Why do some people think life is meaningless?

[TBD 17,228]

On 2019-01-25 at 10:40 PM, TBD said:

Imho,it's because people don't have other better things to think about but they're own self-pity.

 

On 2019-01-26 at 1:31 PM, TBD said:

Self-pity doesn’t have to sound bad,it’s basically when a person’s taking too much time in their misfortune and pushing away what makes them happy or happiness itself, due to...(what you said) Sounds like a ganeral  depression to me.

Clearly I was talking about myself here 3 years ago.  sign...where has the time fly?  Well can't say for others but yeah I used to think life is meaningless because I'm stuck doing the same shit everyday just to make a living to pay my need met. But I learned that not everything is about "work" or "money" and that I can contribute more than that. It's all in the mindset here. People like myself, tends to forget our personal important values in life and when we do, we dwell too deep on our misfortune and see life as meaningless.

[Windseeker 546]

I think people who find life meaningless often live in constant strife and just have nothing to continue onward for. When you look at Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs, people today are expected to survive and forced to work while having 20% of their needs met to achieve self-actualization. People are lonelier more than ever and have little time to remedy that because many of them are also struggling to make ends meet, so I definitely see where the nihilism comes from.

[Fennecoonagon 2]

It really depends on what is meant by the term.

If we take "meaningless" to mean that it isn't "meaningful", in the sense that it's not significant or that it changes nohing... That's a very subjective thing, and therefore up to the invidual making the judgement.

If by "meaningless" one refers to life not having a purpose (which by definition requires an intent, which in turn requires a consciousness preceding it), then it's because there's no objective proof to conclude that it does.

On a personal level, I feel like it's much healthier to recognize that from the get-go so that we can then assign *our* life the meaning that *we* want it to have.

I've always felt like a life with a meaning assigned by somebody else would be insubstantial and impersonal. If my life's meaning was determined by someone else, then... It isn't really my life.

[Trot Shuffle 3,597]

To me, life becomes meaningless when all hope is lost for an individual.

No hope means no drive towards some end goal. Which makes one feel empty and hopeless. But the moment they get a spark in them from internal or external influences, hope is regained even if it's little. Which means there's a purpose to their life.

Hopefully that came across how I wanted it to 

 

Edited July 7, 2023 by Trot Souffle
Typo

[Cash In 21,517]

It's not as simple as a lot of people think. Not everyone is able to find meaning in their lives and even if they do, their perception of that might be completely different to yours. Everyone lives a different life and some people deal with more bad experiences or even live with the feeling of being trapped. I'm sorry to say, but when you're dealing with that, it's very easy to see life as meaningless or pointless.

[Sonic Shimmer 4,116]

Because in all honestly, it is. And I actually feel a lot more peaceful and content after realising that.

[Justin_Case001 4,857]

Because it is.  But that doesn't mean that we can't enjoy it while we're here.  Unfortunately, not all of us are so lucky.

 

On 2019-01-25 at 9:27 PM, Monsoon said:

I think life is meaningless because I never wanted to be here nor do I have any desire to survive 

Mmm, testify!  You and me both, my buh-rutha!  (Or sister, don't know which!  )

[The Recherche 29,965]

It is an interesting thought experiment. In truth, I see no real purpose to being alive; humans are the only beings on this Earth under the impression that life has to mean something outside of eating, sleeping, and reproducing. Can it? It can indeed, but it must be through self-prescribed means. A sort of greater cosmic purpose is given with Religion and tight familial bonds, but neither are something I truly have the heart for.  Hence, why I tend not to think too much about it. It is a recipe for existential dread at best, outright delusional fantasy at worst.

[Winter Storm 207]

I find it very hard to see any sort of reason myself. I've set up a few goals for myself and little else seems to matter outside of those but I don't think I can reach them since I'm such a flawed person and time isn't on my side.

[privet 175]

i am on autopilot

i work i go home maybe i socialize at the cafe and thats it

what's even.......

 

[Envy 6,000]

I see no reason to believe in a "capital P" Purpose, and, TBH, I've never been bothered by that. If anything, some supernatural Purpose takes away from the value of this life, and seeing as life is the only time/experience that we know we will ever have, we should treasure it, not spend our valuable time living for some unproven, unlikely afterlife.

I'm a bit strange, I imagine, in that I have an ingrained will to live, I enjoy life itself. And if there's any "purpose" I can think of, it's to make the world a better place. And, as ever, the world is full of such strife and suffering and so there's plenty of purpose to derive from that. My own country is teetering on the edge of falling further to very cruel, corrupt people (it will be a catastrophe in the making if they regain power) and the world is in deep trouble due to climate change mitigation inaction and so I have plenty of purpose - both things that are very close to me. Sadly, I may not be able to achieve anything, but there is value in trying.

[Ice Princess Silky 10,821]

Regardless of any religion or spirituality - meaning to your life is a very personal thing and only you can decide that. Allowing another person or thing to decide tends to lead to confusion, unless it's precisely what you're looking for cause that's what helps you to find meaning (gosh, I love how nuanced and ironic life can be lol).

But to answer the question, things that tend to make people feel like their life is meaningless tends to be:

Not pursuing what helps you to grow, falling into a depression - which feels like being stuck in a hole, where you're stagnating and not growing -- hence why it's called a literal depression. Feeling no hope, no sense of renewal or redemption. I remember explaining this to someone once and being met with "AHA!! THIS PROVES MY RELIGION IS RIGHT CAUSE YOU'RE USING WORDS LIKE 'REDEMPTION' AND 'FEELING SAVED' Ahahaahaha I WIN!!!"

Erm... yes, that's the reason why those religions use such words. Because they are objectively what humans feel when they are inspired, willing to continue and improve themselves. But ultimately, the experience is customised to you and your own personal biases/needs. So, perhaps people feel life is meaningless when they abandon what makes them come alive? Who they truly are? Their personal principles and conviction? This is just my take on it on the spot. It was also interesting to think about. Good question. 

[Ryuuko 146]

in my experience, they don't necessarily believe this, inasmuch as they feel their efforts won't actually amount to anything. what they feel is despair over some perceived incompetence or inadequacy - feeling like they're chasing a pipe dream.

[Clawdeen 12,110]

I actually stumbled upon a Reddit thread of this a few days ago. A majority or responses said due to the possibility of external nothingness/nonexistentance waiting for us after death. It’s living life to the fullest only to die and remember nothing. To literally become nothing and be forgotten about over time. Then the sun will one day consume the earth if it doesn’t end by some other means. Which makes everything really meaningless because all will become nothing. That’s the sum of most responses I saw

The other responses went the whole my life is meaningless because I don’t have a purpose route. I don’t add anything of value. That sort of thing.

 

 

[Guest]

Because it kind of is in the general sense. We don't really give it meaning until we decide to literally give it meaning. Before that, it's just floating out in space. I'm not religious so I think this is pretty much it. Most people will be forgotten within 2-3 generations unless you invent something incredible that helps society or do something really terrible to society. However, I've been noticing that even then society is forgetting those people. I bet you can't name the person who created some of the medicine that you and many others use to get better and much more. I met some high school students recently that did not know some of the evilest dictators in history. You can be a great doctor, lawyer, or whatever and still be forgotten. The whole "good place" and "bad place" never made sense to me and sounds ridiculously boring. Some may not like that, but I don't let it define or consume me. I just try to give myself a goal or this case a purpose and enjoy what I have since I'm a sentient being. I might as well enjoy my time. Sometimes(for me recently) life is rough and I feel like I'm 3 feet tall and other times its great, but I make do with what I got. I think people tend to over complicate some things and want some grand purpose for validation, but this is it and that's okay.

Edited September 3, 2023 by StarlightNyars
editing?

[SCS 7,443]

What fascinates me about the concept of meaning is the inherent subjectivity and variability: how do you pin down a definition on a concept that can mean wildly different things to every person who has ever lived?

We reach consensus on various "simple" components of life: most people tend to agree the sky is "blue," and as part of that are roughly on the same page about what "blue" means -- this is a result of the physical similarities most people share with our eyes that receive the input and our brains that process the input. Of course everyone has a different body and brain, so who knows if anyone truly and wholly interprets "blue" exactly the same -- probably not -- but we are close enough on this to achieve consensus. Of course there are exceptions, like people with colorblindness: and if our eyes and/or brains were physically different, we would likely perceive and ascribe a different color to the sky altogether.

Analysis quickly reveals some of the hidden nuance packed into "simple" concepts like the color blue -- where do you even begin with a concept like "meaning" that is not ascribed any singular physical schema?

"Meaning" has infinite morphology: it can be built into any schema, interpreted from any phenomena. Meaning intersects any human schema: but does it exist without human perception? Does a machine experience any phase of "meaning" through carrying out its mechanical operations as subject to the laws of physics? Does a computer experience any phase of "meaning" through digital information processing -- information that can have great meaning to a human, for example, but what is its nature outside of the human perceptual schema?

Paradoxically, meaning seems to have infinite definition and no definition simultaneously, depending on the schema used to contemplate it. This digs further into pondering not only what is real, but what does real mean -- is reality defined by perception, or is perception and epiphenomena of a deeper system -- and what are the endless implications of both (and other) paths.

Ultimately, I don't find much fruit in arguing whether life is "meaningful" or not -- because ultimately this falls to each individual's perception. Each thinking individual will judge for themselves whether they view their own life as meaningful as filtered through their own schema and processed by their own perceptual and experiential framework. This has great value and interest on a human level, but does little to shed light on a cosmic scale of any sense of "absolute" meaning or definition of anything.

I am thankful to be alive, and I cherish those I love and those who have impacted me personally -- this has meaning to me. What that meaning really means, if anything outside of my own schema, I could not possibly guess.

No matter which direction I turn, I feel as the 2D denizen inhabiting an endless plane. If they could displace themselves across a new degree of freedom, a 3rd dimensional axis, their entire reality collapses to a comparably infinitesimal point: as a tablecloth on a table, in a factory, in a city in an incomprehensibly vast country. Not only does physical infinity invert itself, but perceptual possibilities expand incomprehensibly. Through how many layers could freedom expand?

[Twitchy-Tremor 281]

I think it depends on the person and some people may think of it as a good thing instead of bad to. A lot are from depression or something major that happened to them or someone else they are close to them or even something to someone else they look up to. Like a death. Maybe someone they love finds someone else. Someone they looked up to changed or they just don’t have something or someone to look forward to. 
 

I can’t say for everyone because everyone’s different.

[Evil Pink One 12,992]

Education..... the lack of it.

[Impulse 471]

life is meaningless to those who don't know how to give it meaning

 

[Iforgotmybrain 3,514]

If you’re not religious it doesn’t really have any explicit meaning. It’s up to you as an individual to figure out what you want from life, what gives your existence meaning. Maybe it’s nothing, and maybe that’s not a bad thing. Even without giving your life some grand meaning or purpose, there’s still the actions and choices you make that affect those around you, the impact you have towards others, that in itself means something. 

[ComanderZhabikKlavik 935]

The lack of meaning in life gives me freedom and brings me joy.I adhere to the philosophy of Absurdism.