Living To Some Purpose

Jermaine Smith Period 7 The True Meaning of Life What is the meaning of life? Well known Greek philosphers such as Socrates and Plato believed that our purpose in this life was to gain knowledge in preparation for the next life. Other Philosophers such as Epicurus believed that pleasure is the main goal in life. After giving these ideas lots of thought, I have come to my own conclusion that the true meaning of life is far more complex than either of these; far too complex for any human to fully comprehend. In fact these two different philosophies are only part of the grand picture. If it were that easy for men to figure out our lives wouldn't be so messed up now. The meaning of life revolves around many different things. I

By referencing the ancient myth of Sisyphus, Taylor made is clear that to him, life is meaningless. He gave us the definition of meaninglessness as being “essentially endless pointless, and meaningfulness is therefore the opposite” (Taylor 5). After being punished by the God’s, Sisyphus rolled a rock up the hill every day, time after time, only for the rock to roll down the hill once again. Taylor sees this

Meaning In Lives In an effort to argue for what elements a life would need to include for it to be considered meaningful, Richard Taylor examines elements of a meaningless life in his piece, “The Meaning of Human Existence”. After establishing the criteria for a meaningless life, Taylor aims to use

As Camus believes, despite one’s suffering, one should be satisfied. Instead of pondering on one’s mistakes and flaws, one should be able to say “all is well” at the end of the day. In the end, Camus states that the reason behind Sisyphus strength is not false hope, but facing

How can I possibly balance all these important things in my life? It comes down to prioritizing. We all know that God is supposed to be our number one priority. From going to church ,to praying and reading the Bible, to living a healthy Christian lifestyle; I have set my spiritual life on the back burner and have almost forgotten all about my faith. How have I come to this and what am I doing to reprioritize my life?

Although thought deserved, Sisyphus deals greatly with an internal conflict. Unfair to the gods and avoiding the underworld, Sisyphus endures an immense amount of grief from his newly earned punishment. A fight between his inner emotions of happiness and sadness. Sentenced to push a rock for the rest of his live up a hill, it’s believed that Sisyphus won't seek happiness until he accepts his new fate. “The struggle itself toward the heights is enough to fill a man’s heart”(Camus).

The purpose of Richard Taylor’s, “The Meaning of Life,” is to portray the life of Sisyphus in Albert Camus’s, “The Myth of Sisyphus,” as a meaningless life, in which Taylor portrays as a “perfect image of meaninglessness.” In Camus’s story, Sisyphus has committed certain crimes that got him into trouble with the gods. Hence, receiving a punishment by being forced to push a rock up a hill. However, to make it even worse, once he reached the top of the hill, the rock would just roll back down to the bottom, therefore having to repeat this labor for eternity. The motivation behind this discipline was to demonstrate the pointlessness of life since there was no want to demonstrate his life will never end. The question of what’s the meaning of life is compelling to think about, but the more time spent doing it the more fascinating it gets. There are ways to avoid having a meaningless life, but Taylor’s theory sticks to either living a happy life or a meaningless life.

The Myth of Sisyphus is a philosophical essay authored by Albert Camus. Originally published in French in 1942 as Le Mythe de Sisyphe, It was translated into English by Justin O’Brien in 1955. Camus in this essay introduces his concept of the “absurd”. He talks of man 's futile search for meaning, unity, and clarity. He states that for man the world becomes an unintelligible space which is devoid of God, moral ethics and eternal truths.

Albert Camus, a French philosopher who tries to decipher a meaningful world through the trails and tribulation of life. His piece, The Myth of Sisyphus can be interpreted that the essay represents man’s struggle to belong, an endless journey to achieve, and a glimpse of his own fate. ‘Sisyphus is the absurd hero. He is, as much through his passions as through his torture’. (Camus, The Myth of Sisyphus)

To begin, I will describe Camus ' inclusion of a myth. Camus uses Sisyphus’ story to illustrate to his audience what he finds the purpose of life to be. In regards to the myth, I will not go into too much detail because I will solely be discussing the information that is relevant to Camus’ argument. Sisyphus is punished by the gods and must perform endless amounts of pointless labor. The opinions differ as to the reasons why the wise and prudent mortal is on bad terms with the gods. He is asked to push an enormous rock up a mountain only to watch in roll back down repeatedly. Camus purposefully incorporated this myth in order to draw a parallel between Sisyphus and the modern day human being. Much like Sisyphus, people spend their days performing simple tasks that accomplish nothing. “The workman of today works everyday in his life at the same tasks, and his fate is no

Life as we know it could vanish within seconds. The next day is not promised to anyone that walks on this earth. As we live our everyday lives peacefully, we tend not to think what our mission or purpose in life is. Instead, we think what we must do for that to be a “successful” person. Despite this way of thinking, just think for a second. What makes life meaningful? What is life anyway? These questions dive right into the heart of the philosophical, psychological, and the biological aspects of life and what the true meaning of life is. This is a very arguable topic due to every person’s different perspective on life and what it means to them. In summary, I personally think that life is simply what you make of it and each person’s accomplishments has its own merit

Throughout human existence, people have often contemplated about the meaning of life. Why do we exist? What purpose do we serve as human beings? Who created us? Is there a mission that humans are supposed to complete while alive? Richard Taylor sought out to answer these questions through his paper The Meaning of Life. He particularly uses the myth on Sisyphus and his life throughout the paper to help prove his point.

A meaningful life means finding happiness in everything you do. It means enjoying and sharing time with your loved ones and having a purpose in life. To find happiness, we must go through different tribulations and situations, where sometimes life doesn’t seem to be easy. Happiness is an art that can be learned. It describes a deep sense of inner well-being, peace and vitality. You must know that even from your worst moments there is something good to take out of it. If we really want to be happy, we must be grateful for what we have and we must enjoy everything that has been given to us. We must remember that out there, there are people wishing for or working hard for something we already have.

A Meaningful Life It wasn’t until my senior year that my teacher forced me to think about life, and not just about which college will I attend, what my career will be, or how will I become successful. Instead, my English teacher made us think about the true, uncensored definition of life, the definition of life that dictionaries don’t provide and parents don’t discuss. In the beginning of the semester, she asked us to define life, and many of us thought it was a silly question, but we responded anyways. Some students had a more positive or negative definition of life, while many simply googled the definition: The definition they found from Oxford Living Dictionaries Online (n.d.) states, “life is the condition that distinguishes animals and plants from inorganic matter, including the capacity for growth, reproduction, functional activity, and continual change preceding death" (p. 1). Although we were certain that our definitions were correct, she simply said that this semester would allow us to understand the meaning of life, instead of the biological definition we have been taught.