You make a very good point. Life itself is inherently pointless—until one injects his own meaning into his life, that is. Anytime a person gives his life meaning, he is giving it a point.

I have a question for you, though. Not to pick on you specifically, but I find this interesting: You say you're not following your own advice in regards to living life. Why not? (And I don't intend to be critical here—I think you raise a very interesting point that needs to be explored.)

For me, as corny as it may sound, is my sport - Crew (rowing). I loathe school and I have the type of parents who never let there kid out because they are freakishly over protective, but when I'm at practice, I always feel so much happier. Yes, there are days that I am like "OH MY GOSH WHY THE EFF AM I STILL DOING THIS", but as soon as my eyes catch a glimpse of the river and I see people who have become family to me, all of that goes away and I am happy. Although season is offically only from March - June, I am involved with all of the "Crew" related practices throughout the year and I always look forward to that. It is my second year doing it and we have practice 3 days a week during the summer (June - End of August), Tuesday and Thursday practices during fall conditioning (September - Winter Break), every day during pre-season (January & Febuary), and then we start the cycle again. It seems so repetitive, but I can honestly say that I love it and that is what brings meaning to my life.

true .

bump



If school was an illusion, why do we learn from it? You need highschool recommendations to get to a good college, and after graduated you get a good job. That would be realistic; or to some lazy people, dreamers.

I'm reading "Purpose Driven Life," and it's about finding a purpose in life, obviously.
It's kindof confusing, IMO.
But anyway, I think the meaning of life is to be content with everything, almost as if being in a state of "Nirvana," although I'm not a Buddhist.

Very good book, btw. It's actually written for Christians who will understand it a lot better than an ordinary person reading it.

bleh.. what do you mean my ordinary people . im Christian btw, lol.

Wrong he did not mean it like that . of course you need school its what you learn . but why face school completely judging that everything is perfect and what your learning right now is the limit of yourself and what your capable of ?. Just because you see peers and classmates in school that are doing the same stuff does not mean you cant go further then you expected. its a matter of what you can do ...and how high you raise your standards and reach your potential....dont look at school school as if its taking the shape of you . ...."theres more that meets the eye ".....you have the power to shape it yourself....what you look at right now your school, your town , possibly region . there nuturing you like your mother . its really up to you . the real world is hard....matter of fact skip that the working world . Thats why you see alot people in New York City that are a-holes(sarcasm) because they are sooo passionate & take pride of what they are doing .NYC people are not bad people they are Just too positive. thats a good thing . its self-motivation to help you achieve sucess.

and that, my friend, is why school, is an illusion

True. Very little things from school is relevant to our whole lives, very little. i guess ... what make our life a bit more worthy is interacting friends in a good way which can change our mood, thoughts, happiness, attitude, and whatever. To me, friends does the most impact and affection.

That may (arguably) be true for high school, but college is a different ballgame—you actually learn things that are relevant in almost every class.

The fact that summer is rapidly approaching, which means working full time at a job (an example of yet another daily routine present in my life), and staying at home (a place I don't especially like to be), brings new life to this issue. Somehow, I feel that I could be spending my time more productively…

Volunteer somewhere. It makes life a bit more worthwile to know that you're helping the community.

I love you for posting this. This is how I feel right now.
I was just thinking, what if we were meant to walk around aimlessly our whole lives. Are we entitled to a purpose? Is out purpose in life to find out that there was no purpose to life? That nothing should've been sacred to us because it wouldn't matter anyway? I guess that's my low self esteem talking?
Giving meaning to your life may not be the same thing for everyone. Or maybe it is the same for everyone. Maybe there's one thing that gives meaning to us all?

I've just gotten myself confused...

I had a "revelation" of sorts about this today—well, not just today, over the past week or so, but it all made more sense today. I think that the goal of any person's life, the driving motivation between anything they do, is to minimize the amount of time spent on obligations ("work") and maximize the time spent doing things they like to do ("fun"). Now, fun differs from person to person. One person may find playing videogames to be fun, while another might get more joy from helping out kids at a nursery school, or alerting others to the myriad problems of the world. But it all seems to come back to one thing: having fun and, by extension, enjoying (and getting the most out of) life.

i think i get it . i`ve realized it . i thats why i dont go in here as while but this quote woke me up .

""Life is what happens to you while you're busy making other plans"

and this


"Every sixty seconds you spend upset is a
minute of happiness you'll never get back"

well the first one is much more clearer .

For the people who were regaurding my comment on the pages earlier. I meant in a high school aspect. Which was nicely discribed by xiMiJix. But also it never quite get's you ready to face college and the responsibility of being on your own. College on the other hand is something that does prepare you for life. i feel the only thing high school taught me was time management. It is what saved my butt being 1,000 miles form home. Because when your out there you are on your own. And if you can't get things done when your suppose to means there is something really wrong with your priorities.

yep. but i don't think life is pointless. you have life so you can make the most of it and be all that you can be. that's what i aim for at life. i heard someone say "live every day as if you would die tomorrow" so every day i try and do my best in what i do.

What would you say is the "point" of life?

To experience things.

yes. and to accomplish things that you want to do.

But the things you want to do are basically things you want to experience- for example, if you want to have a lot of money, basically you want to experience enormous wealth and being able to buy lots of things or donate to charities, if you get what I mean. Life is basically experiences.

right.

I think "experiencing things" and "accomplishing goals" are both valid and notable things people do to give meaning to life, but I separate those out from some over-arching point, which I would ascribe more to an eventual goal or reason for the existence of humanity in general—which I don't think exists. Hence my claim that life can be meaningful, but overall it's pretty pointless.

so why do you think humanity exists?

No reason. It goes back to the formation of the universe. A bunch of chemicals came together to form planets and stars. There was leftover material, which eventually evolved into primitive forms of life. Those forms of life eventually evolved into more complex forms. Over time, humans developed. I don't think humanity really has a "point". I think it just exists.

Which is why I feel that the way to make something of life is to have the best time possible, doing whatever that may be. Living seems a better alternative to not living, and living meaningfully seems a better alternative to being bored all the time.

Really, I think humanity places too much emphasis on trying to explain why we're here and develop a point to life. I don't think there is a point. I think it just happened.

Then again, there is the good point that very few things in nature happen for no reason. No apparent reason, perhaps, but nature usually has a reason for most things. Maybe there is some sort of point to life…