Hello nofapers. Hoping you are all struggling to be your best selves but have you ever wondered what life real means especially in times like this where there is a global pandemic?
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This question has baffled many. I actually donât know the answer but I would like to present my thoughts.
For me life in nothing but strife towards getting perfect in existing here as long as I am supposed to and we all are going through the same I think. Everyone is putting as much effort as they can so that they can exist in a better way. But thatâs just my thinking 
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This is as philosophical as it can get. But this is my view. The meaning of life according to me is nothing but helping others. Not everyone is created equal, and it shouldnât be, but when we help those who need it, then we are actually making use of what we have. This doesnât mean that you have to live for others or live according to others opinions. It simply means, help those who needs it if you can. Sometimes helping others means bettering myself. For example, if me as a lawyer, wants to help those who canât afford lawyers and desperately need to solve their problems, I need to be a good lawyer first. Improving yourself is like the foundation of improving the society. Society consists of families and families consists of individuals. And at itâs core, individual improvement is the first step. Once that is achieved, you strive to better your family, financially, holistically, and affectionately. Once you have helped your family, use your resources and skills to help the society and everyone in it. Itâs that simple, improve yourself and help others
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Hello @GOVIND-19 this is quite mind-blowing. Your thinking is like that of the the Greek philosopher Socrates who said that life is not about accumulating wealth but actually finding purpose. Thanks for voicing your idea
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From my point of view, the meaning of life is change. Change for the better for your own self and through it to your surrounding, and the world. The only absolute never changing fix point in life is God, and our purpose is to find our way to change to get closer to him while we have the opportunity.
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As for me, the meaning of life lies in searching for your inner nature. By nature I mean not a biological term, but more philosophical one: it is the way you are ment to be. It is way that gives you and everyone around as much good, happiness and balance as it is possible.
And then you find it, your purpose in life will mean the living in accordance to your nature.
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No, the pandemic hasnât especially made me think about itâŚ
But,
My personal opinion, based largely on religious views, is that life is about learning and improving.
Not learning as in memorizing facts, but the kind where you experience things, understand and apply them.
And as for improving, @GOVIND-19 put it much better than I could:
This is a great thread. It is very interesting to see how we all view something like this.
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Absolutely @Dura . Change is something really important especially in times like these.
Okay @strongerthandemons . But sometimes people have tried to leave the way they are meant to be âphilosophicallyâ and they have been rebuffed, rediculed and even sentenced to death. So, what could be the cause?
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@Kadia I see your point, of course. Sometimes we make mistakes, or just do something that others donât like at all. Sometimes, people around us could be evil, misguided with lies and corruption.
Unfortunately, there is no way to move forward, to search for your purpose in life, without taking any risk of being confronted of the others. That means it takes a lot of courage to follow this path, but it doesnât mean itâs not worth it.
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Im struggling with my urges being in my house the whole day during this pandemic.I could have controlled it if there was no such pandemic situations and if I were in my college again 
.
On the other hand I also think this pandemic teaches us to lead a more disciplined lifeđ.
Wish it will all over soon.
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@Kadia You say I think like Aristotle! Iâm flattered! But to be honest, my thinking is rooted in biblical philosophy. Iâll briefly elaborate. So in the old testament there are 10 commandments right? In the new testament, Jesus Christ, narrows down those 10 into 2 commandments. Namely,
- Love your God with all your heart
- Love your neighbor like you love yourself
First one is pretty obvious right, love your God with all you have. You have show your gratitude for what you have been given, what you have and what you will have in the future. This will help you be content with whatever you have and you can eliminate desire from yourself. However this is easier said than done. Humans arenât perfect. The concept of perfection is idealistic. But not impossible. The idea is that you might not be really happy with what you might have in life, but you have to love God nonetheless, as someone else might have it worse. Maybe itâs god testing you to see how strong your faith is. The story of Job is a great example of this.
Now the second commandment can be interpreted much more elaborately. Love your neighbor like you love yourself. The first step to that is to love yourself. But what is the meaning of loving yourself here? It simply means that you have to love yourself enough to improve yourself. Thereâs always scope for improvement and you have to improve as much as possible. No specific target is given and no specific time by which you have to do it. As long as itâs more than what you were from when you started, itâs fine. This is perfectly explained in another story told by Jesus Christ.
It goes like this, an employer gave one coin each to two of his employees. He said do what you must with it, Iâm going away and when I come back, return it to me. The first employee buried the coin in order to keep it safe until the boss came back. While the other invest that money and made 10 coins. When the boss came back, they both returned the coins. The first employee have that one coin as it is, while the other gave the whole 10 coins. The boss was more happy with the second employee because he built on what was given to him and made much more while the other stayed the same. The moral of the story is that as a human, you have to improve on what was given to you by birth as much as you can till the time you die or when God calls us back.
Now what about loving others like yourself? Of you love another person like you love yourself then youâll have to help him improve on what he has. Iâll give an example: Letâs say Iâm overweight or obese even. I have to love myself enough to work on myself, that is, workout, eat healthy and lose weight and lead a healthy Lifestyle. After I have done that, I have a duty to love another person who is obese so as to help her m lose weight and lead a healthy lifestyle.
You have heard of the fat acceptance movement right? It is the perfect example of what not to do. They say that you have to love the way you look aka fat and donât need to struggle to change anything because being fat is ok and youâll have to love yourself being fat. And also educate other fat people to love themselves and learn to accept them being fat and not change a thing. They have the right idea theoretically, however their interpretation and application is way of course. Their argument is that if I love myself and the way I look, why should I change or there is no need to change. Youâll understand the flaw in their argument simply by swapping being fat with some other unhealthy habit. Like , I love myself the way iam so there is no need to quit smoking/ using drugs/ PMO.
To sum it up, you have to love others so that you help them improve their life. One of the greatest philosopher and thinker Emmanuel Kant, in his book called " What we owe each other" speaks about how humans have a moral duty to help others. And that we are violating the rules of morality and ethics simply by refusing to help another person.
Many argue that the real purpose of life or the meaning of life is to find God or reach heaven. This is common in all religions. But one will not reach heaven merely by praying alone. In the Bible Jesus Christ once said " It is not those who shout the name of God but the person who fulfill the desire of the lord that will enter the Kingdom of God" itâs not the exact verse but itâs the gist of the verse. Therefore, in order to reach heaven, one must first live according to his word which is nothing but love God and love others the way you love yourself.
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I believe that the meaning of life is simply to live. Itâs not that we canât find purpose in our lives, but I actually think this question is the wrong one to ask. Simply live.
Of course within this there is endless meaning and ways to live, but this is for each of us to discover on our own.
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Hard to say if you arenât a believer in any religion. For me the meaning is what the Bible describes. Be good to one another, love, fight your selfish, vain urges, endure the tests, and enjoy whateverâs good while it lasts. Could go on a deep philosophical rant here, but basically be good and enjoy the good.
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Anything has a meaning only if we put a label on it.
Our brain works by making connections between events.
For example our brain connects the fruit apple scenes our eyes saw to the English alphabetical order âAPPLEâ and to the sounds of different people saying apple we remember. So it puts some labels on the apple scene we saw.
The apple has meanings - itâs the sound, the colors, the taste. Itâs because we saw it and made connections.
Anything has meaning only if it has labels and those labels are connected to all other labels you remember.
For example apple is connected to red, red is connected to blood, blood is connected to hospital, hospital is connected to people and so on until you name every word your brain knows.
Does life have a meaning?
Life is a set processes going on inside the body. The processes will go on if you die. Just outside of your body. So basically we donât die. Because we consist of atoms that never stop moving, and we donât know why. The atoms never get old. They donât disappear they donât break down. They always exist.
Life is a set of information about construction, stability, form⌠and all other factors and function of those atoms. Life is an information, and it has an information that itâs good for that information to be safe. Asking if the life has meaning is asking, is the information correct. But in reality there is nothing that is correct or wrong. Itâs just the points of views. The lemon is yellow just because our brain thinks it looks like the sun, which we are taught is yellow. If we wouldnât describe yellow, the lemon wouldnât be yellow.
It has a meaning only if you put labels on it.
You can put a label on everything, why donât you put it on the life?
Because we canât put a label on something that we didnât see or hear or felt by other senses. Did you see life? Probably no. Did you hear life? Did you smell life? Did life touch you? No. Thatâs why it doesnât have a meaning. Either life wonât have meaning or we wonât be human.
Senapai- today you have officially become a sage. Bows to your wisdom
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My view on life is dependant on God. I guarantee you he has transformed my life. He promised in his word that he has forgiven every sin and healed every sickness and pain. He promised that he will direct my path. These things all happened to me and others around me. All that we have to do is believe, seek, and recieve because of free will. I feel like my life is going somewhere fast. That is why I came here to seek help and to encourage others for my benefit and for others.
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So, if I kill you, Iâm not committing murder then?
Your entire argument is based on your belief that life is all about atoms. But itâs not right? Everything in this world has atoms but not everything has life. A rock is made of atoms, but it doesnât have life. While a dog is also made of atoms, but it is alive right? This shows that life is not related to the existence of atoms at all. So what is is dependent on? Itâs dependent on biological processes such as growth and sustenance. Human life begins at conception and ends at death. Post death, you no longer grow, your body no longer sustains itself, you no longer respond to stimulus. You simply decompose. Life is limited and thatâs what makes is worth living. Thatâs why you have to live it the best way possible.
Also you say we put label on things, which is right. We put label in everything because thatâs how language works. Thatâs how we communicate. Putting a label on things doesnât negate nor validate itâs existence. Itâs just a means for communication. You said life is all atoms but atoms is a label we put on small stuff that we didnât know what it was. Atoms is a name humans gave to a small particle that we didnât know existed before. Labelling is the process of introducing an unknown substance into the vocabulary of a language so that it can be used easily and frequently. It doesnât change the fact that it existed much before it. Similarly, life is the English term. In malayalam itâs called Jeevan. Itâs called Jeevan in many Indian languages. But there are also different terms for it. But it doesnât mean itâs a different thing.
Wrong. Itâs actually the other way around. Usually when humans name something or label something, itâs after observing that particular thing for a while and then name them accordingly. Thatâs how everything has scientific terms. All of it is based on observations. However, for convenience we give those things another term which is more easy to use in conversations.
We do put label on things we havenât seen on felt. Thatâs why terms like ghosts, spirits, aliens, big foot, heaven, hell, angels, demons exist. These terms do have literary meaning too.
And you can see life, itâs the difference between an alive person and a corpse. You can hear life, itâs the difference in sound an alive person makes when you hit them and when you hit a corpse. You can feel life, itâs the difference between touching an alive person and a corpse. Besides, life is what makes you see, hear, touch feel. If you didnât have life, you wouldnât be able to do any of it. If you canât see the difference between these things, your probably dead.
I think why your argument is flawed because you have taken the literary meaning of life and tried to define it in that basis, but the question asked what what is the meaning of life or what does it mean to live life. What actions give life itâs meaning. What makes life meaningful. That was the essence of the question. And especially during pandemic.
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