Tuesday 28 February 2012

Thoughts on life and death.

So I met up with a friend today and before you say anything, yes, I have friends (but not really, he hates me and probably thinks I’m an idiot because I pause a lot in between speech because I’m thinking).
Anyway, the reason we had met up was because he gave me back my copy of ‘The Fault In Our Stars’, which, if you’ve read it, predominantly contains themes of life and death. Conversation flowed and we found ourselves talking upon the purpose of life.
His most apparent answer was “The purpose of life is to find the purpose to life, or to living.” I found this rather poignant, and left a mental note to entertain the thought later on.
Fast forward an hour or so, I had a long travel home, which left me with plenty of time to think.
So I tried to narrow the purpose of life in categories (I know this seems absolutely ridiculous, but hear me out).

In the categories, you may be more than one, or you may be none (which is shown by Hazel Grace in ‘TFIOS’, where she is nihilistic to the point of doing only simple repetitive tasks and regards herself as a metaphorical “grenade”. Although this is totally contradictory, as Hazel Grace may been seen as to be living a recreational life, I don’t feel she does it for fun.).

So, the categories are:

Procreational, recreational,  ”creational”, and “alterational”. (obviously, I put the words I made up in quotation marks as I wanted the suffixes to be consistent)

To elaborate;

Procreational - To have kids (not necessarily biological), a different type of “creational”; but popular, thus deserving its own category.
Recreational - To have fun, simply put.
“Creational”* - To make something. To leave a legacy for others.
“Alterational” - To change something, anything. An example would be living as a politician to allow people to live better lives.
*This is where I mostly place myself, as I want to be an author, I wish to create something that will live longer than my tangible existence allows. I wish to live longer than others, in the form of words; as pretentious as that sounds. I want to offer anyone, anybody at all, something. Anything.
To conclude, I previously mentioned that my friend’s answer was “poignant”.
“Poignant?” You may ask? Yes, poignant. 
To define poignant;
poign•ant/ˈpoinyənt/
Adjective:
1. Evoking a keen sense of sadness or regret: “a poignant reminder”.
 A keen sense of sadness.

His answer was to find a purpose, as though it were not (and should not be) very easy to know why you live. Shouldn’t it be clear and easy? Shouldn’teveryone know? 
 - I’m going off on a tangent here, but if it were clear,  do you think the general populace would be less, for lack of better words, fucking depressed? 
With the restrictions of society and many, many other factors, a clear path to obtain a sense of content and eudaimonia leaves people perplexed, not knowing which direction is the right way or the quickest. (I say quickest not in the way of “quick is easy” or a path of cheating, but just generally faster)
Another response he gave as an example was “Oh, I’ll keep working and keep living in hopes that I will meet someone who may be the love of my life.”

As if it were chance. 
Chance, that you may or may not meet the love of your life. 
How very poignant indeed.**
**I am very sorry if you read all of this. 

2 comments:

  1. My opinion is very similar to yours actually, however, I never thought of writing on this subject.
    Through my life(regardless of how significant it is), I have seen people from every category that you mentioned above.
    I have grandparents whose only goal in life was to make heirs and build property.
    My friends fall perfectly in the recreational category.
    Then there is me, very much like you, I want to leave an imprint in this world. I want to become a theoretical physicist. I believe that there will always be my presence even after my 'tangible life' again, no matter how significant it might be.

    I am surprised by how different and intimate your blogs are. You have just gotten another genuine follower/subscriber/fan (whatever you call it) to your blog!

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  2. Just so you know, I googled 'eudaimonia', and as such I learned something today. I'm sure there's a pun in there involving 'u da man', but I'll leave that to you.

    In regards to your friend's poignancies of 'the purpose of life being to find the purpose to life', that, to be quite honest, makes me want to sit in a corner and cry because that sounds really hard and/or scary, and also a bit like it is a secret held in Area 51. I prefer to think of it as 'the purpose of life is to give life a purpose', which seems far more feasible, personal, and most importantly, doesn't make me want feel anxious and itchy.

    I reckon I would personally fit myself between your definitions of creational and recreational existences (http://madgiak.edublogs.org/files/2011/01/venn-diagram-19xjlvh.jpg), however unhealthy it feels to label oneself in such a way.

    This is all hilariously formal, I normally talk street with my best, most fresh bitches. Totally feel free to message me on tumblr if you read this, like, whatever dude I don't care.

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