There are so many "meanings of life" or necessary reasons for living in the material world on Earth that people have come up with over the years, and I've started making a list of some major ones:
- To enjoy it/pleasure.
- To suffer.
- To overcome suffering - and reach Nothingness/Oneness.
- To surrender and obey - to be a cog in a wheel - to do your duty.
- To live in harmony with the world/nature.
- To care for the environment.
- To fulfill the will or plan of a higher power.
- To achieve the highest good in an ethical way while also achieving personal fulfillment.
- To live with dignity in the face of absurdity.
- To embrace the eternal becoming.
- To learn.
- To become a god.
- To develop/to reach our potential.
- To remember.
- To reconcile past deeds.
- To make an impact/to create change (in others, in the world around us, - similar to develop).
- To create (includes procreation).
- To survive.
- There is no meaning.
- 42.
Many of these reasons are personal meanings, and people who believe in a subjective philosophy will claim that life itself has no objective inherent meaning. Therefore, the advice typically given is that we should find meaning in our own lives, (subjectively) however we can. What does life mean to YOU? How do YOU want to live it?
I've been thinking a lot about the meaning of life lately, and I think subjective meanings have their place in it, but I don’t think it’s the whole picture.
Sunrises Are Illusions Of Truth
My thinking is that subjective meanings of life - saying “life is what you make of it” - is like saying, “Look at the sunrise.”
It’s not saying, “Look, the Earth revolves around the Sun.” Rather, it’s saying, “That holistic view doesn't matter. Look at the sunrise. The sunrise is what matters, because that’s your view.”
But the sunrise is not the truth. It’s a piece of the truth.
The sunrise is a single view, and everyone sees it differently. But how can we see things outside of ourselves, outside of this universe, and the life we've been placed in?
We can’t. Not yet anyway. But we can think more about how to look at it differently, from a more holistic perspective. And how do we start looking at things differently? We ask a question...or a few questions.
Questions About The Bigger Picture
My first question starts as, “What are we doing on Earth other than just merely surviving?”
My second question is, “Why do we need to survive?”
To my understanding, both of these questions seem to have a similar answer. What answer did I find? I’ll let you know in the next post!
In the meantime, leave a comment about what you think the answer might be. How would you answer these questions?
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Thanks for Konnecting with me!
R.M.K.
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