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What is the meaning of life?

Erk

By Erk,
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Erk

Erk

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Or rather, what is your meaning in life? I certainly have my own answer. Or must there be an answer? Should life even have meaning? What is 'meaning' in the first place?

 

Also, any philosophical role players out there? I'm thinking of having some nice philosophical/intellectual role playing thing going on.

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Dogberry

Dogberry

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Posted

The open steppe, fleet horse, falcons at your wrist, and the wind in your hair.

 

Wait, no.

 

To crush your enemy. To see them driven before you, and to hear the lamentations of their women.

 

That's what is best, sure, but not necessarily what life is.

 

I just want to live up to my full potential.

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Gegenji

Gegenji

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Oddly enough, I don't like putting a lot of thought into this sort of question. It can get... depressing.

 

Mostly because I can look around and see people who are so much further along or doing greater things than I am. I see the twelve-year-olds with amazing artistic skill on DeviantArt, I hear about my friends who have gotten to work on comic books or are group-funded to work on their video game. I talk with folks and they're so certain and definite in what they want to do in life, and are gunning to do it.

 

Meanwhile, I just feel like I'm eternally floundering. When I was a kid, I wanted to get a science-y job. Then I joined the military. Then I went to college to major in video game design. Now I'm a contract programmer jumping from programming language to programming language and feeling forever lost. I get told to seek certifications, but I don't know which ones to go for, which ones will be valid in this ever shifting work landscape I find myself in.

 

I get I ideas, I start on my own projects, I feel insignificant and ignored, and I drop them. I've had multiple stories and ideas I've started on, sheepishly reached out for opinions, and lost my nerve when no one answers. I have ideas and concepts still floating in my head that I keep refining over and over again, feeling like they're not ready or I'm missing something crucial.

 

Maybe that's the meaning of my life, my purpose. To be forever flailing between content and worried, between self-assured and afraid of screwing up. A nebulous life of rubber-banding from emotion to emotion and somehow managing to stay somehow afloat despite all of it. I kinda hope I'm wrong, really.

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Erk

Erk

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The open steppe, fleet horse, falcons at your wrist, and the wind in your hair.

 

Wait, no.

 

To crush your enemy. To see them driven before you, and to hear the lamentations of their women.

 

That's what is best, sure, but not necessarily what life is.

 

Could you explain this a bit more? I'm a little slow. Do you mean that we can't achieve the best possible meanings because of reality?

The open steppe, fleet horse, falcons at your wrist, and the wind in your hair.

 

Wait, no.

 

To crush your enemy. To see them driven before you, and to hear the lamentations of their women.

 

That's what is best, sure, but not necessarily what life is.

 

I just want to live up to my full potential.

Sorry for sounding like an idiot, what is "driven before you"? Are the enemies tied to horses and they're being dragged around or do you actually see them mounted? 

 

I share your meaning of living up to my full potential too. I wonder why we have this meaning. Do we even have a "full" potential? Is it there like level cap or something?

The meaning of my life?  To craft the most amazing hot wings recipe that will make people super-happy.

 

...as you can see, there aren't an awful lot of deep thinkers on this board. <3

hot wings recipe? Is this like fried chicken? that sounds really tasty!

 

 

Oddly enough, I don't like putting a lot of thought into this sort of question. It can get... depressing.

 

Mostly because I can look around and see people who are so much further along or doing greater things than I am. I see the twelve-year-olds with amazing artistic skill on DeviantArt, I hear about my friends who have gotten to work on comic books or are group-funded to work on their video game. I talk with folks and they're so certain and definite in what they want to do in life, and are gunning to do it.

 

Meanwhile, I just feel like I'm eternally floundering. When I was a kid, I wanted to get a science-y job. Then I joined the military. Then I went to college to major in video game design. Now I'm a contract programmer jumping from programming language to programming language and feeling forever lost. I get told to seek certifications, but I don't know which ones to go for, which ones will be valid in this ever shifting work landscape I find myself in.

 

I get I ideas, I start on my own projects, I feel insignificant and ignored, and I drop them. I've had multiple stories and ideas I've started on, sheepishly reached out for opinions, and lost my nerve when no one answers. I have ideas and concepts still floating in my head that I keep refining over and over again, feeling like they're not ready or I'm missing something crucial.

 

Maybe that's the meaning of my life, my purpose. To be forever flailing between content and worried, between self-assured and afraid of screwing up. A nebulous life of rubber-banding from emotion to emotion and somehow managing to stay somehow afloat despite all of it. I kinda hope I'm wrong, really.

 

Thank you for sharing this wonderful albeit melancholic tale Gegenji! I too share some of these same feelings. I envy those who have made great leaps early in their life. I have done nothing yet with mine. I will hopefully, but this economic game that everyone plays is difficult for me. I can't live for security, so I opt out. I escape.

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TheLastCandle

TheLastCandle

Posted
Posted

To crush your en--oh. Beaten.

 

The open steppe, fleet horse, falcons at your wrist, and the wind in your hair.

 

Wait, no.

 

To crush your enemy. To see them driven before you, and to hear the lamentations of their women.

 

That's what is best, sure, but not necessarily what life is.

 

Don't tell us how to live our liiiiives! *shakes fist, startling the falcon at his wrist who casts him a baleful glance.*

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Aris

Aris

Posted
Posted

I get I ideas, I start on my own projects, I feel insignificant and ignored, and I drop them. I've had multiple stories and ideas I've started on, sheepishly reached out for opinions, and lost my nerve when no one answers. I have ideas and concepts still floating in my head that I keep refining over and over again, feeling like they're not ready or I'm missing something crucial.

 

Please feel free to share any of your ideas with us. Related to anything. If you wanted to, that is.

I know I speak for many when I say we'd be delighted to hear what's going on in your head and give feedback where we can. :)

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Nebbs

Nebbs

Posted
Posted

Life is to be, meaning is to do.. 

 

I suck at meaning.

 

So meaning is the action and life is the condition?

 

Suck at meaning? Do you mean you suck at doing things?

 

It can mean many things..

  • human-being to human-doing,
  • life is a gift, you add meaning to it by what you do,
  • do not ask what meaning life brings to you, but what you bring to life
  • if you prick me do I not leak?
  • it may be alive but it has no meaning

And yes I am lazy

 

and as an added extra

 

"I'm a Doctor, not a historian!"

"I'm a doctor, not a botanist."

"I'm a doctor, not a counterinsurgent!"

"I'm a doctor, not a dragonslayer!"

"I'm a doctor, not a peeping Tom!"

"I'm a doctor, not an engineer!"

"I'm a doctor, not a database!"

"I'm a doctor, not a battery!"

"I'm a doctor, not a performer!"

"I'm a doctor, not a zoo keeper!"

"I'm a doctor, not a voyeur!"

"I'm a doctor, not a bartender!"

"I'm a doctor, Mr. Neelix, not a decorator."

"I'm a doctor, not a doorstop!"

"I'm a doctor, not a commando!"

"What am I, a doctor or a moon shuttle conductor?"

"I'm a doctor, not a bricklayer!"

"I'm a surgeon, not a psychiatrist!"

"I'm a doctor, not a mechanic!"

"I'm not a scientist or a physicist, Mr. Spock..."

"I'm a doctor, not a escalator!"

"I'm not a magician, Spock, just an old country doctor."

"I will not peddle flesh! I'm a physician."

"I'm a doctor, not a coal miner!"

"I'm a Doctor, not an engineer!"

"Dammit man, I'm a Doctor not a physicist!"

"I'm a physician, not an engineer!"

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Warren Castille

Warren Castille

Posted
Posted

The open steppe, fleet horse, falcons at your wrist, and the wind in your hair.

 

Wait, no.

 

To crush your enemy. To see them driven before you, and to hear the lamentations of their women.

 

That's what is best, sure, but not necessarily what life is.

 

Could you explain this a bit more? I'm a little slow. Do you mean that we can't achieve the best possible meanings because of reality?

 

[video=youtube]

 

We were just being a bit silly.

 

To answer you seriously, though, "best" isn't something easily defined. For one person it might be meeting goals and achieving. For someone else it might just be living a carefree and stable life. There's no high score table in life, and while some folks might want to retire to water slides filled with pina colada, some just want a place to rest their head.

 

The purpose of life is variable. I'm just collecting stories on my way through.

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Dasair

Dasair

Posted
Posted

Oh gosh, oh gosh.

 

Hello, I am one of those 'philosophical roleplayers' you mentioned, not only due to generally leaning towards philosophical thought, but also because one part of my double major happens to be philosophy (for the sheer fact that I took so many classes in it due to enjoyment that I found I could major in it, oops).

 

There are so many answers to this question, and since philosophy was brought up, I will start with how I tend to consider myself (to the chagrin of most other philosophers) a 'relative Relativist' (not an official term, but just one I use for simplicity); such that I believe that there is no set or unchanging objectivity, and that things shift depending on the perspective and framework in which you look at them through, yet despite all this I myself do have solid opinions about what I feel is right.  I just acknowledge that what I think is not universally 'right', and that others are likely to always hold differing views.  So it's not the most extreme form of relativism, where one gets caught in traps of being unable to say anything is wrong.  I know what's wrong to me.  I know it might not be universally considered that way, maybe I even think it should be sometimes, but I acknowledge that it isn't.  To me, 'Truth' depends on the lens you're looking through, and what you choose to consider most important, by either category, situation, or some other perspective oriented framework; a person can never look at anything 'outside themselves' without their own bias to it, either by their understanding, their experiences, or even just by thinking in various languages, they'll always be restricted by their perception somehow.  Thus, I feel one can't ever see 'objective Truth', and the closest they can reach is to choose a 'set of rules' to adhere to, so to speak, which would lead them to 'Truth by these given parameters', or 'Self-Truth', but never 'Universal Truth' that counts for absolutely all cases, all of the time, ad aeternum.  We all, even given empathy and all else, can only really live within our own lives as of current; we don't live the lives of others, lest we would be ourselves and also those others too.  (Though I suppose in part, how roleplaying itself attempts to push these boundaries is part of why it interests me.) But that is the tiny summary of my general philosophical stance.

 

... All that mess aside, to address the question incredibly simply then, my answer to 'What is the meaning of life?' given my views is simply 'What you make of it.'

 

I feel this can cover all spectrums, from those who believe there is a 'greater purpose' to those who don't and rather wouldn't, it can be quite positive, or just as negative, but the thing that it is, no matter what, I think, it is quite empowering.  It gives responsibility of one's life to one's self, but doesn't dictate that anything out there necessarily need be the source of 'success' or 'pleasure' other than whatever the person wants it to be.  It isn't that it is 'there's no answer' it's that 'there can be any answer, and you get to decide'.  So you aren't necessarily 'wasting your life' doing the things you enjoy, even if they aren't necessarily 'productive', instead, you are simply enjoying your life.  If you, on the other hand, feel you need to make some kind of lasting difference in the world, then by all means, go for it and make that difference, and you'd be living well.  

 

Of course, one can always ignore what they believe counts as 'what they make their meaning of life' to be, and be upset that they aren't achieving it, but that too is on them.  Or others might not consider the meaning of life at all, and be perfectly fine that way.  To me, it's relative.  :>

 

Also, any philosophical role players out there? I'm thinking of having some nice philosophical/intellectual role playing thing going on.

 

Edit: IN ADDITION. I WOULD LOVE THIS. All caps because EXCITED. If you do this sort of thing, I would definitely definitely be interested. *u*

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