Revised MoL Draft 2

A Meaning of life isn’t something that someone originally has, but it is something that people develop ideas of over time. Someone’s initial ideas on the meaning of life will almost certainly change with deeper thought and research. I know this from personal experience. Earlier in the year I formulated what I believed to be a fairly strong meaning of life based on what I believe in, but now, after thought and research, I am to revise my original perspective on the meaning of life into someone that does more for my everyday life. What I initial imagined was that the meaning of life was the bigger picture of someone’s life, what their final goal was, but now, after examining other peoples perspectives, religions, philosophers perspectives, and various forms of art, I have come to realize that the meaning of life is more about things you do in everyday daily life and not about what you do with your life as a whole. My new revised meaning of life follows the idea of enjoying life and not brooding over death/the future.

In my original thoughts about the meaning of life I talked more about my overall goal of life, and what I wanted to be thought of after death, things very far in the future; “The meaning of life also includes a final goal. This goal isn’t to be remembered personally by the world, but for the changes I made to be remembered by the world. An example of a change would be to help cure patients of a serious disease, or to have a revolution technology that affects the world.” While this original idea on the meaning of life is nice and idealistic, it realistically doesn’t have much effect on my current life. What I aimed for in revising my meaning of life is to make it more personal, to make it effect my every day life, and to avoid big overarching goals that are set far in the future. Thus I developed the idea that instead of worrying about the future and death, it is most important just to enjoy life in the present, do things that would make you enjoy life and not things that would make you worry about hindrances such as death.

This idea was not formulated solely out of my own ideas, but instead its draws on all the research I did on the meaning of life. When investigating what people in my life believed to be the meaning of life I became engaged in an interesting discussion with my friend Taylor, who deeply influenced my revision of the meaning of life. Taylor claimed that “life is insignificant in hindsight or foresight but in the living moment (the moment that is happening) life is incommunicably important”, an idea that I adapted into my own meaning of life. What he’s trying to express is that living life to enjoy the present is the most important thing, and that living life thinking about the future or the past will just make life less enjoyable, less “significant”, all ideas that were molded into my revised perspective on the meaning of life.

Along with Taylor’s opinion art also had a big influence on my meaning of life. Lots of art tells us about death, and death is something that people think about all the time. Because of this huge focus on death in our culture my original thoughts dealt a lot with death; “These are all things done to be remembered for after I have passed away.” But as my research progressed I came across a lot of art that changed my opinion on this. The main example would be the movie: “The Seventh Seal”. The movie brought out ideas about the meaning of life and death by applying a death situation to the main character (he has been marked for death but is playing chess with death to stall). His thoughts are preoccupied with death until he comes across the innocence of a young acting couple and their child, who represent the good things in life. The movie shows how death is inevitable (he dies in the end) but that you should enjoy the finer things in life (life a bowl of strawberries). This brought my focus on the meaning of life away from death and more towards how to enjoy life. Much like Taylor’s opinion it talks about living in the present and not thinking about the future (death in the case of the movie), ideas I adapted for my meaning of life.

Some may say that my ideas on the meaning of life regressed in terms of maturity level, due to the fact that I chose to worry less about the future and instead try to enjoy the present, but I believe that is not always for the worst. Sometimes a lower maturity level is better for certain people. When interviewed Rabbi Alder claimed that he believed the idea that god is a father in the sky who rewards all our good deeds is a childish, immature idea of god, but its still an idea that has helped many religious people live better lives. In this case I believe that my new view on the meaning of life may be childish/immature, but that it would still help me, and possibly even other people, lead better lives (better of course is based on opinion.)

Having drawn from the perspectives of close friends and art, I have reformed my original idea of the meaning of life into something that is more important to my everyday life. I have concluded that my meaning of life is to enjoy life in the present, and do not brood over problems in the future. While I am certain that this is the right style of meaning of life for me, I will always have questions. It is clear that I have completely disregarded ideas about bigger pictures in the reforming of my meaning and that is something that can and will be worked on, because creating a meaning of life is an ever changing process which doesn’t end till you die (something not to brood over.)