Philosophy Forum

Read Topic
Reply

What gives YOUR life meaning and purpose?

Philosophy Forum
» General Discussion
» What gives YOUR life meaning and purpose?

Get Email Updates • Email this Topic • Print this Page

I've been rehearsing this introspective exercise lately. Wondering how people here might compile their own personal list.

Cheers! :listening:

@Ahhhhhz,

Ahhhhhz;71425 wrote:

I've been rehearsing this introspective exercise lately. Wondering how people here might compile their own personal list.

Cheers! :listening:

Currently?

Finding meaning and purpose in it is my meaning and purpose Very Happy

Kinda like when finding a job becomes a job Smile

@Ahhhhhz,

Ahhhhhz;71425 wrote:

I've been rehearsing this introspective exercise lately. Wondering how people here might compile their own personal list.

Cheers! :listening:

Love. Nothing more. Nothing less.

@Elmud,

Learning new things with other people - i.e. relationships.

Rich

@richrf,

Family, the forums, technology, and those very few days when I get to explore the world. Otherwise I'm still searching.

@Ahhhhhz,

experiences.

experience love... hate... need... want... jealousy... glory... sadness... dreams...

i absorb what i can with all my senses and when something goes wrong or doesnt go as planned... i use it to appreciate it when things have or do get better and happen accordingly.

i try to have a positive influence... and right now my daughter and my students are my reason for hanging on when things seem hopeless.

i also live for imagination. if i dont like this world. i withdraw to my own.

@Ahhhhhz,

I live for art, beauty, love, laughes, philosohpy and a occasional ice cream Smile

@Lily,

Lily;71656 wrote:

I live for art, beauty, love, laughes, philosohpy and a occasional ice cream

Ice cream is good. Especially pistachio almond.

@Ahhhhhz,

Well, I figure if I wasn't alive, I wouldn't be existing. Thus, I'm just continuing life in order to exist. This desire to live is like some sort of tick I can't get rid of!

Oh, and I'm kinda enjoying the sex, sushi, philosophy, lifting (large pieces of metal) and cooking on Earth.

@Ahhhhhz,

Music - I like to play a number of different instruments, mandolin, bouzouki, guitar, hurdy gurdy and sitar. I hope to learn my way around a keyboard and maybe teach it one day.

Natural History - Seems like a pretty endless story that would take more than any human lifetime to learn in detail - yet the basic plot is easy enough for a child to grasp.

Fiction - Reading and writing.

A creative acheivement to be proud of - either literary or musical, that would be a sort of ultimate personal goal.

Education - What I want to move into as a profession, or as a hobby via websites and flash animations. I'd like to do some teaching abroad and then in England - music, drama or english literature would be interesting venues, though science or history also interest me.

Love, oddly enough, I think I can take or leave. Vastly overrated in my opinion. No substitute for enthusiasms (though the two are obviously conflated).

@Ahhhhhz,

Reaching the heart of another and evoking a smile.

William

@Ahhhhhz,

Ahhhhhz;71425 wrote:

I've been rehearsing this introspective exercise lately. Wondering how people here might compile their own personal list.

"Rehearsing" might not have been the best word. "Re-contemplating" would have been better. It is a question I have revisted quite a bit since it was first posed to me by someone awhile back. At first, I thought of the standard handful of responses...but they seemed woefully incomplete. So, I started mistrusting my standard perspective and changed it--like Robin Williams did for the students in Dead Poets' Society. I imagined being in jail, in solitary confinement, with no window, and little or no light. What would I sorely miss from my life? The list of things fairly poured out... something like this: Beauty, sensuality, freedom, learning, teaching, communicating, humor, relationships, intimacy, understanding, love, serenity, mystery, challenge, adventure, discovery, epiphany, creativity, mastery, competence, inspiration, aesthetic appreciation, hope, excitement, accomplishment, wonder, awe.

THEN, it came to me why, in the past few years, I had so frequently felt that my life was missing meaning and purpose: I had not indulged much in so many of these things that--in imagining a nearly total state of deprivation--I clearly needed... to be fulfilled with meaning and purpose.

Thank you all for your responses.

@Ahhhhhz,

Okay I have thought about this and decided. A more important question is. If there was a purpose what could it possibly be? Even if we had the power to unite the universe into complete love and peace... still would that be a purpose to you? If we were here to create a soul for ourselves. Would that mean purpose? Any ONE purpose we can have would just become pointless after a while. Also if we did have a set purpose shouldnt we be born with it?

Life is poseing this question to you. We all answer it wether we like it or not. If you get to age 18 and kill yourself then.. I guess that was your purpose. I mean thats what you made your purpose. If you spend it having fun and exploring then i guess that is it.

@sarathustrah,

sarathustrah;71506 wrote:

experiences.

experience love... hate... need... want... jealousy... glory... sadness... dreams...

i absorb what i can with all my senses and when something goes wrong or doesnt go as planned... i use it to appreciate it when things have or do get better and happen accordingly.

i try to have a positive influence...

Almost verbatim of what I would say.

Experience the positives and negatives of existence, learn as much as I possibly can, and in the process try to figure everything out so that hopefully others' journeys will have been enhanced because of mine.

@Ahhhhhz,

Nevermind, the problem has been remedied. Thanks.

@Ahhhhhz,

Here are the things that gives the life nice flavor give lifes meaning
Worship of God
obedience to parents
communication with relatives
[RIGHT]Honest love[/RIGHT]

@Arya,

Arya;72781 wrote:

Here are the things that gives the life nice flavor give lifes meaning
Worship of God
obedience to parents
communication with relatives

How do any of those make life a better meaning?

@Arya,

Arya;72781 wrote:

Here are the things that gives the life nice flavor give lifes meaning
Worship of God
obedience to parents
communication with relatives
[RIGHT]Honest love[/RIGHT]

Those are the things most people try to avoid, but as log as you don't loose yourself I guess it's fine

@Arya,

Arya;72781 wrote:

Here are the things that gives the life nice flavor give lifes meaning
Worship of God
obedience to parents
communication with relatives
[RIGHT]Honest love[/RIGHT]

Pride gives my life meaning. How humiliating humility is.

@Ahhhhhz,

My life doesn't -have- meaning and purpose. I fantasize about death like half the time.

Philosophy Forum
» General Discussion
» What gives YOUR life meaning and purpose?

Read Topic
Reply

Philosophy Forum

What gives YOUR life meaning and purpose?

Quick Links

My Account

able2know