“The human race is a monotonous affair. Most people spend the greatest part of their time working in order to live, and what little freedom remains so fills them with fear that they seek out any and every means to be rid of it.”
― Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, The Sorrows of Young Werther
Everyone else has the answers to our questions. With (man made) time we’ll eventually be able to tell.
My friend sounded like he was questioning his existence, but he was attempting to figure out the meaning of life – if there’s something more. It’s sounded a bit like being scared about dying, but what he was really looking for was the truth.
I just accept the fake lies society lives in.
There’s other planets out there, we know that. But he said “What if we didn’t know there weren’t any planets out there?”
How did we get here?
All thoughts aside from religion. Except, religion distracts the human from being scared of it all. It gives a reason to believe.
We’re born, we learn through love what our soul is, we practice and achieve a few things, or not, and then die. Even though the death bed last words might be about regrets, there will always be something unfinished.
I listened to a podcast the other day that featured a hospice chaplain, someone who spends time with people in the last days of their life. She said some people have the epic last words of wisdom and some don’t. Her advice: If you have to wait until your death bed to say something you’ve always wanted to, do it now so you have the chance to fully engage with the encounter.
I used to have a lot of trouble accepting things as is, and I’m sure people who aren’t as caught up in life as the next guy find themselves sounding ridiculous: “Like, how did we even get here? When will the world die?”
A lot of it has to do with time. It’s hard not to think about it. It shapes our entire lives in so many ways. Day-to-day, month long waits, coupled years labeled as successful stories. It never ends.
.
With time comes waiting. We wait for retirement to do nothing so that we don’t have to think about time. That’s the ultimate goal. However, it depends on the generation you live in and what you were taught growing up. My friend and I wondered why our parents are so complacent. We wish they would do more, something they’ve always wanted to do. We want to share our ambition with them. It’s more complicated than that because that’s not the society they grew up in.
We’re never going to figure it out, but in the mean time, please find something to believe in. It makes this life living that much worth it. Value amplifies meaning and your physical purpose. It’s the mind and space that we don’t understand that functions in the meaning.