What do you understand as the meaning of life?

Our true beings are hidden inside shells (or bodies).
Hmm, and there I was thinking this was all I got…

@MilkyWay It’s a perplexing subject it is…

I think the question is fairly nonsensical. I mean, does it mean “what is the explanation of life” – that is, how did life come from non-life. Or does it mean what is it that humans are supposed to do in order to have a “meaningful” life. If it’s the latter, then it really is up to us to decide this for ourselves.

For me, I am still working on figuring out how to live a life that will be meaningful for me. It’s challenging.

The question is not valid. There is no such thing as meaning until there is a living creature with the conceptual ability to understand “meaning”.
Therefore, life precedes all discussion of meaning.
Thus life simply is.
But particular creatures, human beings with conceptual consiousness, assign meaning once they are aware of life. It is not life that has meaning. It is the actions of the living human that gives it value, that value being we call meaning.

Easy guys, it’s in social. Monty Python had the same question.

I have yet to find the right words for my personal philosophy, but the best way to put it is that the meaning of life is to experience living. None of us knows how much time we have, nor what tomorrow brings, so it behooves is to make the most of this moment we have now… to be childlike in our curiosity and enjoyment of all the we have and can do.

This question may be interpreted as you please. There are no right or wrong answers. There just are answers since it is opinionated.

@Adirondackwannabe Your are right. My bad.
The meaning of life is to die. There is no reality. Best of luck to @BBawlight

@josie I’m still figuring out the question, but I don’t want us running off new jellies like some other responders have lately. And I’m guilty of it too.

How and why is reality fake? Fake as compared to what? Death? Death wouldn’t be important if there wasn’t life, fake or otherwise. I don’t think I get it. I find what you say interesting, but I don’t understand. Also welcome to Fluther. :)

As for me, I have no clue what the meaning of life is. As far as I understand, there is no meaning as we understand and define it. We’re like animals and all other life, and those of us who have consciousness only have it in order to follow some strict protocol that serves another purpose altogether, my guess is something that has to do with nature and however it works and maintains itself. Example, we only have emotions so that they can drive us to one thing or another. Fear can save your ass, happiness makes you live longer, pride creates assertion, greed makes you rich lol. The whole survival thing, as much physical as it gets social. We’re very adaptable beings, so I do believe that the need to be popular or exceed or feel good about oneself is akin to how important it is for a jaguar to catch and kill its meal. Likewise, some of us are meant to be the opposite, and seek to do it.
I think the only reason we can think and speak is to make our actions less confusing and easier to accept, through explanations and justifications.
We’re a part of nature, and I don’t personally believe that we have any say whatsoever in where we’re heading or what part we play in things. Even one’s hobbies, passions and occupations ultimately adhere to whatever role we have to play in nature, as decreed by whatever decides that. I also don’t believe that ’‘something’’ to be a deity, or that it’s even sentient, or that it’s even anything as we understand something to be. Too hard to explain, but I think it has something to do with Darwinism. I also think Maslow was on to something.

But sure, people can make their own goals. It works, in a way, but again, I personally believe that even these goals we create help to usher us in whatever role we’re meant to see through. Even a bum has a role; they’re like a beacon to society. Don’t do your homework, and you’ll end up like that guy! Stupid example, and I know that what I believe seems very mean and insensitive, but I can’t help it if that’s what makes sense to me, based on my experience and observations in life, as little as these sources may be.
For some reason, we’re just meant to live and maintain our race, until that purpose has served itself. Maybe there even isn’t a reason. Maybe we’re some massive glitch, error or infection in the universe that wasn’t supposed to happen. (because my theory makes no sense, if we’re indeed harming the planet severely, unless it’s getting ready to die and needs us to do it) So besides existing, I don’t think we have such meanings as finding something special or achieving something or whatever, unless it has its own purpose. something that needs us to have it fulfilled So I guess basically we live to eat, shit, fuck, kill and die.

@Symbeline Wow. This question was worth it just for your answer. That was awesome.

ya, I didn’t find your comments intelligible, @BBawlight, sorry. :( could you dim that down a shade?

For me, Life is quite simply what I remember.

@Symbeline As you may know, some animal species do almost the opposite of what is in their nature. Or what we believe is their nature. We began to stray from our ‘nature’ because we found something. The nature of things can change just as liquids can change solid. Also, humans and animals all have free will. So, naturally we can stray from any form of something we find ‘natural’ because maybe we are wrong about things that happen naturally.
@ninjacolin Sorry if you don’t think my comments were intelligible. I’m just trying to explain it in the best way I can. That’s a good point BTW, life is technically what we remember.

If you can comprehend my thoughts, then feel free to discuss anything you find I was lacking in.
“The answer to the ultimate question is… 42.” LOL.

@BBawlight Maybe, maybe not, but we really don’t know much about animals as much as we think we do. Animals communicate with one another, but we perceive it as sounds, and understand these sounds on very basic terms. Calls for help, mating, war cries…it’s probably more than that, as it is with us, right? Ants for example, have ’‘welfare ants’’. These are ants that dig random tunnels and holes that serve no purpose to the colony, and other, more constructive ants keep having to fix the place up. Ants are so freakin complicated if you read about them, yet nothing seems unnatural, even if some of them seem to be so braindead and don’t stick to their survival protocol. There has to be a reason why these welfare ants exist, they’re not just being rebels who don’t want to obey the rules. (like us, maybe they think they are, but the purpose must most certainly lie elsewhere)
Despite that, I don’t think people or animals stray out of their nature so much as they adapt or put up. Sure the nature of things can change, but it doesn’t become any less natural. Humans started out in the water if I’m not misinformed, for example.

As for free will, I can’t really ask you to prove we have it, since I couldn’t prove that we don’t. I seriously don’t believe in free will though, especially not when people’s desires, opinions, thoughts claims severely fail to match to what currently happens in the world.

42

“Reality is not real. It is fake. Only death is true. That’s why the meaning of life is to die. Our true beings are hidden inside shells (or bodies). Because only fake coexist with fake and real can only coexist with real.”

…....wut…....?

In my opinion, there is no meaning.

It is all the stuff in between birth and death.

You know, a friend recently told me that the meaning of life was 47.

“Don’t you mean 42,” I asked? “Like in Life, the Universe and Everything or whatever that title is?”

“Oh, is that what it is? I knew it was somewhere in the 40s.”

Yeah. Somewhere in the 40s. That sounds about right to me, Hitchhiker’s Guide or no. Maybe there’s been some kind of inflation in the meaning of life. Maybe the universe is expanding, so the meaning is growing, too. That would make about as much sense as anything else.

I know, right?

God I love saying that.

I know, right?

It’s so perky and insouciant. A hint of meanness to it, as well. Like you agree, only you more than agree, only somehow you are throwing it back on me as if my assertion in the fist place wasn’t really mine, but something you said.

Yeah. Something in the forties.

I know.

Right?

It’s amirite, yea?

There is no meaning. Life is the universe’s worst practical joke!

The meaning of life is to acknowledge you ARE life!
All life forms exist and their purpose is not to die, it is to live and reproduce and avoid predation and pass on the best of the gene pool. Humans are fast approaching no need to reproduce, for a century or so at the very least. Better more Lemmings and Lions than humans. lol

The opposite of life is not death, it is birth. Life has no opposite.
I think you’re thinking is morose and depressing, just accept it’s your paricular life forms spin on the planet and in-joy the ride. Life is something, death is nothing but a return to the cosmic soup pot.

Do you not FEEL the magic of being alive, what a fucking MIRACLE!
From nothingness to somethingness without any effort at all…jesus mercy, freaking CELEBRATE the randomness of your existence, it’s great!

@BBawlight Why is only death true? Where are you getting that from? O_o

For me, the meaning of life is to love and be loved.

The meaning of life is to get out of bed everyday.

Enjoy it & be sure to often jump things, off, over or sexy women.

I’m not a golfer, but for some reason when I woke up this morning the first thought that came to me was what Mark Twain said about golf: “Golf is a good walk spoiled”. The golfers are, in a sense, imposing a meaning on this 4 hour outing; for them, it’s “about” shaving strokes off of their game, or staying out of the hazards, or eliminating that troublesome slice from their stroke. And they get so absorbed in that meaning that the walk itself—the simple experience of it—escapes them.

There’s something about us that loves themes. It’s hard to find a restaurant these days that doesn’t sell us food cloaked in some theme. A couple of nights ago, we went out to a new little place that just opened up near us, a crepe restaurant. Back when we lived in France, our favorite place to eat was a little creperie that had no “theme” to it whatsoever; they weren’t selling an idea, just good crepes. But when we went to this new place we found ourselves in a carefully contrived Paris theme park: giant Paris Metro map on the wall, watercolors of Parisian landmarks, French crooner lilting through the speakers, French trinkets artfully arranged here and there. What this place was selling was the idea of France, and the crepes were, predictably enough, crap. Were our fellow diners so drunk on Frenchness that this simple fact escaped their notice?

When you try to answer a question like “what is the meaning of life?”, you end up trying to capture this astonishingly varied, constantly changing experience in a little bottle made of ideas. Some of that experience may fit into that little bottle, and you may get some satisfaction from being able to carry that bottle around in your pocket. But your kidding yourself if you think you’ve actually got life bottled up in there. As you’re sitting there admiring the little bit of life you’ve got in your idea-bottle, life looks over your shoulder and laughs.

To help others, to connect, to feel, to love.

To learn shit.

My thoughts have changed.
Between passion and sense, which would you choose? I think most would say sense. I would pick passion.
Passion because it has feeling. Sense only goes by the ideal that everything is black and white. Sense doesn’t consider the feelings, but the actions.
If a man saves a kid from danger, he is given a halo. But what if he gives the child a gun? This person is bad, right?
They can’t see why he gave the kid a gun. Only that he did. Maybe he wanted the kid to feel safe.

Sorry, psp allows just so many characters
If the gun is a sign of security, then why take it away for the kid to get hurt again? Empathy is strong with passion and leaves scars. Putting yourself in the place of another… to feel what they feel. It leaves a mark…
So, as of now, my new thought to the meaning of life is passion.

@BBawlight: When I was a teen and young adult, I had separated myself from my emotions and was ruled more by sense as a defense mechanism for trauma from childhood abuse. In my 30s, I was ruled more by passion, and it nearly destroyed me. In my 40s, I have found balance between the two. I have learned to roll with the positive emotions so they can flourish, and to use the negative emotions as guides to help me make better decisions in my life.

@hearkat So it’s a mix of the two. I got the idea from an anime, really. One character, Near, had all of the sense in the world (he was a genus after all) and was very robotic in his thoughts. To him, there just was.
The other character, Mello, was driven by a passion to be the best. To beat Near at his own mind games. And nobody will get in the way.
It is stated in the guidebook that if they worked together, they couldv’e been the greatest minds in the world.
That is ½ of why I think of a mix.

still @hearkat The other ½ is my personal experience.
I appologize, but when I said passion is the meaning, it was merely a rough sketch in my mind and it was about 2 a.m. .
There are many fanfictions that say Matt, (a side character for Mello so he isn’t lonely) he could surpass Mello and Near without trying. But he didn’t care enough to.
Matt had that balance.
That could be the true meaning. Y’know. Balance.

Read the entire 5 book Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy Trilogy (not a typo) by Douglas Adams

@Mr_Paradox heh “42?!”
I watched the movie. It was funny. Especially the end with the rats (or was it mice?).

@BBawlight What’s the question though? You never actualy find out.

@Mr_Paradox It’s the answer to the ‘ultimate question’. AKA: ‘What is answer to everything?’

If I remember correctly the question was actually written into the stone on a cliff face on some remote planet…..

What is this thing you call life?

@blueiiznh Well, since it’s an opinionated question, life can be anything. Spiritual, literal, logical, or anything else. So you could have just rephrased my question or just needed to understand it. That’s all up to you.
What do you think this thing called life could be?

RANDOMLY POSTING ON A FORGOTTEN QUESTION!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! WHOHOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!