"Life" could be quite different. You could be a 400 hundreds pounder doing some meaningless paperpushing job for $70k/year. You could be a slave sold to Arabs or Chechens. You could be many other things... which I doubt you'll enjoy/be satisfied with independently of the attitude adjustments.
Meaning of life?!?! hahaha, we can't even define the concept yet!!! but if it were anything, I doubt the 3 pound piece of stuff we call a brain can figure it out
Aristotle said that all humans seek happiness, that all humans only act for the sake of happiness. This should be understood as, the happiness that they perceive, rather than happiness as an objective entity. The Buddhist philosophy says that we all seek to rid ourselves of suffering. I see this as another form of seeking happiness, for why would you seek to remove suffering except that you want to be happy? Suffering causes unhappiness. The question arises, if we all seek happiness, then why is there so much unhappiness? This goes back to " the happiness that we perceive." Often people perceive things as offering them happiness, but often the perceived happiness is only shallow, and leaves the person seeking out more and more (like addiction). Or the perceived happiness also brings with it an unperceived unhappiness. To answer the question, there is much unhappiness in the world due to lack of understand, knowledge, wisdom, forsight, etc... Aristotle went on to say that because we not only seek happiness, but we also seek greater happiness, that what we truly seek is an ultimate happiness. A happiness that brings no suffering, that lasts and does not leave the seeker searching for more. He called this happiness our final, ultimate end. Another question arises, how can we know what will make us happy? Consider all the things that do bring happiness (in whatever form). Security, friendship, victory, pleasure, growth, knowledge, love, freedom, competition, peace, health, and so on. There is a commonality that these things share; that is their naturalness. Nature is simply the way that something is designed, or designed to function. You experience happiness when you act, or exist, as your form is designed to. This is because you are fulfilling that design. When you break your arm, you experience pain, because that is an unnatural state (your nerve endings transmit this to your brain so that you may be able to prevent any further injury and you may be able to fix it). Begin examining your own experiences of happiness, from where do they stem? Another question arises, if this is true, then what will the ultimate happiness be like? If we examine someone who is addicted, or someone obsessed with gain, light can be shed on the answer. It is said that the human capacity to learn is infinite, that if it were possible for man to live long enough to learn everything, then it could be achieved. A person with an addiction never remains at one level of experience of that addiction. For example, a person addicted to drugs will never be satisfied, and will always try new and more effective, more potent "stuff." A person addicted to alcohol will not stop with beer, they will seek the mos potent alcohol that they can. A person addicted to pornography, eventually will not stop with softcore, but will slowly seek out the more hardcore. This is because satisfaction does not come with the old familiar. Some satisfaction does, but not all. Even the Buddhist will persue a greater level of self-awareness. It is also said that the human appetite is infinite, that it can never be assuaged by what it has. If it were possible for a man to live long enough to learn everything in the universe, to experience everything in the universe, that would still not be satisfying. The only thing that can assauge an infinite capacity, is an actually infinite thing. If a man could attach himself to something that was Actually Infinite (see Infinite Set Theory), then that person would grow infinitely, experience, forever, greater and greater happinesses. Such an attachment would constitute our final, ultimate end, since there would never be a moment of unhappiness or unsatisfaction. The question of the meaning of human life, may be answered in this way, since every human seeks happiness. The meaning of life, in general may simply be answered in this way, that all living things are meant to act according to their nature.
interesting responses here. here's my take: life equals entropy which eventually results in death. life is about learning to let go of your ego. your possessions, your family and friends, and basically everything. life's about dealing with all the choices you've made, dealing with the things you control, and dealing with the things you can't. life's about laughing at all the unfair cards you've been dealt, but eventually deciding you could have got a much worse hand. life's about letting go of the illusions you built up and believed were so real. life's about living and it's also about dying.
