What do you keep living for? Is there a specific person, goal, or idea that you work for? Is there no meaning to life in your opinion?
Context: I’ve been reading Camus and Sartre, and thinking about how their ideas interact with hard determinism.
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I’m not sure if believe in a “meaning” to life, but I’m here for a good time. I’m married (2nd time) with 3 kids. I work to support us and pay the bills. But why do I keep living? Why not kill myself in leiu having a cup of coffee? Because death is inevitable and if it’s going to happen anyway, I can use the brief time here to experience all that I can.
I figure the Universe is going to go on with or without me and there’s not a thing I can do to change anything. But I’m not here to change the Universe, I’m here so it can change me. I’m a bird soaring through an infinite void with a brief passing through a bright window. Why not appreciate the view while it lasts? And if I can, why not try to make anyone’s else’s brief time out of the void a good time too? Life is absurd, existence is chaos, and it’s all just funny as absolute shit.
I think really, there’s no reason for anything but ice cream is good, hikes in the woods are rad, hanging out with pets and friends is joy. Why stop doing that just because nothing matters?
Damn. I’m saving this in my notes.
This is my philosophy. I credit George Carlin for summarizing it with “People who see life as anything more than pure entertainment are missing the point.”
Because death is inevitable and if it’s going to happen anyway, I can use the brief time here to experience all that I can.
There it is. As far as we know, this is the one chance we have at existence. Revel in it.
Meaning is something imposed on reality by consciousness, not something necessarily inherent to existence itself. I am here because here is where I am. What that means to me is that I should have a good time while the opportunity persists because all evidence seems to insist that the chance will not last forever.
So, eat. Be merry. Protect that which moves me and those who can not protect themselves. Help others to do the same. That’s the meaning of life to me.
I’m going to throw a trigger warning on this next part just in case:
suicide ideation
I have been living with major depression for decades. I am taking medication for it, but that just makes it more manageable; it doesn’t go away.
I am alive today because killing myself would hurt the people I love. Also, because I have a cat that I love very much, and I don’t want him to have to miss me. Also, this is a much more minor driver, but I am excited for new seasons of my favorite shows and for movies I haven’t seen and books I haven’t read.
I find living to be a burden, but I feel obligated to do it because of my relationships. At the very least, though, I can find entertainment while doing it.
You might be underselling entertainment to yourself here. Experiencing creation and your own interpretation of these creations is pretty fucking magical when you think about it.
First, great choice in reading (Im a fan of Camus as well).
As for the meaning of life thing…
Thats the neat part. You don’t.
Thats why in absurdist fiction like Hitchhikers guide to the Galaxy the answer to life, the universe and everything is 42. Its not supposed to make sense and the universe is under no obligation to do so for you (the books even postulate that the universe does not want anyone to know so if someone figures it out it winks out of existance and replaced itself with something weirder, some scientists think this has happened before).
That goes back to Camus point about the remedies for the bleakness of early-mid 20th century philosophy. He proposed three options, Nhilism, a leap of faith (looking at you Kierkegaard), or absurdism, the last being what the doctor perscribes, but also requires the most effort because you have to find your question to the ultimate answer your self… Or not, who cares. Lets go spend some time by a lake that thinks its a gin & tonic.
I hope that I can come around to the absurdist perspective sooner or later, it does seem quite appealing to me, but I’m still yet to be convinced by Camus’ argument that the rebellion against the absurd has any more value than your other options. How would you say you find that sort of value?
Lets break down the arguments, and throw up that content warning because were about to do a philosophy.
(Sad dead Dutch/French thinkers)
The first option was to embrace Nhilism, this option is the worst outcome because one of the logical outcomes is if the universe has no meaning, why, as a part of the universe, should you. We’re going to drop this option right here because one of the physical representation of this viewpoint is suicide and thats not a healthy state of mind to be in, plus someone would have to clean up your mess.
The second option is Soren Kierkegaards leap of faith, by putting your faith (synonomys with “meaning of life” in this context) in something other than your self, you are no longer responsible for it. A leap of faiths original intent was to join a religion (cough christianity cough), but this is Lemmy and atheists abound in the 21st century so there isnt much point delving into this option here. The point is that your faith is put into an entity higher than yourself. I would argue that it does not need to be an abastract entity like the abrahamic god, gaia or Tom Cruise anymore, anything that can be used to provide a higher objective meaning works (as irrational as it is). This option could be viewed as suicide in a philosopical sense because you cease seeking meaning, because you claim to have already found it.
The final point, rejection of the absurd, is unfortunatly the last option and also requires the most effort. To use it as a personal philosophy involves the rejection of objective meaning and focusing on subjective meaning in spite of the absurdity of it all. That is the part that I feel takes effort, spite (without anger) is a taxing state of mind to maintain, and it does not provide the structures that tends to come with the package of option two. To quote many of the other thread and to use it as a jumping off point, the phrase “Do no harm”, the first word is Do, an action, something altered in the universe, something changed. If the universe is meaningless, then to revolt is to simply doing something and putting in the effort to make it a subjectivly good something.
This is the point where people would comicly point out that Camus being very French (Algerian), rebelion and revolt are sorta their national past times, and Ive always gotten a chuckle out of that.
Damn this took all day to write and got a little rambly… Thank you for coming to my TEDTalk.
Thanks for the detailed response! It’s helping Camus’ writing make a bit more sense, still not 100% convinced but this is getting me closer.
Glad I could help. Remember a personal pilosophy is subjective, your going to have to reach those conclusions on your own. But if you want to talk shop, nerds are here to help.
I’m not the original poster, but their perspective resonates with mine quite well.
We are biological beings of great fragility and complexity. I subscribe to some ‘spiritual’ ideas, but that stops when we get to the persistence of consciousness after death.
Absurdism simply recognizes our biology. Laughter releases feel-good chemicals. It is our refuge from the inexorable grind of raw-dogging reality.
If I had to choose a religion, it would be Bokononism.
“Tiger got to hunt, bird got to fly; Man got to sit and wonder ‘why, why, why?’ Tiger got to sleep, bird got to land; Man got to tell himself he understand.”
I ask myself this simple question: Are you making things better? I find meaning in helping others, and this is my guiding principle. I hope that when my time comes, I can say that I did make things better, that I did help others.
I keep living at this point simply because God wants me alive. If He didn’t, He would have killed me by now. When I was in a really dark place (I’m doing better now), I realised that killing myself was pointless, because if it was my time to die, God would take me from this life regardless. So God must still have a plan and uses for me and thus, I should still be alive, and that’s meaning enough for the fact that my body continues to operate.
Not to bully your belief here but how would you justify this with the fact that God allows many really bad people to live? Just curious of understanding this mindset and I hope this doesn’t offend you.
Quite a few reasons I can give:
Through bad people, good can still happen. For example, the passion narrative. Bad people caused the execution of Jesus, but through that, we believe we can get salvation
Some people got a positive opportunity out of wars, COVID, etc (The lockdown may have saved me, it pulled me out of a dark place)
God is patient. Bad people can still repent and come to God.
Bad things on earth are actually eternally insignificant if you believe that eventually all of it will be wiped out, which plays into the patience aspect. Just say you’re in heaven for two thousand years, you’re not really going to worry anymore about 100 years you spent on earth that were absolutely horrible.
These are just my thoughts on the matter. A lot of people do have varied responses to the “problem of evil”
I tried to justify this (if one insists on the existence of a god), through the argument that dangerous and bad things exist in nature as well, such as storms, lightning, floodings, earthquakes, and chimps that go to war with each other etc. and likewise, violent and bad things exist among humans.
However, I cant really convince myself that it’s comparable. Actual evil did not really exist before be came along and started torturing each other. (The church and christians have been through many iterations of hard questions and tough answers to their own riddles, and overall, I think it has been a sum positive for humanity, in trying to explain, and to figure out the question of evil in general.)
So no, I don’t have a, from the hip, justification from god, why evil people would still exist. Perhaps the world just is a better place, with snakes in it, than without. It gives us something good to do?
I can however confidently state that really bad people have been here among humanity many times before, and they have all, in one way or another, left again, and somehow we manage to sustain a world, that is continuously improving and trying to become a better and better place. Getting rid of bad people, snakes, and natural dangers.
I know that there are serious crises and problems we still have to solve, but we tend to forget all the past evils that we have defeated. We are not being actively overrun by mongols from the east, and not every family loses several small children before they reach the age of 5. Most people have enough, and we still keep working to make sure that fewer and fewer people will suffer in the future.
Ngl that’s a really unsatisfying position imo. There are and have been people who had nothing but suffered in their entire existence with zero meaning like slave babies born with extreme deformities. This thought exercise completely dispels any idea of a present god in my point of view.
Yeah I agree. There are some absolutely ridiculous explanations and excuses, to answer plotholes like that. “The Lord works in mysterious ways”. We have more than 1500 years of made up explanations, to solve made up statements.
I’ve got a lot of respect for theists, and would truly love to be convinced of this sort of perspective. Thanks for bringing it to the table!
Thank you! I don’t want to seem pushy or pressuring, but what eventually convinced me was the historicity of Jesus Christ (as opposed to scientific arguments, etc) and it kind of hinged off of that.
Thank you, will give it a try! I wouldn’t be able to call myself a nonresistant nonbeliever if I resisted this :)
Okay, I’ve watched the videos, but unfortunately they don’t fix my main issue with the bible, that being there are no contemporary (as in written within the subsequent decades), non-Christian sources for any miracle alleged in the bible. In particular, the dead rising and walking around the towns on Good Friday as talked of in the Gospels isn’t recorded in any Roman source we have from the time, and I think that such an act would have been recorded. It seems to me that it is more likely that these stories of miracles survived with Christians for a few hundred years, before being disseminated into the popular account of Jesus’ life as Christianity grew in popularity.
They also don’t fix any of my other problems with Christianity, such as the problem of evil, principally relating to animal suffering, or divine hiddenness. Still, I feel more informed than before, so thank you!
Matthew 27:51-54
And behold, the curtain of the temple was torn in two, from top to bottom. And the earth shook, and the rocks were split. The tombs also were opened. And many bodies of the saints who had fallen asleep were raised, and coming out of the tombs after his resurrection they went into the holy city and appeared to many. When the centurion and those who were with him, keeping watch over Jesus, saw the earthquake and what took place, they were filled with awe and said, “Truly this was the Son of God!”
I struggled with the tomb openings as well. An interpretation I’ve heard for it is that they were spiritually resurrected, to show that they were free from Hades and appeared in spirit (Christians commonly refer to this as “The Harrowing of Hell”) to show that. There isn’t much of an indication that they were there for too long - the tombs breaking open could have been a result of the earthquake as well.
I think it is important to remember how records survived- There is no historical written record of Pompeii (which likely held a lot of high ranking Romans) being destroyed. Just a single reference to it by Pliny the Younger. It was likely witnessed by a quarter of a million people, though, yet all we know about it is archaeology. So I believe it is actually completely possible that the only written record we have of the saints breaking free from the tombs in a rebellious city on the edge of the empire is from Matthew. John even said more stuff happened that he couldn’t even write down.
John 21:25 ESV
Now there are also many other things that Jesus did. Were every one of them to be written, I suppose that the world itself could not contain the books that would be written.
It is also worth noting a similar objection existed to the existence of Pontius Pilate until 1961 when they found a rock with his name carved onto it, and from there it was treated as historical fact.
I believe how stuff was recorded then compared to now differs greatly. Something happens in a village here and several articles are written and published for the world to see. While back then, someone had to write it down on paper, and for that to survive until now the paper had to either not get destroyed over 200 years, or be copied several times.
I suppose my issue there is that you have shown the reasons I believe in the other events, but not in Jesus’ miracles: we have archeological evidence for Pompeii, and a separate source for Pontias Pilate. If Pompeii had just been the offhand reference by Pliny then I don’t know if it would be so easy to believe. But I’ve grown up able to literally see the ash covered bodies. And I think you’ve summed up the issue with Pilate exactly, that he was only known of from one source, until we had another corroborating it.
Should any extra evidence present itself for the rising of the dead on Good Friday, I’ll be a lot more likely to come around, but I still don’t think that it can be appropriately corooborated.
I really appreciate you taking the time to talk this out, I’m definitely something of a bible novice so your help is very appreciated :)
The thing is, what archaeological evidence could you produce for Jesus’ miracles? Same with dead people walking about for a few days. In terms of social status, Jesus was a peasant. Possibly the stepson of a carpentry business owner (since He seems to be well educated and referred to as a carpenter) so not growing up living in dirt, per say, but was still just an ordinary dude. I’ve heard some people make a case for the Shroud of Turin, but I wouldn’t base my faith on it. As people also have opposite arguments and it kind of randomly appeared in like the fourteenth century. In terms of archaeology, I believe the best thing we have is evidence for the Church itself- followers of Jesus. If you don’t mind me posting another YouTube video, here you go
Thanks for the video, will check it out!
I think that my main issue is that this stuff is just straight up supernatural, to the point where I would need hard evidence, for example contemporary accounts from people neutral towards or opposing Christianity before I could believe it. I’m not going to commit to believing in something unless there is appropriate evidence for it, and Jesus’ miracles just happened too long ago to be verifiable.
I really appreciate you taking the time to talk to me about this!
I live to be in peace, hang out with my cat and have fun. That’s pretty much it. Right now having fun is trying to fix an old radio.
Hey, this is broken. What if I dedicate my life fixing it, that would be cool. That’s how I found my meaning.
there is no inherent meaning to life.
i choose to continue living each day because a) i am still enjoying myself enough to stick around, b) i’m a chicken and nothing has motivated me to voluntarily face quicker death just yet, c) i am committed to not fucking up my kids in that particular way if i can continue to avoid it, and d) i do work that matters and eases the suffering of others to create meaning for myself.
I have a lot of books left to read.
Books and computer games for me
You’re in luck, there’s a whole movie devoted to this very topic.
Although, basically, it’s nothing very special. Uh, try and be nice to people, avoid eating fat, read a good book every now and then, get some walking in, and try and live together in peace and harmony with people of all creeds and nations.
The purpose of life is not served by fretting about what its purpose is.
It’s a bit like sitting on a roller coaster rubbing your chin and wondering how to monetize the experience. Just put your hands up and scream. It’s nice.
The closest thing to meaning I believe in is derived from evolution. Meaning for me is to lift myself and those around me.
I don’t think life has any kind of inherent meaning; it simply arose from random physical processes when the conditions were right and took off from there. I keep living mostly because it’s kind of the default, and because I don’t want to hurt others with my death.
This is it. You die and you are gone, gone, gone. Make every day count and don’t waste time bargaining with an imaginary god for a preferred place in her cinematic universe.
It’s not grim. It’s extremely freeing. ‘Now’ is all there is.
Make every day count
But that’s such horrible pressure.
I have felt that once upon a time. But since there is no external meaning, I have decided our main purpose is to fart around a lot. I greatly enjoy those days when I can just be, without pressure to produce something.
Maybe that’s inner peace?
But those days where you just relax and enjoy yourself count as good days so that’s ok too.
