h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

But thinking about life automatically contains living it!

There's a difference between thinking about the meaning of life because it doesn't seem to have one, and thinking about it because you're puzzled as to how it got there and the stock answers seem to beg the question.

And Az's remark about living life rather than thinking about it rather makes my point. Do has precedence over have.

Noggin

But the "do" is the "have" and the "did" is both!

(borrowed from Blues Shark's personal page)

To Be Is To Do - Sartre

To Do Is To Be - Camus

Do Be Do Be Do - Sinatra




az

Why worry about the whole meaning of life?? Just make sure that you have a life, it,s only short, so it,s up to all of us to ensure that we live it the best we can.

Achievement of our goals, love, friendships, those beautiful moments of ecstatic happiness, watching the sea when it is wild and angry, seeing the lovely gummy smile of a small baby first discovering it,s world, sharing the good and bad times together with those we care about, crying and laughing together, being thankful for what we have, not whingeing about what we do not have........These things = life

Eliminate envy, that is the biggest destroyer of life and any enjoyment from it.


Jane

Why worry about the meaning of life? Why not worry about the meaning of life? Actually, *I* just enjoy a good argument every now and again, and it's an oppurtunity for education and expansion of my mind, and testing my ideas regularly helps keep it open.

hi Jane, Fnord,

I don't get the feeling that any of us are actually *worried* about the meaning of life. But I agree with Fnord that the discussion of it often brings up interesting ideas that we might not have considered before, or even if we have, it's still pleasant and challenging to discuss them.

Beats watching telly!

az

(says she who has not watched a television programme in months!)

Also it beats revising...

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That was very clever, Fnord. And also quite true, I think.

Didn't you like the do be do be dooooo? That made me laugh out loud, even though I had seen it before.

Revising, eh? I've never had to take a final exam in my life. Went to an alternative high school in Canada and their thing was that if you kept up your marks during the year then you were exempt from finals. Makes sense to me. Otherwise you end up just cramming a whole year load of stuff into your head to pass a final exam, which doesn't necessarily mean you've understood it all, just that you have a good short term memory. Anyhow, good luck!

az

Probably wouldn't work for me, then. I have what the authorities on such matters like the call "an attitude problem", and what I term "a refreshing understanding of reality", or, more often, "an unfortunate education in student rights that many of my teachers do not enjoy being on the receiving ends of, especially when I have one of my Rages against Authority". I listen in classes, but I talk and don't work. It's my personal way of feeling individual and making sure I don't get into college...

Fnord,

Well, I never had to 'work' either to keep up a straight-A average throughout the year. And I also definitely had an 'attitude problem'. I was just lucky that I was in my particular alternative school where they actually welcomed this sort of thing.

The thing you have to remember is that your teachers are also under the thumbs of the system and can only work within those very limited contraints. They have their programmed syllabus to follow, also they are shamefully underpaid and overworked. And THEN they have to put up with the likes of you!!! I think you need to cut them a bit of slack there. Sadly, the teachers are not the people in control of your education.

I'm quite sure that you are already much more 'educated' at this point than most people your age. By the things you read and study on your own. If you actually want to go to university you are maybe just shooting yourself in the foot by holding onto this 'being individual' thing. You already know that you are quite the individual. Why push it when you know you are dealing with a massive social structure that says you have to do X Y and Z in order to go further. Just do it. Sounds like you could do this with half your brain tied behind your back anyhow. And then work on being 'individual' in the other parts of your life.

Once you learn to 'smile in the face of authority' this will give you personal power to end up being able to do what you like. I know it grates at first, but it does work. Anyhow, those guys don't really matter.

az

It isn't the meaning of life you are supose to be looking for, it is the meaning of the hamburger patty you are suppose to be looking for.

Hi Fnord, Az, researcher no. whatever it was,

Hamburger pattys?????

When I said "worry" I guess I didn,t really mean "worry" I think I really meant so "to hell" with the meaning of life, just get out there and enjoy........ if you see what I mean.........

Actually I have spent the best part of XXXX no. of years, "worrying" if what I said was right or wrong, if what I did was OK, if what I was wearing was OK, what did that person think, or did that person like me, and trying to be oh so nice, good, etc., now I am learning that it doesn,t really matter at all what others think, there are those who accept me as I am, and those that do not, I can,t change that, so I really do think now that the meaning of life is what you make of it, or not, some things we cannot change, others we can, it all depends on how you think, and attitude.

Makes sense?? probably not, but what the hell!!!

Jane

Being a conforming (Dunno if that's English, what I mean is, behaviour that you know is approved of, even if you don't like doing it, plus a bit more...) person will let you go places, and do things you would have to forego if you don't want to conform to other people's standards. Sad, but there it is. This doesn't mean you have to do what others expect from you, but at times it can be helpful.

Fighting the system leads to a new system all on its own. Sounds archaic, but take a look at radical organisations in the sixties and seventies, especially in Germany. The members of those organisations did obviously not agree to every little thing going on. No group can be found where all opinions of all members are the same. The members, however, wanted to fight for the right to think different from the people in power, and thought that the people in power were trying to douse the voices of the minority these members belonged to. (Am cutting a few corners here, but it's too complicated to spell it all out).
In doing so, these organisations became secluded. You could only stay a member if you agreed with just about everything. There was right and there was wrong. 'We' are right, and 'they' are wrong. If you disagree with 'us' on something, you are obviously one of 'them' and therefore not to be trusted.
what happened was: they thought they were fighting for freedom, but in reality were taking freedom away from eachother.

To fold this back to the original question of the meaning of life: live and let live. Grated: doing good is good. But be careful of what you see as good. What is good for some people might be very wrong indeed for others.
Meaning of life (or rather, a segment of it): be tolerant to others. The Bible said it once, and even tho I hate quoting other people and especially from the Bible as it places a line someone once said completely out of context, Do unto others as you would want to be treated yourself.

hi Goyahkla,

I think that tolerance is the one thing that most of us don't have. And so, this takes work. Yes, the 'golden rule' - do unto others . . . - is quite a fine basis for this.

To be honest, I think if more of us were living the lives we truly wanted to be living there would be less strife in the world. And I'm not talking about having riches or such. Just living our own true lives. Finding out what is truly important to us and then doing whatever it takes to have that. Because it is only when someone is living their true life that they can truly give something back to the world. At least, I think so.

az

I understand what you are saying az but it seems obvious that if we all lived the lives we truly wanted we would be happier. Getting what you want makes you happier. Perhaps you should have said that there would be less strife if some of us were living the lives that we truly wanted, because then we could help everyone else find what they want as well

No, getting what you NEED makes you happier.

Getting what you WANT is not necessarily the same thing.

We all have physiological, social and spiritual needs. If they are satisfied then it is easier for us to be at peace and happy.

But people often seem to confuse strategies for achieving needs satisfaction with the needs themselves and are therefore easily diverted to strategies which are unlikely to succeed.

So what starts as the desire for a hut to satisfy a need for shelter to help bring happiness turns into a perception that huts bring happiness. Then if the feeling of happiness is not there it must mean that we need a bigger hut => a bigger house => a second home

Bod (rambling)

If you hate quoting the Bible, then how about the Buddhist appearance of the golden rule:

"Consider others as yourself" Dhammapada 10.1

Perhaps it isn't do or have
Perhaps it's just 'be'
All life is an experience Jane, not just the pleasanter things.
Everyone is having a life, it isn't a thing you set out to acheive, it happens.
'Life is what happens to you when you're busy making other plans.'
Thinking is just as much about life as doing.

N1NJ4,

I didn't say we should live the lives we want. I said we should live our own true lives. Which I doubt most people would even recognize these days as we have been either seduced or threatened into conforming to a value system that, well, that basically has very little of value in my opinion.

az