When we consider the truth of our existence, we have three options in respect to meaning. Life is meaningful because I am going to make it meaningful while I am alive because I am dead for a long time. Life is pointless if I am going to die, so I may as well be self-centered enjoy whatever pleasures I can regardless of what others think or feel. Life is futile if I am born to die, I need to find a means for overcoming death.
Everyone of us will take one of these three options in respect to life. However, in truth we begin with two options. The reason being, we can only decide between two things at a time.
Thinking is about the consideration of two options, assessing the merits of each option and, depending of the weight of the evidence or our predilections for each option, retaining one and discarding the other.
The facts are we exist on Earth, other people disappear and, because of this, we begin to realize that we also may disappear into the unknown anytime soon, even if we think that it is unlikely to happen right now.
The time we begin to ponder the uncertainties of our existence is when we question the meaning of life. We realize that we were born once, and we will inevitably die soon. We become aware that between birth and death, everybody suffers in some manner, even if that suffering is experienced in different degrees of severity, be it physical, emotional or mental.
Physical suffering can be an illness; the loss of a body part (arm, leg, eye, ear, teeth, etc); cuts and bruises from a fall or a beating or losing a fight (human or animal). Emotional suffering will result from some form of personal rejection (ostracism, being jilted, refused a job or propositions, etc). Mental suffering comes from anxiety and personal fears of future detrimental possibilities (real or imagined).
Physical suffering, people seem to bear more easily than the other two forms of suffering. Emotional suffering can lead people to severe depression. Mental suffering is a torment of the mind that leads towards obsessions and can end with insanity.
The Buddha came to the conclusion that each one's duty in life is to escape suffering. This was the meaning of life for him. Run. Hide. Disappear into the ether. Except, like Buddha, people do not come back to tell us where they ran to, where they are hiding or what is like to disappear for ever.
In societies where parasites posing as human beings feed off other people, we are told there are two certainties in life: taxes and death. But taxes are only true if you have money or wealth that can be taxed or confiscated. Since not every body (heroin addicts in Afghanistan, for instance) possesses sufficient wealth to be taxed, the only certainty that is common to every person is death.
Suffering is a phenomenon we are certain to encounter the longer we live. The degree of suffering each one will experience will differ for numerous reasons; regardless of whether they are physical, emotional, or mental.
While some people may never experience suffering at all, suffering is a very subjective criterion and unless one is conscious of one's suffering, it is unknown. For instance, people born blind, accept their condition as natural, for they have never seen anything in the world around them with their eyes and therefore cannot experience the loss of sight. This is the case, even though those who can see may suffer sorrow and express sympathy towards a blind person. Parents of a child born blind often do.
We are born, we shall die, life is futile.
Not so, say those who claim that they can be creative and exalt themselves in someway above their brothers or sisters or other members of society. Life is significant. There is significance in being born to die if we do something with our lives. Even if we suffer and die in the end, the fact that we did something is significant. These people like to believe this even though no one really thinks so once they are dead and gone. The only people who are significant to us are those whom we can relate to now.
Life is futile, so we can loot, shoot, root, and execute whatever, whenever, whomever, for ever and a day, because we only live once.
Life is futile regardless of whether we do what we perceive to be good and enjoy the fleeting pleasures that are on offer.
Evil constantly abounds.
Being born to die, and then having to suffer, seems rather unjust, particularly when the concept of eternity, joy, and pleasure for evermore is imaginable without the evil of suffering.
Maybe there is a reason for our existence. Maybe there is a Creator who created the Creation (the Universe and all that is in it). Maybe I could find the Creator and discover my reason for being born to suffer and die. This question we all have to ponder.
The three options we have in respect to meaning are really two. For even if we create our own meaning, by developing a philosophy of meaning through finding significance in what we do, be it like the Buddha in seeking to avoid suffering or distract ourselves by attempting to overcome obstacles by being competitive or creative, whatever we do is futile, because death reigns.
We can accept death reigns and make the most of whatever life has to offer regardless of the evil we do, and its consequences, simply because our view of life is death reigns. Or we can recognize the evil of being born to suffer and die, then seek out the Creator, so that we can find the reason why we exist.
Having given thought to many matters in respect to those three options that are available to every person, it appears the meaning of life on this planet from any person's point of view is lost, if a person does not connect with the Creator of Life in order to find out the reason for being born. Anything else is futile—meaningless—regardless of how self-opinionated a person might be.
Why Live A Life Of Futility When You Can Have Eternal Signifcance?
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