What is?

[Gun Shark]

2 minutes ago, Mrs.Cicero said:

Existence.  It's what you make of it.  Nothing more, nothing less.

 

So wouldn’t what you make of existence, be meaning. If you making nothing of your existence you have no meaning, if you make something of it, then you have meaning?

[Mrs.Cicero]

4 hours ago, Gun Shark said:

So wouldn’t what you make of existence, be meaning. If you making nothing of your existence you have no meaning, if you make something of it, then you have meaning?

No.   "Meaning" is too slippery a word.  I could say that my children give my life "meaning" - but what does that really say?  That my life wouldn't be worth living if I didn't procreate?  I don't think so.  Does it say that my life has meaning because I love my children?  If I didn't have them would my life still have meaning?  Maybe because I love my husband instead?  If I didn't have him, would it have meaning because I love my parents, brother, extended family, friends?  I don't think so.  I don't think love is the meaning of life. Love is something I choose to do, but my existence is an accident of circumstance, and any meaning I assign to it is an illusion.  Is meaning found in any of the sacrifices I make for other people?  How could that be?  Fate presents some with lots of opportunities for sacrifice, or only a few, with one big one (a martyr's death, or jumping on the proverbial grenade) or many little ones or none... are these things the meaning of life?  The opportunities aren't equally distributed between people, so does that mean some people have meaningful lives by chance and others do not?

"Making something of it..."  well, according to whose definition?  If I'm not famous, or infamous, or rich, or the discoverer of some great thing for the benefit of all humanity, or simply the best there is at some particular thing at some particular time, have I made nothing of my existence?  I don't think so, but I also don't think that having fame or money or anything else is a/the meaning of life.  Life just is.  You do the best you can with it, or you don't.  That's all.  I didn't think this in the past, but it's where I am right now.  Feel free to change my mind...

 

[KWalrad]

5 hours ago, Huaco Kid said:

But was it the loving, gentle, almost a religious experience type, or was it the wild, screaming, animalistic, breaking-furniture kind??

eewwwww!

I'm pretty sure it was the drunken, back seat, parked by the side of some dark country back road, what-was-your-name-again after it was over kind.

 

Or, as I like to call it, "The best kind".