If you're questioning the meaning of life because you've been unhappy and depressed a good bit.
Unhappy? Depressed?
Well, obviously if you're really bad off you should really talk to a professional, but as long as you're not contemplating any ugly irreversible acts, here's something that might help.
Think of someone you know that seems pretty happy about life. How would you describe their attitude? Are they kidding themselves? Are they ignoring the ugly truth about life that's right in front of their eyes and pretending that some happy fantasy world that exists only in their heads is real? Well, guess what. That is exactly how every happy person in the world acts. And the really strange thing is that it's OK. Because the reason that you are unhappy is that you have constructed a fantasy world just as complete and just as removed from the "facts" as the Pollyanna imaginings that you so despise in those happy people.
Reality is in fact neither good nor bad, it is a very plastic inkblot sort of thing that can be bent and twisted in many directions depending on your beliefs. WHAT! you say? What about THE TRUTH? Well, that's a complicated question and it gets into the meaning of life bit that we haven't gotten to yet, but suffice it to say that what is REALLY going on is so strange, so complex, and so far beyond our everyday understanding, that it bears no relationship to what you think of as "reality", "truth", or "reason". Good and bad, happy and sad, these are notions that you are imposing on the world around you. But, more on that in part II of the Meaning of Life Page.
The answer to unhappiness is both liberating and infuriating, but here it is. Happiness doesn't depend on anything that has or has not happened in the past, nor does it depend on your future prospects (thank God, eh?). The simple fact is, in order to be happy:
You Must Decide to be Happy.
Yep. Isn't that aggravating? You can't blame it on anyone else, and no one else can do a thing for you. You've just got to decide to be happy, whether or not your logical mind thinks it is rational to be happy and whether or not your moral sense thinks you deserve to be happy. You absolutely will not be happy for any length of time until you decide to, and if you decide to, you can be happy in the face of the most miserable circumstances.
Happy deciding.
On a related note, if you want to know the meaning of life because you feel useless and worthless,
Feel Useless and Worthless?
Well, you are. No, seriously, this is a typical problem in most cultures around the world. People tell their children (with words and actions) that they are no-good, worthless, useless drains on their parents' happiness, pocketbooks, and patience. Given this scenario, you get a lot of adults who became convinced as children that they were just no good, and they helpfully pass this attitude on to their children. Lovely predicament, eh?
Well, thankfully, they were wrong. Let's take useless first, it's easier. You cannot be classified as useless, because you aren't really supposed to have to make yourself useful. Look at the natural world. What is the use of a tree? Well, it has many uses, but it isn't TRYING to be useful. There's the difference. It's just doing what it wants (or so we assume) and in the process of doing that it does its job in the natural order of things. Despite all the rantings of moralists, you are in the same boat. The only way you are ever going to do an ounce of good in the world is to do what you want. Do what makes you happy, or at least what distracts you from your misery. Important Note: If you have an underdeveloped sense of empathy and enjoy doing things that harm others, ignore this advice and get professional help!
How, you may ask, does doing what you like do any good? Look around you. Look at people who seem to be trying very hard to be useful. Are they really doing good things for people? Or do they make everyone around them miserable with all their moral uppidyness and incessant busy bodying? I suspect it is the latter. The people who really do others some good are the people who are doing what they like and who aren't very interested in being useful. They are usually interesting to be around, because they are doing things that interest them. They are often fun to be around, because they appreciate fun and know how to laugh and not take anything too seriously. They inspire other people to figure out what it is that they want to do by example, thus causing more people to be interested in life and interesting to be around, fun loving, etc.
Out of all the people we meet in life, these people who are doing their own thing are the people who have the most profoundly positive impact on us and thus make our lives richer in the most fundamental, meaningful way. Can you really call that useless? Sure, working in a soup kitchen will feed people, but if you're being a martyr about it because you don't really want to be there, everyone around you will see right through you and hate you for being moralistic and insincere, and you will end up doing more harm than good. So, revel in your perfect uselessness. It's the useful thing to do.
What if everyone in the world just did what they wanted? Would it be anarchy? Well, that starts to get into the subject matter for our eventual companion page, How to Solve All the World's Problems.
Now, for Worthless...
If you can overcome the stigma of uselessness, you are halfway to getting over worthlessness. Because worthlessness is often just the moral judgment you place on yourself when you think you are useless. However, worthlessness goes deeper. Worthlessness implies that you don't even have a right to be here. You are not one of the blessed, you are one of the damned.
You see, there are really only two moral beliefs about people, either people are basically good, or they are basically bad. 99.9 percent of the world's population believes that people are basically bad, and that's a problem. If it's true that people are basically bad, then there is no hope for us; democracy is obviously doomed, and a benevolent monarchy is impossible because no basically bad person could stay benevolent once they had all that power.
Are people basically bad? Let's look at the facts. Once again, look at the people around you. Once you get to know them, you realize that:
Everyone is doing the best they can with what they have.
Everyone on the planet is in exactly the same state of moral worth, because we are all doing the best we can with what we have. Poor upbringings cause many people to not have much to do their best with, but hey, that's life. Criminals believe they are powerless, so breaking the social contract is the only way they think they can get what they need and manage to feel somewhat powerful. People without that hang-up can see that cooperation and respect are really how things get accomplished, but both of these types of people are simply trying to live a fulfilling life using the methods that they think have the best chance of working. So you see, people are basically good. They are all trying to do their best. They often just need some help overcoming inner demons and behavior patterns that aren't really working for them.
Obviously, you are in the same boat. You are doing the best you can with what you have. You are already living the most moral and correct life you know how to live. There is no more that you can do at this moment to be a better person. You are already a good person. You do not have to strive every moment to be better than it is possible for you to be. Smile at yourself. You're OK.
Now, it should be clear that you can improve. Not by beating yourself over the head for bad things you've done; those things couldn't be helped. You were just doing your best with what you had. What you can do is learn where your blind spots are. Watch others. People who at first glance are just plan old bad people are on further investigation suffering from horrendous misconceptions about how the world works. You also have misconceptions about the best way to get what you want. Find those misconceptions and wake up!
But, don't worry if your progress is slow and unsteady. You will make progress, but after all, you can only do the best you can with what you have. (Man, why did we beat this topic's catch phrase into the ground, over and over? Well, we were just doing, you know, that thing we said.)
If you want to see our answer so that you can prove your intellectual prowess by poking holes in it
Proving Your Intellectual Prowess
Ah, yes, the eager young intellectual out to battle the demons of smug fuzzy-headedness here on the net. Well, Homey don't play that. We aren't going to argue with you, because we already know what arguments can and cannot be knocked down. As Kant pointed out quite a while back now, no metaphysical axiom can be proven to be necessary. Meaning, by its very nature, implies a metaphysical and teleological structure that is rooted in assumptions beyond mere matter. That is to say, you will be able to very easily poke holes in our presentation of the meaning of life, by definition. It wouldn't be the meaning of life if it were logically unassailable.
The only unassailable arguments these days are materialism and pure philosophical agnosticism. If you are dealing with someone who believes that the material world exists, you can win every argument by having the position that all that exists are atoms and molecules bouncing randomly around and that there is no moral or philosophical principle that can be proven to be true, or even to have any meaning. Life is completely pointless on a philosophical level, but if you want to continue filling your belly just for the sheer bloody- mindedness of it, Darwin pointed out the basic game plan and Ayn Rand filled in the egotistical details. Have at it.
If you have someone who is more clever and knows to argue that the material world may not exist, then there are not only no moral or philosophical principles that can be proven to exist, but indeed, there are no scientific principles that can be proven to exist either. You have sunken into solipsism, which of course can't be proven either, leaving you with no provable statements whatsoever. As before of course, if you wish to continue filling your non-existent belly with insubstantial morsels, there are plenty of other non-existent people who will apparently play that game with what we will for argument's sake call you, so jolly good luck, if there were such a thing. If something awful just happened to you or someone you care about and you don't understand why bad things happen to good people
Why Bad Things Happen to Good People
Actually there is a book by the name "When Bad Things Happen to Good People." No one here has read it. Of course, we don't need to, because we already know why:
There is no such thing as Justice
It is an illusion. A myth. A fairy tale. Life really isn't fair. The question is, why do you think it's supposed to be? Who started that idea? Job? The people who tried to put a good face on beating people up by inventing the Queensbury Rules? We don't know.
Justice sounds like a good idea because it sort of equalizes the pain. I get hurt, so you get hurt in return. Well there's more ocean than land, more roaches than roach motels, and more salesmen than prophets. Things just aren't meant to be equal. Suffering and happiness are not weights in some cosmic Martha Stewart food scale, their relative proportion is completely unpredictable, just get over it.
Here's the deal. Tragedy may be unequal, but it isn't random. Yes, there is a meaning, we're giving a bit away early here. Bad things usually happen to forcefully slap us out of whatever stupor we are in at the time. We are supposed to start questioning our beliefs. We are supposed to figure out what is and what is not important to us. People usually don't change unless they feel sufficient pain to overcome their natural resistance to change. Change takes energy. Nothing energizes like tragedy. What suffering is usually supposed to encourage us to do is figure out how to avoid suffering in the future. Find out what happy people do and imitate them. This is not rocket science.
If tragedy seems random and cruel now, it isn't. You're just not wanting to look at the facts. What facts those are exactly will be addressed in the Meaning of Life Part II.
Of course, if people don't get the hint and continue to imitate deer staring into the headlights of destiny, well, that's their lookout. Do not get mad at God/the universe/insert your cosmic principle here. Do what you're supposed to do, pick your ass up off the ground and try again. Nobody likes a crybaby.
You can't get out of it by going limp and giving up. That usually makes it worse. Athletes must tolerate a certain level of pain to reach their goals. You are no different.
As for the injustice of loved ones getting killed, etc., that has its own purpose. Don't ask unanswerable questions about other people; you've got enough to worry about with your own situation. If you get tragically killed, then you'll understand. Until then, forget it.
We have been criticized about the callous nature of this page. For people who have recently lost family members, etc., this little diatribe can sting. However, the message is still true even for them. Life is very unfair, but like chemotherapy, it does the job.
Why does the world seem to be completely insane?
Yes, it always appears that you are in a minority of sane people (or perhaps you are the ONLY sane person) in a sea of completely confused crackpots. The reason that so many other people seem completely confused and wrongheaded is that they use different symbols and metaphors to view the world. It is impossible to discuss important issues such as politics, families, violence, justice, etc. without resorting to symbolism. Anything that does not directly refer to something that can be physically sensed, such as justice or one's concept of God must be referred to by metaphor and symbol. If you and another use different symbols, you will be unable to communicate effectively. Some of the main metaphors in use today are:
- Conventional religion
- Science
- Power, that is, dominance and submission
- Artistic and aesthetic worth
- Traditional political categories
- Material wealth and security
- Romanticism and relationships
- Honor, valor, and courage
- Bigotry, racism, and exclusivity
- Depth psychology (Freud, Jung, etc.)
- Humanism and "new age" psychology
- Traditional philosophy
Chances are that your views and beliefs about the world center around one or several of these metaphors. For example, if you see the world in terms of moral worth and submission to a higher law, you are conventionally religious. If you see the world in terms of cause and effect and experimenting to find the right solutions, you are oriented toward science.
People who share one or more basic metaphors will find that they can communicate effectively with one another and work together constructively. People who do not share any metaphors will usually be unable to regard one another with anything beyond fear, hostility, and contempt. Because of this lack of communication between groups, most discussions of important issues in the public arena quickly degenerate into grandstanding and name calling, because in the absence of real understanding between the disagreeing parties, only mob psychology is left to sway public opinion.
In all of this you may be left frustrated and unable to act, because you have not yet realized that:
The World Doesn't Want to be Saved.
life is what you make of it and how u pros eve it . when you mess up all you do is need to try and fixed what you did or make it better and not do it again . life is a long journey .
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| me in 2009 |
