Fishing For The Meaning Of Life

If you let people control your own destiny, then you’re not the boss of where you

People often believe teachers, friends, and parents are the ones that teach them the most in life. Although this may be true, a work of literature can also teach a person many valuable life lessons that no one else can. In a work of literature, all themes connect to one significant lesson. Lawrence and Lee’s Inherit The Wind has rich themes that demonstrate the world resist change. One important theme is to always be open-minded. Equally important, is the theme that differences can tear people apart. Not to mention, freedom of thought is also a critical theme. Therefore, themes in Inherit The Wind shows the struggle of change to occur.

Life is meaningless. Or at least an nihilistic absurdist would say so. When faced with ridiculous circumstances, one can only be aware of it and accept it in order to gain power from it. By acknowledging the restraints of our circumstances, we can overcome them. The inherent decline towards entropy traps us in a cycle of dystopian outcomes, but, in a way, that does not matter. What does matter is our outlook towards this. As mere mortals, many things are out of our control; our impact is so insignificant that it does not matter what we do, but how we interpret our situations. Ironically, our actions do not matter but our thoughts do

In Man's Search for Meaning, Viktor E. Frankl recounts the exceptionally individual story of his experience as a detainee in an inhumane imprisonment amid the Holocaust. He displays this story as a paper in which he shares his contentions and examination as a specialist and therapist and also a previous detainee. This paper will audit Frankl's story and additionally his principle contentions, and will assess the nature of Frankl's written work and spotlight on any regions of shortcoming inside of the story.

I recall watching a scene from “Monty Python’s the meaning of life”, where a mother had just given birth to an infant, and inquired with the operating obstetrician whether the baby was a boy or a girl. To which the doctor replied “Now, I think it’s a bit early to start imposing roles on it, don’t you?” I doubt the mother saw the ramifications of her inquiry, but the fact is, our roles had long been determined before we would even gain self awareness. Any deviation from set roles would only bring us rejection and loneliness. Why should we ascribe our roles to mere biological attributes, and how would such classification affect our progress as a specie?

What does one live for? Why does one believe they exist? Many do not know the answer to these question. Meaning of life is what one lives for, what one lives by, why they exist.The meaning of life may be obvious to some, but a great number of people do not know why they live. Some believe they are here for a reason and some believe it is a mistake. Throughout life, some many suffer with life, which allows them to open their mind up to the meaning of life. Suffering is when one goes through pain, hardship, and distress. In the books Beloved, Civilization and Its Discontents, and Man’s Search for Meaning, there are characters who relate to suffering and show what their meaning to life is. In Beloved, Sethe is an African American slave who has suffered through many situations and her meaning of life deals with people that are the closest to her. Franki, in Man’s Search for Meaning, describes being an inmate at Auschwitz concentration camp during World War 2 and tells readers how through all the pain and torture he endures, there is a meaning to life. Lastly, Freud from Civilizations and Its Discontents, is a man who just wants civilization among society and his meaning of life is through civilization. Even though these three characters have different meanings to life and have suffered differently, they all have some aspects in common.

In “The Meaning of Life,” Wolf names three types of less meaningful lives. These lives include: the life of “The Blob,” “The Idle Rich,” and “The Bankrupt Case.” The life of “The Blob” is considered to be meaningless because it entails a person who spends every day doing nothing for themselves. They pass each day unproductively and achieve nothing. The “Idle Rich” are also unproductive people, but are more active in silly and insignificant activities without much substance. They complain about things such as boredom, the need of unnecessary shopping and pointless traveling. They are basically in a sense to me, children. The “Bankrupt cases,” are people that are engaged and dedicated to what wolf calls “projects,” but go bankrupt. This is not

Since the beginning of class, the students have been told the words of Socrates that, “the unexamined life is not worth living”. If one does not take the time to reflect on their life, they will not develop themselves as a person. Life consists of five dimensions that, when examined, form the examined life. Each dimension of the examined life is interdependent and requires attention in order to develop and be successful as an individual that can contribute value to the world.

Istina, describes the doctor at Treecroft as some who was question the meaning of his life.

Throughout the entirety of this course, I was able to truly think critically and deeply about faith, God, death and meaning. This section of Logos was extremely meaningful for me because I think it is so important to have faith in something higher in order to find true meaning in life. I choose to live my life in a way that is significant for me because I do not want to depart this world without leaving something behind. Legacy is important to me, but so is finding meaning within myself. The works we read, watched and discussed guided and challenged my reflections so I could develop a clearer understanding of my quest for meaning.

"Well the truth is, if you really listen to that bird on your shoulder, if you accept that you can die at any time, then you might not be as ambitious as you are" (Albom, 83) is a quote told by the protagonist who’s body is decaying due to Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis, and has come to terms with his disease and upcoming death. In the story “Tuesdays with Morrie” by Mitch Albom, the protagonist Morrie Schwartz impacts thousands of lives. Morrie Schwartz, a sociology professor who developed ALS, feels the need to share his words of wisdom on the meaning of life through taking pride in the way he has lived, making use of his experiences, and being optimistic about his upcoming death.

In the text  Living to Some Purpose, the author talks about the myth of Sisyphus. He also talks about the French existentialist writer Albert Camu and his views about the myth of Sisyphus, that Camu wrote in his book. He explains how it relates to the meaning of life. There are two ways of looking at the story of Sisyphus; one of them being that all life has no meaning. The only meaning in life is your own satisfaction. Essentially it makes no difference what you do in life, if you feel satisfied, and joyful you’ll be living a fulfilled life. For example; Sisyphus who endlessly pushes the same rock, up the same hill can feel just as satisfied as a man who travels around the world curing diseases because this gives both people the same amount

Viktor Frankl’s Man’s Search for Meaning is not your average psychological research text. In fact, much of the book’s information is based on his own experiences at Auschwitz: the infamous Holocaust death camp. Having experienced the worst of human nature, one might think that Frankl would argue that man is a product of his environment. However, this couldn't be farther from the truth; according to him, character is determined by a person’s decisions, not their habitat. He came to this conclusion while in Auschwitz, saying that he saw “some of our comrades behave like saints while others behaved like swine”. This comparison is applicable to any tale of imprisonment, including the captivity narratives of Spanish explorer Cabeza de Vaca and Puritan settler Anne Rowlandson. On one hand, Rowlandson decides to, for the most part, play the part of the pig, denying any facet of her Native captors’ humanity; de Vaca, on the other hand, is slightly more understanding.

Virginia Woolfe, throughout the length of this essay argues that whatever advice she gives and whatever instructions she provides would only apply to her, as everyone reads, interprets, and imagines differently, and there is no one correct way to read a book. Each must decide their own choices for themselves, because while reading, there is no correct answer to what is better and what is not. She suggests that we must banish all preconceptions before reading a book, we must put ourselves in the shoes of the author and see what they saw in order to appreciate what they wrote. Books can be used to see into another world, another time, and into the life of a person who may be long dead or a celebrity far out of reach. Books can allow us to fulfill the curiosity we feel of learning about a total stranger and seeing into their life. We see what the author saw, or perceive what they perceived when talking to or meeting the person they are writing about, or living in the time they are portraying on paper. It is impossible to tell whether what you are reading is true or just what the author thought to be, which is why Woolfe tells us we must ask ourselves how much a book is influenced by it’s writers life, how far is it safe to let the writer interpret the written word for you. We must sympathise and fantasize and create worlds in our head to allow us to perceive what really happened. But we can also read with another aim; Woolfe says we don’t

Virginia Woolf’s To the Lighthouse and Louise Penny’s Still Life differ in genres but managed to have some similarities between them. Still Life was written for detective novel enthusiasts, while To the Lighthouse was written for a niche audience that enjoy novels about modernism. Art is very important in both novels, this can be seen from Jane and Lily’s paintings. Their paintings embody the major concerns of the novels. One can see that Jane and Lily’s paintings have a way of reflecting on the major thematic and formal interests of the novels. Which includes the struggle against the gender norm, the use of art as a form of preservation, and the punishment of individuals through the use of art.