Humdrum existence or a short noble life?
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airowDee (
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September 5th, 2009
Humdrum existence or a short noble life?
Aristotle said that the good (person) does many acts for the sake of their friends, and their country, and if necessary dies for them; for he will throw away both wealth and honours and in general the goods that are objects of competition, gaining himself nobility; since he would prefer a short period of intense pleasure to a long one of mild enjoyment, a twelve month of noble life to many years of humdrum existence, and one great and noble action to many trivial ones. Now those who die for others doubles attain the result?
Would you live a long and mediocre life, or a short and intensely lively one?
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While his words are very compelling, I believe there is such a thing as a long and noble life as well. I would opt for that one.
When you think of Aristotle’s definition a noble life doesn’t seem that great yet if I think of people who have died nobly by his description I have the utmost of respect for them. As superficial as it might seem a humdrum life for me but wait a minute I am living that and it doesn’t seem that great either.
Many people who live too intensely, end up dying young as a result of their own actions.
The longer you live, the longer you can be good to people.
I think that we merely trick ourselves into imagining that it could possibly matter. We will be in existence as a human race for a mere flicker of galactic time, and will be unknown, unrecorded and unmissed forever.
@pdworkin
Definately.Nothing really matters.In the long run, we are all dead.
@pdworkin you are such a wet blanket at this party, dude.~
@pdworkin However, “when you become aware of the volume of the universe around you, the paucity of life in that vast space becomes an overwhelming reality. It is from this basic awareness that life learns to help life.”
I recall that from a novel, and I can’t remember which one. Possibly one of the Dune prequels.
I firmly believe that if everyone truly understood the scope of the cosmos, they’d be able to see from outside their egos and attempt to achieve greatness – not for themselves, but for mankind. It is certainly difficult to not view the universe introspectively, but it can be done.
Of course, this means abolishing religion, conventional segregation and labels, as well as what we identify ourselves as/with. That, as they say, ain’t easy.
@The_Compassionate_Heretic while it is true that the longer you live the longer you CAN be good to be people, it isn’t necessarily that every one will do that…in that case, they should die young
I am living a long mediocre life. So what other choices do I have?
@Jeruba Thank you for that. Entertaining bunch of novels, I enjoyed them very much.
Long and boring is, well, boring. I don’t want a boring life. But I’d much rather live a long AND lively one :P
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