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Alex Mero

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What about your idea on the greatest of all existential questions: What is the meaning of life?

My answer will probably call up other questions, but I can only applaud that. Each individual comes to the world in a certain context, a certain time and culture, where it gets meaning. Despite the context in which a person comes into the world and lives his life, he is not completely left to the circumstances. He can become aware of his situation and experience a lack of meaning when life confronts him in this respect. Due to this the person can start cherishing the desire to change things in his life. The ideas and dreams that appear to us during such moments and the values that we want to follow give meaning to our life. From these events we obtain new insight in our situation. In other words: our situation gets a new meaning in light of such events. Feel free to share your ideas on this.

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Topics: in your world insight life meaning
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    Micheal Savage

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    Sep 10 2011: With every action there is a opposite and equal reaction. With that said every choice we make a problem will occur. These problems cause us to search for a solution thereby giving further insight into the meaning of existence itself. Life is a means of understanding itself. Every dream and every thought and fantasy we have is a process of understanding ones self. Each individual person is not only a part of our universe and existence but is the universe and existence itself. By growing and understanding researching and building we get a greater understanding of our meaning. There is no such thing as nothing, and if there was nothing must be something therefore solidifying my previous statement. No one thing can understand the entirety of existence therefore existence is divided into endless realms and parallel universes in a means to understand its purpose. Time is relative based on the size of its universe. The smaller the universe the faster its unite of time moves relative to the next level of universe.
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    Borrah Campbell

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    Sep 10 2011: You & I are but twigs on the furthest branch of the tree of life. We are little more than the children of erroneous information on a chromosome... Barely existing on a speck of dust adrift on the cosmic winds of a disk of plasma in the middle of nowhere...

    Does an whim have a meaning?

    It is a misconception that we ever needing a meaning to be happy. By the very virtue of existing we are all destined to be needed by someone else. It is only through our connections with each-other that we gain purpose in this world.

    Someone, somewhere needs you. From the moment you were born, you sustained someone else's existence. Therein lies purpose... a meaning.
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    László Szantor

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    Sep 10 2011: Some ''happy'' people may be too busy to stop and probe into the darker depths of life for fear of losing their carefully guarded security in ''thinking positively''. It is important for me to feel sad at times....and suffer my losses ,knowing that everything has to be offered up at the final reckoning. Whether all will be lost or not, I don't know. But I have to be prepared to give up all that is familiar and precious to me, including my existence. All of it is only on loan, without ever asking for it. The meaning of it all is to find out why. To what end?
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    László Szantor

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    Sep 7 2011: Why I was born in Budapest at the outbreak of WW II to Hungarian parents, I don't know. I could have been born in Africa or the Canadian North. All I know is that I am. Nurturing, refining this awareness gives meaning to my life. Curiosity and grateful acceptance of my lot sustained me through thick and thin. To welcome each minute with conscious awareness, to watch the unfolding tragicomedy is ongoing entertainment. What else could I ask for?
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    Nicholas Lukowiak 50+

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    Sep 7 2011: Helen Hupe said a good one "Know thyself" But that just leads to more questions... Who is thyself? What is thyself composed of? How did I end up this way, and not that way? Where am I going? Why can't I be better?

    There is no ONE meaning. ONE is an illusion created by academic education, as in academia championing people who have been dead for thousands of years is still acceptable... life is a multitudinous series of quantum considerations...

    First off, what life? My life? Yours? Or in general of humanity? In general to all life, survival is the meaning therefore anything living on earth now... survived through generations upon generations upon generations of evolution and surviving... even us humans. Survival today could still be an acceptable answer, but they are different terms. They are on material terms.. "I can't survive without my cellphone" and some people, truly can't or at least get REALLY annoying about the topic.. thus their hierarchy of needs is tainted from super ego delusions, common in the normal culture of first world nations...

    I will simply state "survival" as it is universal to all life.. The child in West Africa meaning of life is in a good nights sleep and an extra portion of food. The average American kid is "chillin"... one is physically dependent, another emotionally. But the emotions are both the same..

    Food -> Shelter -> Security -> Ego -> Super Ego (My simple hierarchy of needs chart)...

    The emotions a kid has when his gameboy breaks can very well be the same emotions another kid has when his parent dies... the human mind tricks us constantly on what is "important" make sure to try and create a broad "reality" or "illusion" towards meaning in life.. what is worth learning to consequences over?

  • Darren McHugh

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    Sep 7 2011: Ah the meaning of life a question, if by this you mean what is the purpose and significance of life then i will cast my opinion into this conversation! Firstly i don't believe in any religion, yet i'm still catholic i probably shouldn't be, but i am. I mean that as in i don't believe in an afterlife or the concept of there being a god! For me the meaning of life comes down to having kids, enjoying your life while your on this planet and to leave the world a better place than you found it!

  • Gareth Dawson

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    Sep 6 2011: I think the answer to you question is in your question and that is meaning. People need meaning to matter the person who lives for 100years or the baby that lives for 5minutes means something to someone so they matter.

    I was once told life boils down to how many people attend your funeral.
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    Alex Mero

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    Sep 6 2011: Nice said Jessica!
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    Alex Mero

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    Sep 6 2011: What about this one: "People who are unhappy don't like to answer this question." Same kind of nonsense!
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      Thomas Jones 100+

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      Sep 6 2011: QUOTE: "What about this one: "People who are unhappy don't like to answer this question." Same kind of nonsense!"

      Alex,

      Your comment is extremely rude.

      It may be nonsense to you.

      It is not to me.

      If you don't appreciate its simplicity, that is one thing, but to dismiss it as nonsense is quite another.

      Perhaps it bruised your ego?

      I will not discuss this with you further.

      Regards,
      Thomas
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    Walter Radtke

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    Sep 6 2011: That's easy- to discover the meaning of life. The hard part is deciding upon methodology- faith or science? The wild card is the fact that we may not have the required brain power to figure it out quite yet. It's for certain that the consciousness with which we've tackled that question has changed through history. The rate and direction of that change is what we need to know in order to make any assessment accurate or meaningful. The question also needs to be applied across several interpretive frameworks simultaneously- life in general, life for humans, my life.
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    Jessica Figueroa

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    Sep 6 2011: The meaning of life are the ones you find in yourself, there is a different meaning for all of us. some people can find it in small actions,others big challenges in life,etc.. there is not an exact answer to this questions. But for me the meaning of life is the motivation that keep pushing us to achieve our goals, that feeling makes me feel so alive even if i haven't achieve my goals yet. So yeah it can be something simple as that :)
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    Thomas Jones 100+

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    Sep 6 2011: My favourite response to this question was from a friend of mine. He said:

    People who are happy do not ask this question.
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    László Szantor

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    Sep 6 2011: To ponder our existence as humans, along with flora and fauna is the ultimate meaning . I may not get to know the answer in my lifetime, but whatever I am able to contribute to common knowledge will not be lost but used by consequent generations. I believe that mankind will eventually come into possession of the underlying truth of how and why creation happened. It may take many millennia or it may not. The speed of scientific advancement is unpredictable. Meaningful breakthroughs can happen overnight in any field. We went to the Moon and we are exploring our solar system. Give it some time, we came into existence only a few minutes ago. In the meantime, however we live out our lives will count in the long run. Even our ignorance and stupidity, for knowing these is part of wisdom. For now, at this stage of my journey I am content spending time with mystery.
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    Matthieu Miossec 100+

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    TED TranslatorAssociate
    Sep 5 2011: 42
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    Erol Toksoy 10+

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    Sep 5 2011: Be good and spread goodness around eventually the society will get better and you will benefit from it.
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    Hakana Williams

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    Sep 5 2011: I think the purpose of life for a human beings is to find the joys in our life and pass on the joy to those around us.

  • Michael Clausen

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    Sep 5 2011: My meaning in life is to empower.

    It is my belief that anything can be achieved by empowerment. We can solve anything if we show others how to do it. By motivating others, we not only create a ripple effect in the world, but our empowerment also reflects back, lifting ourselves to greatness.
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    Ahmad Tariq

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    Sep 5 2011: Meaning of life is everything but if we think deeply it means nothing .
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    Mireille Chéry

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    Sep 5 2011: Live it, breath it, smell it, love it, embrassed it, share it, learn it and learn from it !

    Life is the big learning school to fight our fears, our attitude, our acceptance of others....at the end, if you add LOVE in all this.....man, such an easy sailing !!

    Become whom you believe that you are, do all that you do, to be and become that great person, no matter what friends, family, lovers etc., think....KNOW yourself and be happy with yourself, even if you loose friends along the way....follow your heart, listen to that still voice, and if you feel this person should not be in your life, make sure to get rid of them...

    Peace, joy, love, success and a bit of GOD in all this, you set to go!!!! Enjoy the ride and give.
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    Gerald O'brian 50+

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    Sep 5 2011: Let's see how far you can go into living your life as a true homo sapiens.
    Happiness is the by-product.
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    Deepak --

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    Sep 5 2011: The meaning of existence (in my opinion) is to try to preserve the legacies of all great deeds, great things, and nature. We gain education so that we can either improve on whats there or discover the possibilities. No life is meaningless, because each person influences someone or something in some-manner and after that its a chain effect.
    But of-course the most important of all is to remember that the meaning of life is to live it without fear, because its only given one chance.
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    Farrukh Yakubov 50+

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    TED TranslatorAssociate
    Sep 4 2011: Hi Alex. I think you might find this interesting: http://www.ted.com/conversations/417/how_would_you_describe_the_pur.html
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