The Meaning Of Life By Richard Taylor

The meaning of life is to find the meaning of life. Is it not? We all go through each day trying to figure out which road out the infinite amount of paths will lead us in a better direction where happiness is prominent and society is flawless. However, not every single human being is going to fit on that narrow, one-lane highway to success. Bad choices, accidents, fate, family matters, society, temptation, anger, rage, addiction, and loss of hope can all be deciding factors in opting to choose that wrong path to self-destruction. The adverse thing is, once you've traveled so far down the road, you get so discouraged that you feel like you can never turn back or make up for the "lost time."

If nothing else this course definitely encouraged me to ponder life questions such as this. Does life have meaning? Each person, at any given time, may have a totally different answer to this question. I personally had a difficult time reading the material in the book which mentions that one of the reasons people contemplate suicide is because in their minds, they feel that life has no meaning. While I was reading that section, my heart and soul was taken back to that very emotional aspect of my life when it was a daily struggle to try to keep one of my loved ones from taking their own life. It is physically and emotionally exhausting attempting to make someone, whom is depressed and suicidal, realize that life does have meaning and purpose.

A powerful quote said by pre-socratic philosopher named Democritus says “Happiness resides not in possessions, and not in gold, happiness dwells in the soul”. In other words, happiness does not come from materialism but instead from the things money can’t buy. In the article The Secret of Happiness the author David Myers writes directly to Americans about how he believes we need to obtain a new “American Dream” that emphasizes personal happiness instead of materialistic happiness. Myers also believes happiness resides in the soul and he says people that think money is the key to happiness are actually less content with themselves and he uses various ways to prove this point. With that being said materialistic happiness vs personal happiness is an important issue, and Myers made a strong use of Logos by showing surveys and studies, Ethos by showing credibility in his argument but he could have used more Pathos by using more emotion and enthusiasm in his argument.

A hero is not only someone with superpowers but can be anyone. It can be anyone like you or me. A hero is someone who is willing to stand up for other people. The book, A Lesson Before Dying, takes place in Louisiana and is about an innocent Black man convicted and sent to the electric chair. In the story there are real people that Ernest Gaines alludes to. Ernest Gaines makes an allusion to Joe Louis and Jackie Robinson. Beside these two, Mamie Till also stepped up and was audacious. They were all fearless and gave hope to many other people because of what they were doing. These heroes took a stand against society and changed the world for everyone.

In The Meaning of Life, Richard Taylor argues that meaningless lives our lives that consist of a repetitive cycle of struggles that do not give us any purpose. Taylor describes a meaningful life as one that has a purpose, and is creative and unique to that specific person. Also, the meaningful life is lived in a good and just manner. In The Meanings of Lives, Susan Wolf argues lives that are not involved in an activity that brings positive value are meaningless lives. A person that has a meaningless life by the standards of Taylor can still have a life that is going well for them. Their well-being is not dependent on whether they have a meaningful life or not. Wolf believes that meaningfulness is an important factor in a person’s well-being. Well-being is present when a person’s is living a life that is going positive according to themselves. A person who lives a life that is meaningless as a result of being repetitive and pointless can still have a life that is going well for them.

"People say that what we're all seeking is a meaning for life. I don't think that's what we're really seeking. I think that what we're seeking is an experience of being alive...." Joseph Campbell made this comment on the search for meaning common to every man's life. His statement implies that what we seem bent on finding is that higher spark for which we would all be willing to live or die; we look for some key equation through which we might tie all of the experiences of our life and feel the satisfaction of action toward a goal, rather than the emptiness which sometimes consumes the activities of our existence. He states, however, that we will never find some great

“…As your father used to say, we shared the longest ride together, this thing called life, and mine has been filled with joy because of you.”

In the book What’s It All About? by Julian Baggini discusses philosophy and the meaning of life. This reading was able to bring different perspectives on ideas of the meaning of life that I have thought about before. I was also able to learn about these concerns about life 's meaning or meaninglessness in a philosophical standpoint. Some of the chapters that I found interesting included the chapters titled looking for the blueprint, here to help, and becoming a contender.

Sisyphus is an ancient Greek fable of a God who was punished by other Gods to roll a rock to the top of a hill only to see it roll right back to the bottom for all of eternity. Sisyphus was never able to truly accomplishing anything forced to be tormented for all of time. Taylor used this as an example for the meaninglessness of life because it gave the reader an image in their mind of what a truly meaningless life would be as we can now currently understand it.

But also in the book it discusses how people do not agree with creating one’s own purpose. They think that if they create their own purpose, then that means that their life meaning is not as meaningful. I do agree with this to some extent but I also think that we know ourselves the best and if we create our own life meaning it can be the most fulfilling. A quote from this chapter is, “What matters is not necessarily what the inventor had in mind, but the uses or purposes the innovation actually has” (p.12). This quote is saying that for example the predetermined meaning of humans is not really important at all. It is what purposes a human can bring about in this world.

In The Meaning of Life Richard Taylor recollects on the myth of Sisyphus; a Greek who was punished by the gods for eternity and forced to roll a rock up a hill, just for it to fall back down. Taylor argues that it is not the difficulty and length of the activity that made Sisyphus’s life meaningless, it is that his toil amounts to nothing; asserting that the pointlessness of the activity is meaninglessness. In an effort to try and remove pointlessness from the life of Sisyphus, Taylor generates two solutions. The first solution would be to provide a goal for Sisyphus to work toward to give his task a meaning, such as building a Temple. This option is then proved to be insufficient, as completion of the task would result in infinite boredom

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

What makes life meaningless? Taylor states that there are two characteristics of Sisyphus’s life that make life pointless. The main trademark is the purposelessness of his life. Taylor stresses the way that there is no good reason for the labor that Sisyphus is compelled to do because of the gods. I concur with Taylor that the purposelessness in performing this action demonstrates that his life is good for nothing. Perhaps, as specified in class, if his punishment brought about something advantageous. For instance, when Sisyphus rolled the rocks up the hill, rather than falling back down, they shaped into a beautiful architecture, which would give his life meaning. In the book, Taylor stated, “Activity... even long, drawn out and repetitive activity, has a meaning if it has some significant culmination… activity,” showing that possibly if the rocks did form a figure it could give meaning to Sisyphus’s life. The second characteristic that makes Sisyphus’s life meaningless is the idea of endless repetition of his punishment given by the gods. Taylor claimed that if the act of repetition would have led to an achievement or goal his life may not have been meaningless, yet Sisyphus’s labor did not lead to anything besides pointless repetition.

In Thomas Nagel’s What Does it All Mean? he covers the topic of the meaning of life. In Chapter 10, Nagel begins his argument from the premise that “in two hundred years we’ll all be dead,” so nothing should truly matter (Nagel, The Meaning of Life, p. 95). He further analyzes this idea, to come up with some solution or answer to this inevitable question, by bringing up different arguments that one might present. The average person can generally come up with some sort of justification for the things they do, such as eating because you are hungry, sleeping because you’re tired, and working to earn money and support yourself (Nagel, The Meaning of Life, p. 96). This argument is started from an extremely small context. He notes that after your friends and the loved ones in your immediate life are dead, then you might matter to the individual. Yet, the whole thing would not matter. He presents the argument that you “might be part of a political or social movement which changed the world for the better, to the benefits of future generations,” but maintains that it would still be meaningless after everyone else on earth has died (Nagel, The Meaning of Life, pp. 95-96). By the end of his discussion, he starts to shift to the idea of recognizing that our lives are meaningless and coming to accept this. According to Nagel, “the trick is to keep your eyes on what’s in front of you, and allow justifications to come to an end inside your life, and inside the lives of others to whom you

Life is a complicated twist of suffering, laughing, and learning all merging to tell a great story - or great many stories. Based on this view, "it is not the end goal or outcome of life that gives life meaning but rather the quality of the story, the quality with which one lives out and develops his or her role."