Didn’t sleep well last night; had insomnia. Been thinking about things…thinking about people.
“All life on Earth is futile”. To what extent is that statement true? There was a popular song by Linkin Park, called In the End. Here is an exerpt of the lyrics:
and in the end,
I tried so hard, and got so far,
but in the end it doesn’t even matter.
I don’t like the band (too mainstream), but those lyrics were good. It struck a chord in me, and I believe it has to many who have listened to it. For what do we live for, when in the end we shall perish? The meaning of life is something philosophers have attempted to decipher for eons…life puzzles even the greatest of minds.
I was thinking about the business empire I was going to build up, and then I thought about death. I was thinking about the family I was going to have, and then I thought about death. I was thinking about the new stereo I was going to get, and then I thought about death. I was thinking…
When everything boils down to one certain death, it is not easy to remain in focus of our goals. I guess this would be what self-help gurus call a fear of death, or perhaps more accurately, the fear of living; for how can a person hope to live a full life when constantly thinking about the futility of his life?
On the internet, there are millions of people who write their thoughts on some subject, be it on a blog, a review site, or just about anything. Some people feel strongly about their thoughts, and can get worked up when people disagree with them.
But why? What is the use of getting worked up at the thought of disagreement? What is the use of being afraid that you’re wrong? What is the consequence of being rejected by someone? In the end, nothing matters, right?
I took organisational behaviour in my previous semester in school; Maslov’s theory of motivation is a theory upon which hundreds of other motivational theories have been based upon. It goes something like this:
We all have 5 basic needs, hierarchically ranked, that of – Psysiological needs, safety needs, social needs, self-esteem and self-realization.
If we apply that to the motivation of living, we come to a dead end. A full-stop. I’m pretty sure that there are some philosophers who have been thinking about this quite a bit, about the reason for living, and I’m sure they have given mature answers etc., but what does it mean to me?
To find out the basis of why we are motivated to live, would that make living any better?
If one day it is found we are all living because fish swim, would we carry on our existence? To find that there is nothing in life, except that fish swim, that’s why we’re alive. “Fish give off a certain scent in the air when they swim, that scent ignites this living passion in humans (chemical reaction), preventing us from feeling that living is futile, and ending it in suicide.”
Oh my, what then? Would it be worth living our lives? If you have ever thought about this, and found that life really is futile, and you have really no hope left, you might want to try religion.
Religion is not a scam — surely it couldn’t be, as it has been around for thousands of years — but then again, religion seems to “modernise” itself, like the human mind. It’s almost as if religion was somehow connected to the human mind — if it was, would religion be as absolute as most of us think it is?
I am not the authority to turn to considering what a big thing religion is, or can be, but here are some of my thoughts about religion that I have either read, or have thought about.
Religion has been much maligned. Ever scince the Ape Theory came about (theory of evolution), many have turned away from religion. They tend to believe science more than they do the “heresay of religious clerics.” Evolution is the way it happened, Big Bang can’t be wrong, Adam and Eve is rubbish, there is a beginning and there will be an end, there is no such thing as God.
Science is very much descriptive (descriptions of experiments, descriptions of what happens what you do this or that, etc.), and should not be used as a tool to philosophise. Have you ever wondered about how the world started? Do you believe that in the Big Bang, somehow our atoms just managed to form life? The differnce between an inaminate (not alive) object and an animal or human, or even a plant?
What is this thing called life? and why do we have it, and not other things? How is life given? Well, according to evolution, it was luck. All a lucky throw of the dice that we are alive. Life is a gamble literally.
If that is how life is according to science — which, remember, is not a philosophical tool, but more of a descriptive one — then how are we to get the will to live? Life is so trivial as a throw of a dice, and nothing more. You are a jackpot, but that’s about it.
This is where religion comes in. It doesn’t matter if it is Hindu, Christianity or Taoism or even “it’s not a religion” Buddhism, they all give some kind of aid to life. They help piece together some things that cannot be pieced together by normal means.
They give hope. They give some answers, provide lots of questions. It is the questions that matter how you live in life, not the answers provided for you. If you don’t belive in anything other than science, may I suggest you explore the possiblities of religion; and if you don’t belive in your present religion, may I suggest you take a look at some of the others.
They are different vehicles to get to the same place; or if not to the same place, they place us on the same journey. The journey to self-discovery, and saintly-discovery; it’ll take you to a whole different plane for you to observe life from.
Donn, fragments 
Why are people so depressed when they “realize” that life is futile or more accurately pointless? What’s wrong with it being pointless? And it is pointless. Sure start a family and everyone eventually dies, but that’s not the worst of it. Death is no big deal. Obviously it’s part of the “entropy” of the universe. The worst part of it is that everyone believes that death is bad. Yeah and why is that? Why does everyone believe death to be bad? Why is there so much fear and fixation on such a normal thing? That’s just silly. Look more closely, why are certain things considered important? Look at these things like “entertainment” (billions of dollars spent on it yearly – production and attendance), jobs, children, etc. Really all pointless time and mind wasters. Stop being fooled, ask more questions that aren’t those same old questions that you’ve read a million places. and stop looking for answers outside yourself, that’s the same as being a baby. Time to stand up and learn without a bible or some silly magazine or TV show. That’s all just kid’s stuff. Stop believing that society is real. It isn’t, it’s a waste of whatever we are. And when it comes down to it, realize that we can just disappear and noone cares. Sure someone will cry, but that’s because they were taught to cry about that stuff, and they’ll “always” feel that way. So what? If you’re going to be here, do what you want. And if you don’t do what you want, dont’ be here. Don’t compromise, compromise is busllshit. Yeah, sure compromise is necessary in life. That’s a cliche.
“Stop being fooled, ask more questions that aren’t those same old questions that you’ve read a million places. and stop looking for answers outside yourself, that’s the same as being a baby.”
Old questions that I’ve read in a million places are some of the most important questions one can ask. The very reason I’ve read them so much are because they matter to me — if these questions didn’t matter, I may read about them, but I wouldn’t remember them.
As for looking for answers outside myself, one has to understand that one cannot come up with the answer to every single thing. As the cliche goes, “why reinvent the wheel?”
Cliches have a bad reputation, but cliches become cliches only because so many people believe them to be true, and so many people believe them to be true only because they often have truth in them.