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

Life, as we know it, is a series of random events with seemingly correlative links of a causal or active type. What we do sometimes affects the everyday occurances of this life, but more often, the events of our life just happen to us and we have little control over tham. We simply react to them. What most people try to do is a build some artificial construct with which they can delude themselves into thinking they have control of their world and their life. This process is accomplished by little steps, or building blocks. First one learns a few things about the world, unlearns a few others(like the fact that almost everything is out of our control), and learns to believe a few things that are obviously wrong. Then we apply these things to our lives to make our "careers" or path in life. We then surround ourselves with things that make us feel safe, comfortable, and in control. We buy houses, cars, couches, and a TV, hopefully with a remote control. We buy many things that we can turn on and off, in order to make us seem powerful. The last step in our life construction process is to create children that we can grow like garden plants, and clip and prune and shape them into new self-powered life building plants. Then we let them out into the world, and hide in the life we have built, happy without the knowledge that it is all a farce, and that we exist-and that barely, but our lives do not. They are just fictions that can be erased in a second with no effect at all on the way the world works. We spend our whole time on the planet trying to hide from the fact that we are each just a walking reaction to the stimuli of the natural world. So we build our floor, a base of beliefs to stand on, walls of control exercises, and a roof of young people who will bear the brunt of the events of the world until they are old enough, and have built enough of a life to hide protect themselves from reality.

Wow oldpinkdog. That was really a pessimistic view on life itself! It seems to me that your view on life is that it is totally pointless and that we create, use and die and that it that. Hmmmm.... I think life is not meaningless. In fact, the whole point of life is to enjoy it, to experience emotion, new situations, patterns of thought, stimulation of senses, intellect and pleasure. Our lives are far from meaningless. Look at the things you have done in your life thus far. Have you made others happy when they were down at all? Have you taught someone to think in a more useful way? Have you helped another person recently who was appreciative of your help?

What I am saying is that life is there for us to use. We have a choice, either to live life in a minimal way and derive little pleasure, or to live life to the maximum - to appreciate experiences and take pleasure as and when we can. Think of life as a gift - we can use it to its full potential, to travel the world, experience different ways of life, read and learn from others' intellectual writings, appreciate abstract beauty, the beauty in nature itself.

Why be bored and upappreciative of what there is out there in life, when we can be happy, creative and thus feel that life has something great to offer.

I might sound like a total optimist. I am not irrational in my beliefs. I just feel that, OK there is bad in this world and I am not denying that; there is murder, abuse, hatred and unkindness, but despite that we can learn from others' behaviour to make our own lives better. I just feel that we only have a relatively short time on this planet, why waste it? You could die tomorrow - don't allow yourself to look back at your life and think "If only I had done...." etc.

Regarding the ways in which human beings as a species live on this Earth, I am also too facinated. We adapt our own environment to suit our lives. We live in a complex society where we each have something to offer and we all work in symbiosis. Each of our actions has an effect on another person. There is a complexity of interaction, almost like order out of chaos. What facinates me is that however small or large an effect we have on another person, it will affect them and cause them to look at life in a slightly different way. In this way we can look at our own lives and troubles and learn something from them. When I look at a period in my life where things just seemed to go wrong, I can look at it from a positive point of view also so that I can learn from my bad experiences as well as my good. In fact, I think one would lead a very shallow life if one only experienced good things. People can grow wiser and stronger through adversity.

Well these are my intial pourings over this topic!!.....

You were right Psycho- therapist, life must be enjoyed and lived and then it will not be meaningless. I agree with you completely. I am Taoist and although I have existential musings, I am not pessimistic about life at all. We must accept life as it is and enjoy every beauty and all the energy the world has to offer. What I meant was that people tend to build constructs to hide themselves from this reality, and never truly appreciate the beauty around them. People rely on material things to keep them content and distracted, they pursue careers that do not satisfy them, only occupy them, and make money for more stuff. They accept all manner of religious ideas to believe because their mortality is too much for them to bear. I have accepted my mortality, and realize that I am part of the natural cycle.The deity in Taoism is in everything. It is nature, it is humanity, it is earth, wind, water, and fire. It is a circle, it is a wave, it is stillness and action. It is black and it is white. Life is the deity, and we all must exalt it as the one true meaning. We must stop and look at colorful flowers, feel the beauty of rain pouring over our heads, and not only appreciate the emotion of love but of loss, for to realize that loss is a manifestation of the true connection between people and all things is the way. We must all strive to connect, to let the energy of love flow between the earth and ourselves andbetween ourselves and other beings. It is all good. What I am against is putting on blinders. What I meant in this journal entry was that people intentionally shield themselves from life, and that truly is tragic.

What I meant, in effect, was that you cannot build a life. You must live one.