Cynicism
Most of my writing sounds highly cynical. While this is a shtick as much as it is serious, I do have my optimistic moments. To prove this, I’m re-posting a post from months ago which nobody noticed ’cause nobody knew me.
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[Blogger's name withheld in the interest of protecting my identity] argues that life is unimportant, and this fact means that this fact is unimportant, so we might as well “seize the day.”
My objection is that if there is a day to seize, and one worth seizing, then this must mean that life has some meaning. On the cosmic scale life may seem unimportant, but as I said over at his post, satisfaction and fulfillment are intrinsically valuable to the recipient; they are not relatively valuable. If you are fulfilled and satisfied, then your life is important. It is important to you, and that is what matters.
We might argue that fulfillment is hard to come by. Sometimes it seems the things we pine for are the most unobtainable; we ascribe such importance to love (of the romantic variety) only to find that it is a delusion. Sometimes it seems that life is inherently unfair; things haven’t been structured to please us, they have just been structured and nothing more. There are innumerable examples. But this seems like a different issue. And we might even say that the fact that this is so lamentable means that we are important.
I suspect that the perception that life is meaningless comes from the belief that a god of some sort is needed to justify our lives, and most people who espouse nihilism of whatever variety (myself included, often) do not believe in god/s. But we are autonomous beings; what would give a god the right to justify our lives? And moreover, what justifies whichever god’s life? I cannot think of good answers to these questions.
We may say that this point just further shows that life cannot have meaning. But here I will reiterate that if there is such a thing as a day to seize, then this quite necessarily means that life has meaning.
After realising the flaws of existence outlined a few paragraphs above, should we conclude that while life isn’t inherently meaningless, it just sort of sucks? Often I think not. As autonomous beings we can reverentially respond to the vastness of the cosmos and the beautiful brutality of the biological mechanisms which landed us here. Things may well have taken a turn for something else, and the universe would not be able to know itself through us*. We live in a privileged position.
*To paraquote Carl Sagan.
Out of all the billions of probabilities that could have unfolded, we did.
It reminds me of a close friend saying,”The Universe isn’t meant to make man seem small, it’s meant to show how great God is.”
And if you believe God created man, that’s a win as well.
As in, if God were that skilled to create the universe, then imagine, out of all the other things he could have created, he created us! And in his image.
We may be inherently sinful, and we may have our flaws, but it’s pretty special when you think of it that way.
It’s also pretty special when you think of it statistically, though. I always get looked at strangely when I throw science into the middle of a Bible study. >.>’
i guess that’s nice if you believe in god – which i don’t.
i also don’t like the implication of authority in the whole god picture.
Understandable.
I try not to preach to much because I have a very strange relationship with my faith and believing.
I think it’s because I’m not from a particularly religious background.
Man is but a reed, the most feeble thing in nature, but he is a thinking reed. The entire universe need not arm itself to crush him. A vapour, a drop of water, suffices to kill him. But if the universe were to crush him, man would still be more noble than that which killed him, because he knows that he dies and the advantage which the universe has over him; the universe knows nothing of this.
by that logic, men are more noble than women!
Only one meaning to life: To add as many people to “the grid ” while sustaining life.
To propagate humanity forward by the use of sex and off spring. We are after all a virus. A much more complicated form of virus since we adapt well, leech off our environment, move on to the next place, and have kids in the process. Then eventually die but not without leaving more kids to repeat our cycle.
Also on god I do believe in one but not in the sense of this mystical being in the clouds watching your every move and shit like that. But rather a creator now if it were a being I would suspect it to be a malevolent voyeur.
Just my take on it.
cynicism
sucks