The Meaning of Life

-‘meaning of life’ versus meaning of ‘life’

When uncovering the meaning of life, one must not separate the word ‘life’ from the phrase itself, since the search for the meaning of life is not one that requests the definition of the word ‘life’. Rather, when a person asks ‘what is the meaning of life’, he is pondering life’s purposes or searching for a justification or goal in life etc.

To discover the meaning of life would be similar to discovering the meaning of ‘love’ and one cannot simply put a single meaning to the word love as ‘human emotions’ play a critical role in defining what ‘love’ is. It is subjective to the individual. The Oxford dictionary the word ‘love’ has 2 meanings. The first, ‘great liking or affection; sexual affection or passion; a loved person, a sweetheart’ and the second, ‘feel love for a person or a thing’. The second meaning has a subjective nature to it. When one feels love for a person, it is an indescribable thing that varies with individuals experiencing love. There are degrees of love felt and hence the meaning of life too has many different levels and therefore cannot be simply defined by a single meaning.

-Differentiating ‘purpose’ and ‘meaning’ of life.

One’s purpose of life would refer to one’s aims in life, to fulfill a purpose. However, in fulfilling this purpose, one might not necessarily be contented or satisfied about it. But the purpose is fulfilled nevertheless.

One’s meaning of life is the contentment or satisfaction of doing something, therefore giving life meaning. For example: A man has a goal, to become the chairman of a company. He achieves this goal, is happy and satisfied, because he has fulfilled a purpose in his life. This adds value to his life and hence adds meaning to his life (gives meaning to live).

On the other hand, an unsatisfactory fulfillment of purpose would give no value to one’s life, since one would have felt that what he had just done was a waste of his time, had no value, no meaning to his life. An example would be to fulfill a parent’s wished to for his/her son to become a doctor when one has no inclination towards being a doctor but rather a lawyer instead. When one finally becomes a doctor, one would be regretful or resentful for not pursuing his/her dreams.

Therefore I believe that the meaning of life is the continuous process of adding value (by fulfilling purposes etc.) to life, and the ultimate fulfillment of life, depending wholly on the individual to decide when a mark is reached, would lead to determination of the meaning of one’s life.
Hence I believe that there is not ONE ultimate meaning of life, but many different variations, with no rights or wrongs, since it is dependent wholly on the individual, whether he/she decides to do deeds which add meaning to his/her life. This may be done by fulfilling purposes or aims of life, which leads to satisfaction and the feeling of fulfillment. Purposes or aims may be: The understanding of a certain problem or issue. This may be done by actual experience of the problem, or realization at a certain point due to an event, or memories, or a verbal reminder; the completion of a goal for example getting married, having a family, becoming the chairman of a company, reaching the peak of a very tall mountain etc; obtaining something that has been of one’s utmost desire.

Yet these fulfillment of the meaning of life, because of total reliance on human perspective, may result in the problem of ethics, whereby an individual achieves satisfaction by dishonest means which unethical. To the individual, however, it added value to his life because to him, he has achieved his goal, and is satisfied and therefore added meaning to his life.

Hence, there is what I deem ‘morally-good’ meaning of life and ‘immoral’ meaning of life. ‘Morally-good’ refers to good ethics observed when achieving a goal or fulfilling a purpose. ‘Immoral’ practice would refer to a bad deed done, (good or bad determined by society) and the individual would be rejected by his society. This rejection from his/her society would incurr in him/her a certain extent of guilt or remorse (unless the character is beyond help), demeaning his/her life. This is a system of check and balance present in society which moderates the meaning of life.

Every individual is given a jigsaw puzzle to solve, the pieces lie in the future in the form of purposes and problems to be solved. As one goes through life, he/she finds these pieces and fixes them together. The complete picture of one’s meaning of life can only determined when all the puzzle pieces are found and all fit with each other. This is the picture of life’s perfection and utmost satisfaction.
bleh,
this is going to be submitted and i think im quite dead....