It’s a genuine wonder why we exist and what our meaning truly is on this planet which is located in the habitable zone of our solar system in our galaxy known as the Milky Way. When you look at space and time as whole it’s truly a miniscule feeling you encounter as the universe we live in is so vast and filled with wonders. Yet we worry about our day to day things such as if our car needs new oil or if we have enough money to fill up our gas tanks to go to work. Mortgage payments, car payments, insurance payments, food, rent, and everything we deal with day to day clouds our understanding of the vastness of life.
Who’s to know if our soul will fade at all, or if we’ll live multiple lives which we’ll never really be cognicent of. Many cultures try to embody the idea of soul, heavens, or multiple lives which can all be possible. Scientists love to try and figure things out with tools and logic which is important of understanding our physical world. However, over time when you encompass this idea of the physical world you tend to lose the spirituality of what our live are meant to be. In reality everything matters including our small interactions to our choices of careers, yet at the same time we are so small in comparison to the universe that nothing truly matters at all. We are only a single blip in the vastness of space time continuum and even in history compared to the planet earth including it’s history.
Who Are You?
At one point in time nothing may have existed where we are today. As space is ever expanding to the point we know today it’s impossible to really comprehend what really matters in life. There could be many possibilities for our future kind such as if the universe is not ever-expanding it may crash into itself creating the same cyclical tendency of crashing and expanding. The other ultimatum is that our universe is infinite which is difficult to grasp meaning the cosmos will expand forever without a single possibility of slowing down.
Regardless of whether dinosaurs existed today or if the continents used to be Pangea at one point in time. We are faced with the existential crises known as life itself including the philosophy of what meaning truly is . Many philosophers from our past have contemplated the idea of humanity and what it truly is or isn’t. These philosophers are known from our past of understanding occupational hazards before they were examined. Of understanding bacterial and viral infections which could spread person to person before microbiology existed. They are essentially the backbone of science itself as they imagined what could be shaping humanity.
Not a surprise to many, but our entire life cycle today is worry about personal economical sustainability, wars, politics, and our current generations including children, adults, and elderly. We are too busy with the current problems facing humankind that the concept of the future is slowly dwindling away giving people the existential dread they have worried about from our ancestors. Technology and developed worlds make it more difficult for people to contemplate the past or future as they shred the possibilities of thought into tiny pieces.
People today worry too much about their economic outlooks, relationships, dating, politics, wars, technology, and who they are. Don’t be fooled either as a global agenda and politics benefit from people not understanding who they truly are. If people are too worried about their current situations it makes it difficult for them to even care about what’s to come and the meaning in their lives. It’s difficult to thrive in hazardous conditions as you may not grow, but only be able to survive the conditions you are faced with. This isn’t really about conspiracy or a global agenda to take over the world, but it’s more about the fact that ignorance and worry can annihilate people’s genuine curiosity of themselves and the world around them.
In theory, if you’re too worried about your job and the money you make, you’ll become blind to greedy businessmen who can profit off your ignorance. It technically isn’t about the global agenda as greed can easily sway even the most respectable, loyal, and kindhearted people in the world. Once filled with aspirations about developing technology which could save lives will eventually turn into a corporate takeover of people’s well-being to generate vast amounts of income which are ever-ending.
Religion and Spirituality
As religion and spirituality have taken over the globe, people have developed ideologies that go passed their current life. This doesn’t just teach people to be better human beings for god or animals. It causes humanity to start to understand their lives beyond what they can truly imagine on their own. What exactly you may ask? The answers already exist in what people like to call meaning. Some imagine their meaning in life is to make tons of money to be able to obtain any woman they might want in order to live a whole life. Reality is that their life really has no meaning as money can be created from thin air.
What exactly is my point in the statement above? The fact that once you create meaning in your life, you should be damn well worried about what that meaning truly entails. If you believe in false prophets or ideologies that do not benefit life itself, then you’re in for trouble as your goal in life has been contaminated. I’m not really talking about the devil or evil spirits, but the fact that your meaning has been altered to fit another creatures beliefs. A genuine question arises from this thought process as if there exists false entities who promise of riches and happiness, then what are they promising people.
Happiness is what they promise, and coupled with happiness includes fulfillment, joy, meaning, connectedness, and the best for last “destiny”. Now as many cultures, religions, and myths exist in our human nature what really defines them from each other? Who actually knows if Buddhism, Christianity, Hinduism, Sikhism, Shinto, Judaism, Islam, or the many folklore from our past ancestors is correct. Is there really hundreds of gods which were described in Greek and Hindu mythology? Is there really one ultimate god who is all-powerful described in Judaism, Christianity, Islam, and Sikhism? Are all gods and spirits a bit too optimistic and the true fulfillment is reducing wants like in Buddhism? Maybe we are all interconnected with the spirits from nature like in Shinto?
I’ll tell you this with one-thousand percent certainty is that if anyone claims they have the answers, they are incorrect. I don’t want to claim that these religions and types of spirituality is incorrect as they have brought great peace with them to the people of this globe. However, the reality is that nobody can credibly say that we know what happens after death. The worst part for me personally is that I want to wish for a cyclical lifestyle that gets better depending on my actions. I want to believe there are hundreds of gods that can help manifest my destiny into what I’ve meant to do in life. I want to believe that there is a powerful god in the universe that allowed humans to have the ability of freedom to make their own choices which can lead them to the heavens or hells.
Reality of the situation is that we have created folk-lore in our history thousands of years ago and that this idea will never end. People want to believe in higher powers because it helps give their life more meaning for them to live in every day of their lives. It’s not segregated to the poor or the rich as even the rich dislike their lives at a certain point. Having everything you can ever wish for is curse in itself as everything in our physical world can no longer give meaning to their life. The same goes for the poor as they will never be able to obtain the riches that the top percentage of people have causing them to scour the planet for whatever they can manage, only giving them the hope to obtain those riches.
Meaning
All of this chatter and nonsense brings us to the ultimate question of what are we here for? Maybe our meaning lies with the fact that we exist in such a crucial time in history. Finally humans have broken the mold of just surviving on the planet earth and have begun terraforming the planet to our wishes. Meaning doesn’t really just fall into people’s laps as its difficult to come by. Some individuals truly love making clay pots and will be willing to live their entire lives in a small home simply to make pottery throughout their lifespans. This echoes in other people’s meanings as some love the trades they are in and are happy to exist simply to cultivate food, learn crafts, or to provide services to our fellow brethren.
The idea behind being humble and loving what you do regardless of the payout goes hand in hand with humbleness. There are genuine people in every field who create meaning in what they are doing. It doesn’t really matter to them if they are saving the world, planet, or expanding into the cosmos. It only matters that in this point in time they are able to create something beautiful which they consider art. In the past this could have been metal workers who provided some of the best swords or armor for the knights who went into battle. At other times it would be farmers who were able to create an elaborate system in order to harvest wheat, carrots, tomatoes, berries, or potatoes. If we go beyond further it would be the hunter and gatherers who would provide food for the tribes.
Now it begs the question of whether or not meaning truly exists in our world at all. If people and individuals were happy for providing for their families, tribes, or heroes then what is meaning in that case. The ability to provide goods and services for people you love provided these people with meaning. Simply surviving and thriving was enough for these people as they lived in harsher conditions where an animal could destroy their livelihoods. This begs the question for people existing in our modern era if meaning has been lost over time. Although this would be an easy get out of jail free card it doesn’t really work for modern philosophers, scholars, and psychologists.
The truth in today’s world is that people still find meaning in the world they live in. It can be altered such as making a restaurant that people love to go to with their families. Other examples are vast and mighty such as being able to help people navigate through traffic during a power outage. Providing flowers to families who want to give their mother something beautiful for mothers day. Another great example would be saving lives in the emergency room at the hospital. Life has definitely changed through history, but it doesn’t necessarily mean that meaning has been lost over the years. It may be the fact that it’s harder to find in a culture that embodies riches, mansions, and popularity.
The true reality is that not everyone lives the same way on our planet. For example, life would be much different from Americans, Swedish, Canadians, Australians, and British compared to people living in Somalia, Lebanon, Haiti, China, or Russia. The ultimate and untimely truth is that we live in the world with a certain lenses in our eyes which is shaped by our surroundings. This doesn’t only cloud our judgement, but it also makes it more difficult to describe meaning in the lives of many. With the population encroaching and potentially reaching 8 billion people it creates this ideology that nobody really matters as there is so many of us. It also creates a contrary view that every single life matters as there is an ocean of people who can change the outlook on the planet at any given moment.
Conclusion
Out of all this nonsense, yet important discussion which was briefly described in this post. It’s important to remember that trying to be bigger than yourself is not wrong, evil, or idiotic. Trying to help humanity on it’s journey on our spaceship known as earth is important as it swings us into new beginnings and discoveries. The only issue resides in the idea that trying to do something massive might be a huge undertaking and changing the world in your lifetime may not be possible. Ideologically it’s definitely a possibility as one human can alter the entire trajectory of humanity as we know it. This meaning is overarching as it can create a domino effect causing humans to reorganize, reintegrate, and adapt to the new possibilities which could not have been imagined.
Although changing the world could be great, its also important to note that a small lifestyle can easily create the same amount of meaning. Finding a wife and raising children is meaning for other people. As its relatively small compared to a global task of changing the world, some may try to belittle this life view. However, its important to note that without people finding meaning in raising a family there may have never been children who find meaning in changing the world. Our destinies are hard to imagine, but the meaning we find it our meager lives is important. Whether it’s creating a new spaceship to traverse the cosmos or if it’s to raise little Jimmy because you love him.
Remember one thing in the world you live in today. That riches may not really make you happy although you want them. As the rich have dick measuring competitions with who has the biggest yacht and the poor fend each other off for food/money. Simply being happy can give you all the meaning in the entire world with what you have regardless of what that is. Some of the poorest people in the world would be happier being able to sleep in a four-walled bedroom with a hot shower for one-day compared to the richest people in the country buying a new Rolex. It’s never really been about what you have, but what you feel with what you have. You don’t need everything you wish for to have meaning in your life or to be happy.