father, we are here to help each other get through this thing, whatever it is.' So I pass that on to you. Write it down, and put it in your computer, so you can forget it."
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The meaning is to realize that the answer can not be found, and is instead what you make it to be.
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There is no meaning. There's no end result, no ultimate sum, no grand plan, no eventual outcome. Life just *is*. You come aware, you meander through for however many years, bringing weal or woe or a balance between, and then your awareness ends. Nothing more. It is humanity's greatest and most absurd vanity, to believe that there must be something else, something after, some glorious reason, some colossal galactic Project into which they figure, like so many wheel-cogs or princely sons, with some titanic invisible overlord who, at once somehow comprised of pure love and casual indifference to his purported creatures, guiding we pitiful hairless apes through a decades-long comprehensive exam and, ultimately, either reward or suffering. Hmph. Be of good cheer, lend a bit of happiness to those around you, tend to your families and friends, take what pleasures this life offers as they come, and go to your grave smiling in the knowledge that you have made a tiny bit of the world an infinitesimally better place. That is not only all the reason there is, it is more than enough.
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What Fes said ... also whar clifflesniak said
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More Vonnegut, this time from the novel God Bless You Mr. Rosewater : Kind of off-topic: There's a new Vonnegut piece up at In These Times (titled Requiem for a Dreamer), in which Kurt interviews his alter ego Kilgore Trout.
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I fear that 42 is the answer to the ultimate question of life, the universe, and everything. It's not, unfortunately, the meaning of life. If the ultimate question were "What is the meaning of life?", and the answer were 42, then we really would have wasted all that time building computers. They, I mean. They would have wasted time. Of course. And to add my bit of pop philosophy: The meaning of life is to live.
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To bee.
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I don't know, but it has something to do with the fact that everything has happened before. ;)
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I'll get back to you.
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Life is what passes you by while you're busy contemplating reasons for your existence. Now go live.
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hmmm...I object to the inherent assumption (in the question) that there IS a meaning to life... however, in the meanwhile, I think you should all relax, enjoy the company of yr loved ones, eat some good food & perhaps watch a little porn...
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Enjoy every sandwich.
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The meaning of life is to live a life of meaning. Oh, and throw some porn in there, too.
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Ah, got it. I am tea.
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Fes: I agree with you. Finding a way to make life at least marginally better for the oncoming waves of humanity is about the best we can do as far as "meaning of life" is concerned. And, a large part of that is caring for and, maybe, even teaching family and acquaintenances things that will let them make life better for themselves and others. The improvements may not show up as a consistently rising line on the "goodness graph", but, it seems to me, that the long term progess of humanity has been consistent. And, a large part of that is because we really are a race of monkeys - curious, communicative, inventive and energetic. And, in our own niche, able to come up with our own petty philosophies about the past and the future.
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I'd enjoy every sandwich, if those !@#$ Subway "Sandwich Artists" would quit putting olives on them when I specifically asked them to HOLD THE OLIVES! As for "42", the Great DNA missed that one. Eveybody knows "37" is a much more humorous number. But I think the wisest (maybe unintentionally) thing John Lennon ever said was: "Life is what happens to you while you're busy making other plans."
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The Meaning of Life
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I disagree with Fes because he as much knows that there isn't a point or a God as the people he's criticizing. I think in order to find the meaning of your life you need to find out what's useless and see if there's a way to give it up, to gradually free yourself from dellusion. Just being nice seems like a waste as it doesn't really amount to that great a quality of life and there seems to be better options. I think you'll also find that as you disgard certain things you'll find care for all things as they were yourself, becaues they are. You'll have no fear of hell and no fear of wasting your time. One of the biggest problems we have is looking far off into the distance and wondering how to get there instead of attending what's right at our feet. "The essence of the so-called capitalist world or the communist world is not an evil volition to subject their people by the power of indoctrination or the power of finance but simply the natural ambition of any organization to plan all its actions."-Godard, "Alphaville" "He not busy being born is busy dying"-Dylan /Curmudgeony (admitated hypocritical) Hermit
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I don't know, I looked on google and I couldn't find the answer. I did find an interesting quotes page devoted to the question though. (just hit refresh for a new quote)
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More seriously, I think I'd buy into Fes' 2nd paragraph, but I believe almost the opposite of Fes' 1st paragraph. Less seriously, why not just ask googlism. And sure enough there we have it:
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Consider Thoreau's take on it: "I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived. I did not wish to live what was not life, living is so dear; nor did I wish to practice resignation, unless it was quite necessary. I wanted to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life, to live so sturdily and Spartanlike as to put to rout all that was not life, to cut a broad swath and shave close, to drive life into a corner, and reduce it to its lowest terms, and, if it proved to be mean, why then get the whole and genuine meanness of it, and publish its meanness to the world; or if it were sublime, to know it by experience, and be able to give a true account of it in my next excursion. For most men, it appears to me, are in a strange uncertainty about it, whether it is of the devil or of God, and have somewhat hastily concluded that it is the chief end of man here to 'glorify God and enjoy him forever.'"