Meaning of Life

[*Jess♥]

I don't think that self-esteem is the issue. I recall reading an article about self-esteem in my English class. It was beleived that if you could make kids think good about themselves, i.e. raise their self-esteem, then it would motivate them to do better things. It turned out that that was not the case. For example, if a kid got an F on a science test, he'd blame the teacher or test before himself because his parents were always telling him how smart and good he was.

I actually thin that's very cruel and It's not surprising if that kid got very low self esteem from that. if he was constantly told he was smart and he was not, then he is just gonna get frustrated when he does badly in tests. it'll confuse him and he will start to lash out. thats not raising self esteem.. thats plain lying. it promotes mistrust. it prootes the feeling "people don't love me if they would do this to me" leading to "whats wrong with me, why do peole hurt me like this" ... see where this leads? the best thing to do is to say "you are not smart, but thats ok, we love you anyway because you have such other things you are good at" and then concetrate on the good things about that person. thats how to make them feel good about who they are.

Although i agree that it has to do with people's upbringing. The way one's raised does have direct influence on the way they live their lives. And I don't think that what People feel for those celebrities is hatred; its more like a lack of compassion. When People watch Lindsay Lohan get hauled off to jail on TV< its like they think they're watching the circus. But its real people.

IT goes back to my original point; People are insanely disconnected with reality, especially here in the U.S. But it seems to me like they'd rather gossip about Paris Hilton rather than face the complex issues of Iran or illegal immigration. They excited about these politicians, promising change and promisising to fix everything. But then once they're elected they stop caring, like they've done their part in changing society, and now they're handing the torch off to the Pres.

Oi vey. Anyway thats enough ranting.

Our society may be twisted, but it has its up points for sure. For example, at least we don't have to worry about being trampled by a Mastadon like our ancestors, or worry about our pets/us being attacks be aggressive Funnel Web Spiders like the folk in Australia. We don't need to worry about being ambushed by bandits on dirt roads like in the colonial days. Lets be frank here, we've got it pretty good.

no, instead of worryig about our pets being attacked, we gotta worry about our pets attacking us. dog atacks are getting more and more frequent because owners do not instill authority on the animal. and now we don't gotta worry abbout getting attacked by bandits. these days they are called 'chavs' and 'neds'.

and goddam... thank goodness we don't have to worry about them pesky mastodons. society really showed them! oh wait.. no that was natural selection and ice ages.

well yeah, I may be pessimistic... but it's hard not to be given the state of teh world.

I don't think society in general is good. People are too complacent, take too much for granted and tehn lash out when they feel bad about something. society is like a spoiled abused child.

of course i am not gonna say it's all bad.

there are People in society that are setting apart from this crap. People like you or I who actually thin about things and talk about stuff.

and you know what? all our problems in society... I actually know of a place where this crap hardly exhists. japan. their society is like.. pure heaven.

you don't feel unsafe at night. animals are under control. People respect their elders.

and no mastodons.

[*Youngtusk]

I actually thin that's very cruel and It's not surprising if that kid got very low self esteem from that. if he was constantly told he was smart and he was not, then he is just gonna get frustrated when he does badly in tests. it'll confuse him and he will start to lash out. thats not raising self esteem.. thats plain lying. it promotes mistrust. it prootes the feeling "people don't love me if they would do this to me" leading to "whats wrong with me, why do peole hurt me like this" ... see where this leads? the best thing to do is to say "you are not smart, but thats ok, we love you anyway because you have such other things you are good at" and then concetrate on the good things about that person. thats how to make them feel good about who they are.

Yeah, that was only a hypathetical example. But indeed, it was a huge controversy about how much they f-ed up in raising these kids to think they were better than they were. It wasn't jsut parents, though, it was teachers and coachs; it was a huge campaign to raise self-esteem and it failed. BUt you live you learn.

no, instead of worryig about our pets being attacked, we gotta worry about our pets attacking us. dog atacks are getting more and more frequent because owners do not instill authority on the animal. and now we don't gotta worry abbout getting attacked by bandits. these days they are called 'chavs' and 'neds'.

and goddam... thank goodness we don't have to worry about them pesky mastodons. society really showed them! oh wait.. no that was natural selection and ice ages.

well yeah, I may be pessimistic... but it's hard not to be given the state of teh world.

I don't think society in general is good. People are too complacent, take too much for granted and tehn lash out when they feel bad about something. society is like a spoiled abused child.

of course i am not gonna say it's all bad.

there are People in society that are setting apart from this crap. People like you or I who actually thin about things and talk about stuff.

and you know what? all our problems in society... I actually know of a place where this crap hardly exhists. japan. their society is like.. pure heaven.

you don't feel unsafe at night. animals are under control. People respect their elders.

and no mastodons.

I don't blame the dogs for attacking their owners; its no different from a child, it will act relative to how it was raised. Incompetent parents leads to children who become criminals; incompetent owners leads to dog attacks.

And yes, the our world is still dangerous, but I think I prefer it that way. I love the lyric from that one Smash Mouth song, "My world's on fire, how 'bout yours? Thats the way I like it and i'll get bored."

And America has become a lot safer in the past twenty or so years, Kidnappings are at an all time low. Its made out to be a worse place than it actually is.

Society may be f-ed up, but what are we gonna do? We either live in it and deal with it or go live in the woods like some transcendentalist(i mean no offense to believers of transcendentalism).

And besides, if it weren't for all those other zombies of society, I wouldn't feel special for thinking differently.

My point was, life doesn't suck. We have it easy compared to those who lived in say the Dark Ages or during the Crusades. Still, People can b*tch about anything, and its those peeps who need wake up calls. Then again, I think it would be an act of pure evil to put other People through existential angst. Its not good for the soul.

[*Jess♥]

no, you are right.

existential angst... a rterrible thing. I suffered from it for a while and it can be so soul destroying that I am lucky still to be here in this world.

I think somewhere along the way I lost the point of our conversation, but no matter! it is fun anyway!

yes, bad owners = bad dogs etc.

precisely.

I think i want to disagree with your perspective.. maybe teh dark ages was better for people? on a superficial level, it wouldn't appear that way, but on a spiritual level...

well when People are in a bad situation, they have hope and they have purpose to drive towards a better future.

at the moment People don't have that drive and tehy are suffering from apathy because of it. the spiritual pain could be worse than the physical pain?

debatable i guess.

Society may be f-ed up, but what are we gonna do? We either live in it and deal with it or go live in the woods like some transcendentalist(i mean no offense to believers of transcendentalism).

or we change it best we can!! that's why i am in university studying for an Animation degree. People can be changed through art.

i mean Artists and designers are the most powerful People on thenplanet. our work can influence People greatly

[Super Existence]

I guess that it is different for each and every person. I have to disagree with Ryuki there on the making People happy thing. That's probably true for many People but I don't make films to make others happy it's a bit more selfish to me for me it's I have these stories and visual ideas inside me and I have to get them out somehow or I'll pop.

It's not just different for each person but for any kind of life.

For an insect it's to survive at all costs there is absolutely no enjoyment for a top predator like a lion survival is important but they get to laze around as well and socialize.

Perhaps the purpose of life is to see what happens at the end of time to see what's come and gone what developments happened what was achieved and what was lost.

No, that's way too poetic.

Maybe it's as simple as something had to dwell in the void or it's just a void.

[Hyper_Guyvantic]

You want to know the meaning of life? Then watch Monty Pythons: The Meaning of Life

[CustodianGuyver]

I think the People best qualified to answer this question are the People to whom life actually has meaning.

those People who have a purpose. The People who have a purpose in their life will tell you straight away what the meaning of life is FOR THEM.

but there is a pattern... and I have met many People who, like me, have purpose.

the answer is "to make others happy" this is the pattern that has emerged. almost anyone who has a driving force.. something that makes their life worthwhile, something that they endeavor towards it is to make others happy, to enrich others lives and to inspire others.

that is why I do the things I do... to make others happy. If I can see a smile on the face of another, it makes me feel good and that is my purpose.

I also want to strive to make the world a better place.

I feel that this also links in with my own spiritual beliefs.

that human beings come to inhabit the earth in an eternal quest to learn and improve upon ourselves.

as a whole and not just personally. that is why the ones who can make others happy or inspire others endeavor to help the rest of the People to reach their own personal apex.

the meaning of life - "happiness - for oneself and for others"

This thread if you are the 1 that made it made me happy. Good Guyver info forum and other animes like berzerk. Ryuki can I call you da pink dinaosur god.

:lol:

Your out look to meaning of life is good. Wish there more People like you on this world. World would certainly become a way better place for all.

[*Jess♥]

This thread if you are the 1 that made it made me happy. Good Guyver info forum and other animes like berzerk. Ryuki can I call you da pink dinaosur god.

:lol:

Your out look to meaning of life is good. Wish there more People like you on this world. World would certainly become a way better place for all.

heh heh, you can call me that if you want...

no i never made this thread, that honour goes to 's naught'.

I am glad you can appreciate my outlook.

my outlook has changed a little now... a little more spiritual.. I believe that teh meaning of life is to reach enlightenment and to help others reach enlightenment.

I believe it is one great big lesson.. and so I think that it's not always best to 'help' others.. because some People do not want to be helped. and I feel it is unfair to deny them their misery. if they choose it, they should be given it because I believe they have chosen it in order to learn some important lesson. whatever that lesson may be.

so in some times, I believe that by acting 'badly' towards soembody .. is actually helping them. you know, the 'cruel to be kind' mentality.

of course i would never assume to treat somebody badly. my natural tendency is to treat somebody the way i would like to be treated.

I would only give somebody misery if they made it absolutely clear that it is what they want.

[Guest the_rotton_core]

Well this is a big discussion and I must confess I haven't read all of it. But in my opinion the answer is to be happy. Why does it need to be any more complicated? Find what makes you happy and live for it.

[*Youngtusk]

Well this is a big discussion and I must confess I haven't read all of it. But in my opinion the answer is to be happy. Why does it need to be any more complicated? Find what makes you happy and live for it.

Thats exactly what people do believe! They feel that somehow their only purpsoe for existence is to be happy. This is further reinforced by media and social matterialism. Buy this and it'll make you happy, look younger and it will make you happy. DO this, do that, do this, do that.

We act and think as if somehow we're entitled to happiness. This simply is not true.

[*Jess♥]

We act and think as if somehow we're entitled to happiness. This simply is not true.

i disagree. I think we are entitled to be happy.

I think hte approach is wrong. because happiness will only ever come from within.

you can be happy in any situation, you just have to create that happiness from inside.

the perfect phrase for this would be "happy as a pig in drenn".

the pig is happy to wallow in drenn. nuff said.

[*Youngtusk]

Right, tell that to a Guatemalan Cashcrop worker who watched their brother be burned alive for resisting the corporate military. Tell them that happiness can be found within them. That aproach might work.

[*zeo]

In my opinion...

We aren't entitled to anything! Really, this is old wisdom... Just look at how many religions put pride/ego as a sin? But like a lot of old wisdom no one really uses it and are too busy making up their own rules to life.

Everything we have since birth is a gift but what we get out of life is something to be earned just like life itself has to be continuously earned. We aren't entitled to be happy, it's something we have to both choose to be and have to earn. Otherwise we wouldn't want or need things or activities to make us happy.

Being entitled to something means you don't have to work to get it but there are few things in the world that exist without some sort of price.

Just like survival, we need to earn food and comfort. Happiness doesn't come free either and in the end is just a state of mind to which we instinctively desire to achieve but is nothing more.

So I believe the meaning to life is to experience life in all its complexity and so in the end life is its own meaning.

I do believe the world suffers from a distinct lack of empathy, people all over the world for example don't seem to think that we're all connected and live on the same planet. Every problem of the world belongs to someone else and not them!

But this is part of human nature, like Romans have honestly noted the people are of the mob mentality. This is why simple distractions work in keeping people from making needed changes. We may individually be good people but as a society we break down to raw instincts and desires. And only with great effort, usually pushed by the guile of the few, does anything really get done.

Like how often does it require people dying before action is taken to stop or prevent a threat that everyone saw coming?

More often then not things have to be real to us before we take them seriously. Like the lack of empathy at hearing about the deaths of thousands versus the empathy of hearing about the death of someone you knew.

Personally I've always been very empathic, I don't even like to watch reality tv shows because I can't stand watching people make fools of themselves. I take no enjoyment at watching others suffer and even in a fight and through the adrenaline pumping rage I can never bring myself to really hurt someone else even though my instincts are like everyone else's to cause harm. Though I'm not deluded into thinking I'm incapable of violence, we all are, but the thought of hurting other people actually scares me and that is usually enough to keep me from losing all control.

Perhaps if more people were like that we wouldn't have as much bloodshed in the world, violence is unfortunately addictive once you start and so it is hard to stop, but I don't believe there is any simple solution as people aren't simple. We just got to start thinking more of each other than just ourselves all the time...

End rant!

[*Jess♥]

Right, tell that to a Guatemalan Cashcrop worker who watched their brother be burned alive for resisting the corporate military. Tell them that happiness can be found within them. That aproach might work.

actually. it's true. happiness can be found within even in that situation. usually when people have little or nothing to lose, they start to appreciate the simple things more. there is a book by viktor frankl, "man's search for meaning". it is about this persons life in a consentration camp and about how he turned it into a positive experience. people are in bad situations EVERYWHERE. Neither you or I could undestand everyones situation and we cannot fully understand how we might feel in that situation. the thing is though.. how we choose to view our situation is how we decide to feel about it. this is soething i have had a lot of experience with.. learning how to view my situation and how to control my emotions. I've got a long way to go, but i have turned my life around fro viewing my life situation with utter hopelessness to one of optemism and happiness.

this also bleeds into what zeo has shared.

I am happy at the moment. I don't feel that i don't deserve to be happy, or that i'm not entitled to it.

I AM entitled to be happy. because hapiness is MY OWN EMOTIONAL STATE. nobody else has any right to dictate how i feel, because it is my own and nobody else.

nobody can touch my emotions. nobody can give them to me and nobody can take them away. think about "the glass is half full" and "the glass is half empty". how i think determines how i feel and only i can choose to think one way or the other.

I didn't have to earn my happiness. i chose my own criteria for being happy. people do that a lot. so if you feel that you have to work to be happy, that's your decision. that's your criteria for that emotional state. it's not always easy to create your own criteria, and the experience through our lives can get us into habits that can be so ingrained that we find it difficult to change our criteria for happiness.

btw.. i don't know if this is truly what you were trying to say zeo, but pride/ego does not = happiness.

pride/ego are blockades to happiness. because pride wil stop you from taking actions that will make you happier. like talking to your brother that you really miss but fell out with him.

as human beings in full command of our internal state, we are entitled to ANYTHING and EVERYTHING. it is only ourself that can deny us those things which only we can give to ourself.

to go into specifics...

the man in guatemala may have seen his brother burned alive. that is only one aspect of his entire life! if you concentrate only on hte very worst things, the everything will seem terrible. but what else do we know about this man? he might have a very fortunate life. he may have people all around him who love him very much (there are many rich people who live in luxury who do not have anybody to love or who love them). his brothers resistance may have been an act that stopped the military from doing something worse like slaughtering teh entire family. his brother would have given such a sacrifice and the people would feel so happy simply to be alive although they would be sad.. that doesn't take away the gift he would have given them. if his last moments were to give them happiness it would be a waste to feel sad and desperate all the time his death would be wasted so they would look upon this scenario as the greatest of gifts and celebrate it.

drenn happens to everyone. but if you concetrate on the drenn all the time, your entire exhistance will revolve around it.

[*zeo]

My point of view is the mechanics and absolutes of what emotions are. . . emotions are at their core a response to either stimuli and/or memory. If you had no memory or anything stimulating your brain then you could not have emotions or even know what emotions are...

Happiness is thus something that has to be both experienced and desired before you can choose to be happy and invariably you usually have to do something to invoke that emotion. Whether that something is meditation, remembering something that made you happy, or doing something you enjoy it all requires you to do something to invoke the emotion. And thus like many things in life it has to be earned in some way.

Like say doing art makes you happy, then you do art to make yourself happy.

Quintensentially we aren't born happy or sad, we learn these emotions and only then can we choose between them... That's my point of view anyway.

btw.. i don't know if this is truly what you were trying to say zeo, but pride/ego does not = happiness.

pride/ego are blockades to happiness. because pride wil stop you from taking actions that will make you happier. like talking to your brother that you really miss but fell out with him.

I have to disagree... In part because the exact opposite can also be true of pride, like pride in family will make you talk to your brother even if you had a falling out with him. Pride isn't a simple emotion and Emotions are part of our pride/ego, because in order to be happy you have to indulge (oneself) in a feeling of pleasure or satisfaction and that is part of the function of pride/ego.

Unlike the 6 core emotions, which happiness is one, Pride is one of the more complex emotions that encorporate many of the other emotions. Happiness especially is linked to pride, like pride in one's accomplishments is a pleasurable emotion associated with happiness and positively can induce you to make more accomplishments.

While each of the 6 core emotions are basically ways we react to stimuli, to choose to be in any one of those states involves complex associations to which pride/ego encompasses.

So by choosing to be happy, you are indulging yourself and thus acting upon your pride/ego. And pride/ego only inhibit happiness in complex situations where one source of happiness interferes with another source.

Like pride in one's infallability would get in the way of the happiness of knowing the truth when it becomes apparent that the truth means you made a mistake. But for simplier emotional states such conflict doesn't come up.

Really Pride is a quality that has the potential to be both good and bad, just like any emotion it can result in both good and bad behavior. The reason it is often considered a sin is because many people go too far with pride.

Like placing the imporance of any one person above another can only invariably lead to trouble. But it is so much a part of our makeup that people often never realize when they over indulge their pride.

See where I'm coming from?

[*Jess♥]

certainly, I see where you're coming from. you wrote a lot and i apologise I am incapable of considering so much at once.

but in responce to some points.

what is happiness? well the way i see it happiness is not = pleasure or happiness is not = satisfaction.

these are different things. happiness is a sense of peace and tranquility, a sense that everything is right in the world.

I guess happiness is more spiritual whereas pleasure is more physical and satisfaction is more mental.

so you can get pleasure but not be happy. you can get satisfaction but not be happy.

in order to get a feeling of hapiness, you can't be bound by anything, you can't have any pressure on yourself, it's almost a feeling of utter freedom. total harmony.

with pride, you cannot get this, because pride is like a chain that binds you to a specific ideal. even if the pride may cause a positive outcome in some situations, it is still a burden. and thus is not = happiness. it is a barrier to happiness.

I must point out that pride is not the only way of describing self value, ego is not the only way of describing self value, you can describe self value with love. if you love yourself, you do not need pride or ego.

pride is to place a value on one thing moreso than on other things. it causes imbalance. imbalance is disharmony.

I understand when you say you have to work to attain happiness. I do not believe that is what I understood by your previous statements.

I believe that at times you do have to take an action to attain happiness from a state of unhappiness. of course you have to take action to attain a state of being in hte next moment, you have to acknowledge your exhistence to move on, or you cease to be. I do not believe that it changes any entitlement. a person is entitled to breathe. a person is entitled to think. to create a state of happiness you can use your power of thought and perspective and this is something you have by right. so anyone is entitled to happiess even if they need to take some action to arrive at that state.

it is of course very difficult to talk about emotional states though. emotions are by their very nature abstract things.

If we don't reach any form of agreement or harmony throughout this discussion it would be hardly surprising

[CustodianGuyver]

certainly, I see where you're coming from. you wrote a lot and i apologise I am incapable of considering so much at once.

but in responce to some points.

what is happiness? well the way i see it happiness is not = pleasure or happiness is not = satisfaction.

these are different things. happiness is a sense of peace and tranquility, a sense that everything is right in the world.

I guess happiness is more spiritual whereas pleasure is more physical and satisfaction is more mental.

so you can get pleasure but not be happy. you can get satisfaction but not be happy.

in order to get a feeling of hapiness, you can't be bound by anything, you can't have any pressure on yourself, it's almost a feeling of utter freedom. total harmony.

with pride, you cannot get this, because pride is like a chain that binds you to a specific ideal. even if the pride may cause a positive outcome in some situations, it is still a burden. and thus is not = happiness. it is a barrier to happiness.

I must point out that pride is not the only way of describing self value, ego is not the only way of describing self value, you can describe self value with love. if you love yourself, you do not need pride or ego.

pride is to place a value on one thing moreso than on other things. it causes imbalance. imbalance is disharmony.

I understand when you say you have to work to attain happiness. I do not believe that is what I understood by your previous statements.

I believe that at times you do have to take an action to attain happiness from a state of unhappiness. of course you have to take action to attain a state of being in hte next moment, you have to acknowledge your exhistence to move on, or you cease to be. I do not believe that it changes any entitlement. a person is entitled to breathe. a person is entitled to think. to create a state of happiness you can use your power of thought and perspective and this is something you have by right. so anyone is entitled to happiess even if they need to take some action to arrive at that state.

it is of course very difficult to talk about emotional states though. emotions are by their very nature abstract things.

If we don't reach any form of agreement or harmony throughout this discussion it would be hardly surprising

Seems to me that you actually reached a total state of happiness ruyki. I will call you Little dog god ryuki.

Well I reckon the only people who reached true happiness are porn stars and monks. I mean to be able to do crazy stuff like laying on sharp pointy swords without getting impaled is pretty impressive. I also heard that monks can meditate for 2 days non stop.

The can also sleep in some feeezing conditions outside on high mountains where temparture goes below 20-.

I reckon monks are in a way next evolutionary steps of humanity and achieving happiness.

As porn stars go they get to shagg some really hot sluts. :lol: I mean which guy would not wanna do that job. I mean hell I would do it for free lol.

If that does not bring happiness banging hot sluts as your job then I am not sure what does. :lol:

Edited August 19, 2008 by CustodianGuyver

[*Jess♥]

I thik when looking at monks, and saying happiness, I think of buddhims and then i think that happiness = enlightenment.

but i thik that it is quite difficult. I mean, I appreciate what you said to me, but i am not truly 100% happy. I have many doubts at times.

it is hard to break old habits and in order to maintain a positive emotional state you have to keep thinking about that state. you get used to thinking a certain way, and ways you used to thik creep back in.

in that sense, I think zeo is correct in that you have to work to be happy.

but i view it as a different sort of work. not work for somebody else, but honest work.

it's an emotinal thing and it's hard to quantify.

[*Youngtusk]

the man in guatemala may have seen his brother burned alive. that is only one aspect of his entire life! if you concentrate only on hte very worst things, the everything will seem terrible. but what else do we know about this man? he might have a very fortunate life. he may have people all around him who love him very much (there are many rich people who live in luxury who do not have anybody to love or who love them). his brothers resistance may have been an act that stopped the military from doing something worse like slaughtering teh entire family. his brother would have given such a sacrifice and the people would feel so happy simply to be alive although they would be sad.. that doesn't take away the gift he would have given them. if his last moments were to give them happiness it would be a waste to feel sad and desperate all the time his death would be wasted so they would look upon this scenario as the greatest of gifts and celebrate it.

drenn happens to everyone. but if you concetrate on the drenn all the time, your entire exhistance will revolve around it.

Actually, it was a woman. It was from a testimony called I, Rigoberta Menchu. As a child she watched her brother being burned alive by the Guatemalan army for trying to help her people as a guerilla fighter. She also lost both her parents, two brothers, a sister-in-law and three nieces and nephews to the Guatemalan security forces, all while working as peons on a plantation for eight months out of the year.

Yes, if you try to ignore all the terrible things that happen everyday, you can find contentness. But a lot of people lack the analytical skills to do such. I can find appreciation in small victories, but i've learned to do it through a lot of reading and discussions. What do you expect a child to do with that sort of reality when they grow up?

[*Jess♥]

Yes, if you try to ignore all the terrible things that happen everyday, you can find contentness. But a lot of people lack the analytical skills to do such. I can find appreciation in small victories, but i've learned to do it through a lot of reading and discussions. What do you expect a child to do with that sort of reality when they grow up?

very astute, I can really respect that.

everyone is different. some people can deal with situations in a very positive way, others cannot.

some people living in very harsh conditions can accept the reality. other people don't and some probably die or commit suicide.

some people live i ncomplete luxury and teh seemingly smallest things can make them totally miserable.