preview

The Meaning of Life Essay

Decent Essays
Open Document

As soon as the caveman progressed to the point where he ceased living in terror of the animals, the weather and all the gods, he started thinking about his life and what it meant.

Since the conception of language and the thousands of technical refinements that brought us to the printed page, mankind has written much about this mysterious force. It is interesting to note that "life" has 44 definitions -- one of the most defined words in the world. Here are some of these definitions.

Optimists have defined life as good because it gives most of us something to do. Some people with rosy glasses consider it is a road that is smoothed by the friendships we make along the way. Another person said that living is at its happiest …show more content…

Or, taking the simpler view, it is just one damned thing after another. You can also take the broad view as the pessimist sees it: exactly like a broken pencil -- pointless.



The scientists have their view too. Dark popular psychology sees life as a two-stage process -- where the first half is ruined by our parents and the second by our children. After "one of those days," a parent might look at living as a constant struggle to make ends meet -- it starts at birth with a baby's effort to get his toes in his mouth. Grim sociologists consider this process as a maze in which there are found many more wrong turns than there are right ones. Computer scientists consider life as a process which would be so simple if only someone could find the manual.



Of course, you can well look at life as a continuous learning process. How about considering life as a grindstone. Whether it grinds you down or polishes you up, depends upon what you're made of. Or, in the same vein, it can be considered as something that many say is a grind. If so, the wise use it to sharpen our wits. A deeper way of looking at it is to consider it as like a mirror that never reflects one thing more than what we are.



There is always the "wise guy" approach. He's the fellow who says that life is a game best played with marked cards. This is a fellow who may look at life as one dodge after another -- cars,

Get Access
Related
Get Access