What is the meaning of Life ?

[NastyNickers]

Gosh. I came in here thinking it would be the same arguments and funny quips etc, this forum is therapy for me at the minute, at a particularly shite time, and I'm really sorry to read some of your stories. Charlie like you I'm drinking too much.

Last night I visited my brother, he's got cancer of the bowel and has a tumour in his chest and is lying in hospital waiting to die. Every breath is painful for him and i looked in his eyes and thought, God I hope it comes soon, he's suffering so much. I don't have my mum and dad any more and that was heart breaking, but this is my big brother and i can't get my head round how unfair it is.

So my husband and i got in our car and drove home, had a takeaway and a drink, and all I could think of was him there in that bed and wondered if he is frightened and what's going through his mind.

So I have no fucking clue at the minute what it's all a fucking bout.

I'm not posting to you because it makes me look good and caring and stuff.

I'm posting to you because I hear you, and can relate to the despair and sense of utter helplessness you're feeling. You're wishing you could just magic away your brother's suffering.

I'm so sorry to see what I know you're going through.

Thanks Vam, going back to the subject of the thread, it's weird that even at such a horrible time, there is meaning in it though, I don't know how to explain it without it sounding twee, but we are able to say things to each other that we wouldn't have been able to if circumstances had been different.

So I suppose life's meaning to me is just trying to wade through life, getting through sad times and crying but equally appreciating the good times when they come too.

Is easy to take it for granted, sometimes it takes a "jolt" to make you realise and appreciate what you have

This is what my brothers death left with me.
There’s ALWAYS light. Always. You just have to look for it. Before my brother died I didn’t appreciate that. But his death taught me that there’s always good to be found in the worst situations, and my life has been better for it.

Laugh whilst you still can, lovely. It’ll be the laughs and jokes you have now that will get you through, you’ll talk about him and about the laughs, not about the pain.

[megaera]

I think I've posted this before, but it is still a wonderful analogy imo

Scars are a testament to life. Scars are a testament that I can love deeply and live deeply and be cut, or even gouged, and that I can heal and continue to live and continue to love. And the scar tissue is stronger than the original flesh ever was. Scars are a testament to life. Scars are only ugly to people who can't see.

As for grief, you'll find it comes in waves. When the ship is first wrecked, you're drowning, with wreckage all around you. Everything floating around you reminds you of the beauty and the magnificence of the ship that was, and is no more. And all you can do is float. You find some piece of the wreckage and you hang on for a while. Maybe it's some physical thing. Maybe it's a happy memory or a photograph. Maybe it's a person who is also floating. For a while, all you can do is float. Stay alive.

In the beginning, the waves are 100 feet tall and crash over you without mercy. They come 10 seconds apart and don't even give you time to catch your breath. All you can do is hang on and float. After a while, maybe weeks, maybe months, you'll find the waves are still 100 feet tall, but they come further apart. When they come, they still crash all over you and wipe you out. But in between, you can breathe, you can function. You never know what's going to trigger the grief. It might be a song, a picture, a street intersection, the smell of a cup of coffee. It can be just about anything...and the wave comes crashing. But in between waves, there is life.

Somewhere down the line, and it's different for everybody, you find that the waves are only 80 feet tall. Or 50 feet tall. And while they still come, they come further apart. You can see them coming. An anniversary, a birthday, or Christmas, or landing at O'Hare. You can see it coming, for the most part, and prepare yourself. And when it washes over you, you know that somehow you will, again, come out the other side. Soaking wet, sputtering, still hanging on to some tiny piece of the wreckage, but you'll come out.

Take it from an old guy. The waves never stop coming, and somehow you don't really want them to. But you learn that you'll survive them. And other waves will come. And you'll survive them too.

If you're lucky, you'll have lots of scars from lots of loves. And lots of shipwrecks.

[Text]

Condolences to the bereaved posters above, and sorry to those with very sick relatives. Been there!


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Not sure about the answer to my own question, so I thought I might as well ramble a bit, indulge me! > >

Of course at the big bang, atoms flew out in all directions, ... and they kept continually rearranging themselves till by pure chance they formed life - cos they struck a formula which was a viable lifeform. At first it was a crude arrangement of atoms and molecules, .... but over millions of years the formula became increasingly sophisticated and eventually formed mammals, the highest life form.

I'd personally find it hard to omit spirituality from a topic like this. In the middle of every scientific theory about the multiverse ... is a God shaped hole staring bemusedly at us, I feel.

I wonder tho, after death, do we then move into another realm where the physical aspect of us is shed ...... and carry on existing solely through our minds and thought processes?


---------------------------------------------------------------------------
This is a selection of replies from posters at another site where I did this thread:


1. We are living in a giant Goldfish Bowl, there is an alien source out there watching us develop, same as watching an ants nest develop !


2. To be. In being we give expression to the universe.

3. Individually we are all just gene carriers. No more, no less. We are vehicles for moving DNA around.

4. "natural selection" and "survival of the fittest"; via many gradual steps over millions of years.

5. 42







--------------------------------------------------------------------
And these are two quotes from the www.

''The sole meaning of life is to serve humanity'' leo tolstoy

"The cosmos is within us, we're made of star stuff. We are a way for the cosmos to know itself." (unspecified author)

[Frankly]

Gosh. I came in here thinking it would be the same arguments and funny quips etc, this forum is therapy for me at the minute, at a particularly shite time, and I'm really sorry to read some of your stories. Charlie like you I'm drinking too much.

Last night I visited my brother, he's got cancer of the bowel and has a tumour in his chest and is lying in hospital waiting to die. Every breath is painful for him and i looked in his eyes and thought, God I hope it comes soon, he's suffering so much. I don't have my mum and dad any more and that was heart breaking, but this is my big brother and i can't get my head round how unfair it is.

So my husband and i got in our car and drove home, had a takeaway and a drink, and all I could think of was him there in that bed and wondered if he is frightened and what's going through his mind.

So I have no fucking clue at the minute what it's all a fucking bout.

I've just caught up with this thread, and I can't think of anything different to say than what has already been said, but offer both you and McAz my heartfelt sympathies.

[Text]

A glance at the Hubble Deep Field images should be enough to dispel any notion that there is any special meaning or purpose to our existence beyond our biological imperatives.

Quite.
I liked this article: (The Authors' names are embedded in it.)

“Defining the meaning of life in philosophy is difficult,” says Emily Thomas, deputy director of philosophy at Durham University. “You could be asking for the purpose of life – for example, God created us to worship him, or procreate. Or the value of life – for example, life is valuable because it makes us happy, or brings beauty, or moral good.”

“ I don’t think life has a purpose, but I do think it has value.” The meaning of life also brings up the question of whether or not life exists elsewhere in the Universe. “I’d be astonished if it didn't,” Thomas says. “It seems very unlikely that we are the only happy accident.” Thanks to modern censuses of planets in our galactic neighbourhood, like Nasa's Kepler mission, we know that planets are common and that small, Earth-sized planets are not the exception, but the rule.

Most scientists agree today that life in the Milky Way, and other galaxies, is common. However, most of that life is in the simplest possible form, microbes. Other galaxies, like Andromeda, are so huge that, statistically, life in them is almost certain. Thinking about it in this way, life on Earth can seem pretty irrelevant.

"Contemplating the sheer scale of the Universe and the tininess of our world, it is easy to dismiss humanity as insignificant in the ‘Big Picture’. We seem like just a tiny brush stroke or a random pixel in that picture," says Jaymie Matthews, professor of astronomy and astrophysics at the University of British Colombia. But Matthews explains why this is not the case.

“When I was a student starting out in astronomy, the recipe of the Universe was simple,” she says. “Everything was made of the particles that make us, and our planet, and our Sun, and all the suns and gas and dust in interstellar space. We were part of the main ingredient of the dish.” Now, however, the discovery of dark matter and dark energy has thrown this completely off. Today, the recipe of the Universe is about 75 per cent dark energy, 21 per cent dark matter, and four per cent normal matter – the stuff we are made of. On top of this, the actual elements that make Earth and life on Earth represent only a tiny fraction of a per cent of the composition of the Universe.

“We've gone from being the main ingredient in the recipe – the cheese in the fondue – to a pinch of spice,” Matthews says. “That's not a loss of stature in the cosmic kitchen, but a promotion.” Think about this the next time you wonder whether life has any meaning. Matthews says: “Every time you look up at the stars, and wonder what they are and how they got there, you give the Universe meaning, and add to your own meaning.”



----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Few thought-provoking quotes to finish off with .......

[measurer]

To learn...

[Keyser]

For what it's worth - gravitational lensing has given us a superb image of a galaxy from 13.3 Billion (light years) years ago.

Perspective - this is an how 'important we' are in this image?

Fuck religion.

[NastyNickers]

Canary, you reminded me of this.
I read bits of this at my brothers funeral. It’s how I like to think of it.

[McAz]

And finally...

How can something so fragile leave us helpless?
We all feel helpless once in a while.
How can something so fragile leave us humble?
We all feel humble once in a while.

And now nature can sing such beautiful wings,
Did you think of this?
That each of us know in our hearts we must go
And that's what beauty is.
And just as the dream you were in dissolved in the morning sky,
As soon as we're here, we disappear, like dragonflies.

(Mark Nicholas Hewerdine)

[Lady Murasaki]

To have faith.
To listen.
To see.
To feel.
To taste.
To live.

[Trapper John]

To have faith.
To listen.
To see.
To feel.
To taste.
To live.

They are consequences of life not the meaning.

[Lady Murasaki]

To have faith.
To listen.
To see.
To feel.
To taste.
To live.

They are consequences of life not the meaning.

To nitpick.

[Guest]

To have faith.
To listen.
To see.
To feel.
To taste.
To live.

To lie.
To bitch on Forums.

[Vam]

And finally...

How can something so fragile leave us helpless?
We all feel helpless once in a while.
How can something so fragile leave us humble?
We all feel humble once in a while.

And now nature can sing such beautiful wings,
Did you think of this?
That each of us know in our hearts we must go
And that's what beauty is.
And just as the dream you were in dissolved in the morning sky,
As soon as we're here, we disappear, like dragonflies.

(Mark Nicholas Hewerdine)

Beautiful, soft and gentle words stating an undeniable truth, Az...

[Helena]

And finally...

How can something so fragile leave us helpless?
We all feel helpless once in a while.
How can something so fragile leave us humble?
We all feel humble once in a while.

And now nature can sing such beautiful wings,
Did you think of this?
That each of us know in our hearts we must go
And that's what beauty is.
And just as the dream you were in dissolved in the morning sky,
As soon as we're here, we disappear, like dragonflies.

(Mark Nicholas Hewerdine)

I love this, absolutely beautiful

Thanks for your kind words folks