(September 24, 2016 at 3:05 pm)InquiringMind Wrote:I understand, truly I do. I actually feel quite similar. Ultimately, in the grandest scheme of things, our little lives will probably have no lasting impact on the universe. This is depressing and frightening, to me.(September 24, 2016 at 2:03 pm)Aroura Wrote: live it?
This may be the correct answer, and is possibly the only thing I've talked about here that I actually have the power to do. It may also be the thing that I was actually made fore. If Nature created me to be a disposable one-generation vehicle for passing on genes, and if I'm just going to be thrown away and recycled after I've outlived my usefulness, then "living" is the only thing I can really do.
So maybe it isn't meaning that I really want. What I really want is immortality. I seek meaning only because I can't have immortality, and meaning is ultimately unsatisfying to me because it's not immortality. I want meaning because I want to say, "If I can't have immortality, I at least want to know that my finite life meant something. But this is still unsatisfying, because I want immortality.
So I suppose that the next be thing I can do to living forever, is to live for whatever time I can. So perhaps "live" the correct answer to the question.
But I've realized we just have to stop dwelling on it. As my kids grade school teacher says, you get what you get and you don't throw a fit. We have fairly pleasant lives and somewhat deep conciousness, so just enjoy it while you can, and help others do the same. What else CAN you DO?
Many people struggle with these questions, and I hope you find answers you can live contentedly with. It may be something that some of us must always struggle with. Just don't give in to hopelessness and you can win each little battle as it arises.
“Eternity is a terrible thought. I mean, where's it going to end?”
― Tom Stoppard, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead
― Tom Stoppard, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead