Quote:
Originally Posted by Vampyr
I actually consider myself an absurdist, if I had to label my life philosophy. I think that life is ultimately meaningless. We live for about 80 years and die. In the infinity of the Universe, where all time exists and all space exists, these 80 years are almost nothing. Your relatives may remember you for a while after you die, but eventually everyone and everything will be forgotten, forever.
This isn't an easy thing to deal with. Everyone must realize their own meaninglessness and accept it in some way. I think there are three options. One is suicide. However, I don't believe this is an acceptable option - to merely end one's own existence is even more absurd than continue a meaningless life. It is an easy out that does not seek to solve the problem.
The second option is religion. To believe in an afterlife of some sort. You realize that this life is absurd, so you look for a life beyond this one - a life that does have meaning and is not absurd. This is just another form of suicide - it is philosophical suicide. You abandon reason for an answer based on no facts, and refuse to actually solve the problem at hand. You choose ignorant bliss, a security blanket, an opiate, over the hard answer, which leads to the third and only solution:
Acceptance of the absurd. You accept the difficult answer - life really is meaningless. But you rebel against that meaninglessness - you carve out your own purpose and meaning in life. You decide what meaning your life will have, and you work towards that, while accepting that ultimately it will not matter.
And I'm still working on it. I still don't like the idea of death. I haven't completely accepted it's unstoppable nature, and it does scare me at times. When my plane takes off or lands, I worry it will extend beyond the runway and into fire - and I worry that I haven't done enough.
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Thank you for sharing your views. If you don't mind, I would like to ask you a few questions.
First off, why do we search for meaning in our lives (or as you stated, "rebel against the meaninglessness"? Why aren't we like other animals, who from all observable evidence, do not contemplate what will happen when they die and do not long for an afterlife? What point does that serve in a random and meaningless universe?
Secondly, do you believe that there is a good you should strive for? (I'm assuming that you do since you appear to be a law-abiding citizen.) If so, what is that good and how do you know what good is? (In other words, who decides what is "good" and what is "bad" and how do we come to a consensus?)