David Vestal

I vote "other."

My life has relative importance and relative value, in that it is important and valuable to me. "Meaning" is fuzzily defined in the context of lives, so if you defining "meaningful" in terms of importance and value, then yes, my life has meaning.

Steve Schlicht

And yet you post here and generate clever threads that others are interested in...and you are interested in being interesting to others.

I wonder why that is?



In my view, both you and Unbeatable often refute your own assertions regarding the value of life and meaning...simply by wanting to interact with us here.

Steve

Andrei

Man is just an intermediary link that nature requires for the crown of its creation: a glass of cognac with a lemon slice.
(Strugatsky)

nygreenguy

If life wasnt meaningful, why would any of us continue to go on with our lives?

So, heck yes life is meaningful to me and to others. If I did, people would be sad. Because my being here was meaningful to them.

I also find much meaning in life. I love to be consistently amazed by the things in nature. This sense of wonder adds meaning to my life, and to me, is the most meaningful thing in my life.

Unbeatable

I can only conclude there's most likely something in your recollection of my statements or your definitions of terms that has led you to that view. From where I stand, there is no inconsistency between assertions I've made and the existence of motivation.

AthenaAwakened

I play it cool
And dig all jive
That's the reason
I stay alive.

My motto,
As I live and learn,
is:
Dig And Be Dug
In Return.

Langston Hughes

Avatar

Man's purpose in life is to serve our true masters: Cats.

Alas, some heathens rebel and make themselves masters over baser beasts, such as the dog. Subit yourself to your rightful place and you will find true meaning in your life.

Remember: Dogs have masters. Cats have staff.

Steve Schlicht

That means you found meaning in what I wrote and you have your own meaning in life that asserts a disagreement.

You've found your meaning.

Steve

Mace

No I'm an extremely vain and shallow kid

I just like to pretend to be interesting

Because television, food, drink, and internet porn doesn't fulfill the part of the day that I'm awake

By that logic I'd be refuting my own implied lack of meaning if I sat in my room all day with my hands up my ass

In fact, the only thing I could do to not have this type of argument construed to where it matches me would be to end my existence

I sit here surfing the internet because I don't have anything better to do right now, for all I know or care everyone here is a bunch of robots programmed to type these sequences in letters/numbers/funny images. There is no meaning to it, and I don't see much value in it either. I do it because whether I like it or not, I'm a human who has to find something to cure boredom when I have free time.

What would you rather have me say? That I wake up each day and feel happy in the simple companionship of others as the sun beams down happily upon my shoulders? Honestly, I don't know how people like you can actually enjoy their day-to-day activities and be wholly satisfied (as you seem to indicate in your posts). Then again, that's comin' from a guy who considers optimism lying to one's self

So, my answer--devoid of any jokes I sometimes like to utter because they indulge my humor, is that I don't find meaning or any sort of difference in my life. Other than physically, I guess.

I can't give you an entirely concrete answer except perhaps that in the longest and largest run of things, nothing matters because as far as I can see nihilism is the objective truth in such matters. And I don't feel a desire to make up some sort of meaning for myself simply because I may not enjoy the idea of the objective light not sparing emotions. I'd rather either adapt to the truth or break apart not able to do so than mold myself around it all like a cushion and make up my own little platitudes to make myself feel warm and cozy inside.

Not to mention the fact that in life more bad happens than good anyway. So it's not exactly two flips of a coin in my mindset, it's the realistic observation of how existence tends to be.

Steve Schlicht

Precisely!

So, you assert you seek fulfillment?

Whatever floats your boat.

Nope. Nothing can be unmade. We'd still have your posts and you've already been established in my memory and the mental constructs of others.

I am motivated by your response to respond in kind. No doubt you are pondering your next comment even as you read this.

Meaning is already established.

Follow your bliss.

False dichotomy...and an interesting assumption regarding your perception of my view.

One moment I'm inspecting the stomach contents of a 13 month old murdered by some new boyfriend who couldn't stand a crying baby.

Some other, I'm photographing an 80 year old who finished her own life before the ravages of cancer could slowly eat her away in agony.

Next, I'm in the middle of a storm as my house falls away around me and my family as we face the unknown...our lives in the balance one second to the next. Hours after the eyewall has passed I find that I can help some through the shock and devastation, while others I can no longer even identify. Children, men, mothers all in assorted stages of daily routine, simply...done.

Seventeen years of these stories and hundreds more in variation and I still find the human condition brilliant in our...diligence and persistence, our pristine ability to do what it takes.

Sun beams are the furthest from my mind when I cherish humanity.

It is that we are in the darkness that makes us noble, in my view.

And, yet, here we are you and I...on a purely cerebral level...examining the greater issue of that which makes us move in perpetual flux.

Then we are not that much different, Mace, because the platitudes are disingenuous to me as well...making things up is the furthest from my mind.

The reality of our existence is cold, dark and undefinable. Still, we plummet through space on a magnetically protected orb spinning at absurd speed while keeping our feet on the ground as we write stories and consider our place and pound away at a keyboard for solace as if we are the only one's doing that very thing.

We are good, bad and utterly ambiguous as we build our external constructs out of thin air. How cool is that?

Actually, more good happens than bad, Mace and we live in exactly the same reality.

How can that be?

Steve