The Meaning of Life: M-hmm. Well, 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. And, finally, here are some completely gratuitous pictures of penises to annoy the censors and to hopefully spark some sort of controversy, which, it seems, is the only way, these days, to get the jaded, video-sated public off their ****ing arses and back in the sodding cinema. Family entertainment? Bollocks. What they want is filth: people doing things to each other with chainsaws during tupperware parties, babysitters being stabbed with knitting needles by gay presidential candidates, vigilante groups strangling chickens, armed bands of theatre critics exterminating mutant goats. Where's the fun in pictures? Oh, well, there we are. Here's the theme music. Goodnight.
Originally posted by Symmetric Chaos
Victor Frankl (yes it's an odd spelling). He comes to the same conclusion about the meaning of life, just about word for word, during the Holocaust.
Cool. Thanks.
He's not alone, though the fact that most questions of this type are generally addressed by religious figures means that the answers are slanted toward one deity or another.
But a similar conclusion is reached by Joseph Campbell, who during his life was one of the world's foremost authorities on mythology and comparative religious studies, and who is a personal hero of mine.
Originally posted by DigiMark007
Cool. Thanks.He's not alone, though the fact that most questions of this type are generally addressed by religious figures means that the answers are slanted toward one deity or another.
He was Jewish actually, though it may have simply been by ancestry.
Originally posted by DigiMark007
But a similar conclusion is reached by Joseph Campbell, who during his life was one of the world's foremost authorities on mythology and comparative religious studies, and who is a personal hero of mine.
Looking him up on wiki I've actually heard of a lot of his stuff (in fact I'm certain I've seen version of the Hero's Journey concept once before). Very cool, comparative study of anything tends to produce interesting results.
Campbell was an amazing dude, and did more in his lifetime to further the study of myth than anyone I can think of. His most well-known work is Hero With a Thousand Faces, which outlines the basis upon which a lot of his later work builds. It's not necessarily his best work (when he tries to overlap with psychology, not so good, only because psychology has come a long way since he wrote it in I think the late 40's; his "regular" mythological analysis is brilliant however), but it is his most important work. His thoughts, writing, and discovered insights through the prism of myth are as religious-sounding and inspired as you'll ever hear from a secular author, and just as profound and moving.
I'll end the plug. I turn into an advertisement for him whenever he comes up. And if I get the chance, I'll look up Frankl sometime. Thanks again.
The Meaning of life? thats a difficult question to answer because life has diffrent meanings to diffrent people, overall I think the meaning of life is meaningless overall, there is no real meaning ,just like every being on this planet they go throuh instincts like all organisms, they eat, sleep, reproduce, grow old and die thus the cycle starts again, however unfortatley for Humans we have developed minds that can think beyond our instincts, unfortunate because most humans dont, they are byproducts of soceity especially modern times where their reactions are based on how they have learnt or grew up in their earlier life, my own personal experiance todays world is built around social control by those in power to keep everyone in their cog and wheels economy, create Fashion as an image of "its to make you look better" when really all it is is a way to make younger generations (very often 10-16, girls i find are more effected due to the whole "shopping is a girls best friend" sort of ideal) use up all their money. For example if you look at modern haircuts , a lot of fashions revolve around cutting away hair regardless of how nicer/healthier it looks long, Fashion makes people think of destroying it, which ofc costs, which often leads to recurring haircuts/styles, then eventualy when the person in question realises they ruined their hair and they were better off before when it was beautiful its too late, so they continue.
The same can be said about many things and stereotypical views similiar to the example I made above, a social control system is in effect made to make people think the way they do, look up to unintellgient celebrities just because Celebrities are easily controlled or good objects of control, tools like religion too.
My own point of view is that the meaning of life is to realise your Human, not just some random animal and as a Human you have knowledge, you dont need to have nothing more improtant than the basic instincts every animal has, for example "sleep, eat, breed, nurture young, die" etc etc, thats pathetic and an insult to evolution and the overall intellect of the human race, the meaning is to be able to rise above instincts and choose.