Obviously people change. I gave you an example myself of a person who changed. But that's why it's a broad problem with society in general, not individuals, because those who DO break away and do something totally different and essentially start an entire new way of living are one in a million. My example of how i'd love to just abandon my education and future job, leave the city and live somewhere simpler is completely doable. But that doesn't change the millions upon millions of people who go about their lives never considering the purpose and value of their existence. Eating, working, shopping, sleeping. Whether we choose to accept it or not that is life for untold millions in our world. They dont *choose* to do that over anything else, they just fail to consider that there's even a choice to be made because much like the guy who automatically lived his every day life trying to score drugs money, that's simply how they're inately programmed to operate on a day to day basis. Also i'm not saying work and material possessions are what people get meaning from i'm saying it's the exact opposite; they're meaningless. Utterly trivial, pointless and useless yet for practically all of us that is the life goal. From the minute we set foot in school the objective is to get good grades, get a good job, earn decent money and buy yourself nice stuff.
One thing I hate is the apathy so many people show for the really important things. **** going down and people are mostly concered with who got knocked out of the Big Brother house or what celebritys are going out with eachother.
Troqe
Exactly. It pains me to think of the number of days i've wasted on mindless, trivial nonsense.
[QUOTE="Ninja-Kitteh"][QUOTE="xaos"]Let's take a different tact? What would make life "meaningful"? And how would "society" make that happen?xaos
Again your approach to this seems to be like a doctor trying to cure a disease. It's not that simple. And again, when someone acknowledges a negative trait in society they are not claiming that that thing could easily be 'fixed' if 'society' just changed. That's obviously not achievable. Well, since your approach seems to be to have "diagnosed" what you deem to be a fault, what is the point of discussing it if not to find a remedy? In short, what was your purpose in posting the thread if you don't want people to disagree that there is a problem and you don't want to discuss possible solutions to the purported problem? Because every discussion is not 'here's a problem let's fix it'. Sometimes people like to talk about broader things like life, the universe and purpose. It's how philosophy got started. The thread's purpose was not 'hey i think my life is meaningless please disagree and prove me wrong.' The purpose of the thread was 'hey, here's a step backward and a look at the world we've created and live in. What do you think of it? I think it sucks...'
Nope; one's internal life is, you know, one's own responsibility. If you choose to abdicate ownership and responsibility for yourself and your sense of meaning over to societal mores, that is a decision you have made. Congratulations!xaos
No it isn't. You act as if the very fabric of society is a contract people sit down and read and then decide whether or not they want to sign up to it or not. In the real world, people are born and raised to live a certain way, they live almost exactly as they were raised to live, as everyone else around them does, then they die leaving children who do the same thing; work, buy stuff with their money, die. We can act like that's a choice people make but it really isn't any more so than a child born and raised in a slum chooses to live that way. A very good example of this comes from a guy who wrote a book about the drugs trade in Baltimore. He made a really good point when asked why he didn't do something to get clean and stop living on the streets sooner. 'You act like every day we wake up and think, man, i'm going to change my life today! That aint real. Every day i woke up in an abandoned house and i just KNEW without thinking about it that i was supposed to go get $10, get my fix by the end of the day and then go to bed. That wasn't a choice, that was just my existence. That was my purpose. It takes something monumental to snap you out. You're programmed to accept the cards you're dealt and do what you're supposed to do.'
Here's how I see it: life has always been meaningless. You can choose to attach your own meaning to your own life, but overall life is and always has been meaningless.t3hrubikscube
This is a good point. After all my thoughts of living a simpler life in a nicer place with nicer people is probably different in reality. 'Man living on this beach sucks, i wish i had a house and was a lawyer! My life is pointless!' :P
Let's take a different tact? What would make life "meaningful"? And how would "society" make that happen?xaos
Again your approach to this seems to be like a doctor trying to cure a disease. It's not that simple. And again, when someone acknowledges a negative trait in society they are not claiming that that thing could easily be 'fixed' if 'society' just changed. That's obviously not achievable.
if you think life is meaningless then why dont u do something? like for an example. if u dont want to make a lot of money dont. you can just not follow it if you want.
It's not all about me, i'm talking about the wider scope of things. I'm sure there are millions and millions of people who live in 'developed' countries who go about the same every day life as i do, working, studying, earning money and buying things. My question is whether that is of any real purpose and a way to spend a life. You seem to want purpose to be defined externally and objectively. Since we are free-willed beings and not automata, that is, at best, a bad idea. I dont want purpose to be defined at all. I'm not saying i have the answer, i'm asking if there's a problem. We are certainly free-willed beings, however its naive to say we aren't automata is in practice we of course are. We function as the society in which we live and are raised in functions ie go to school, get a job, save for a pension, buy nice things, die. People dont do that because they think 'hey i have free will and this is really what i want to do' they do it because that's just the way our society has developed and that's 'what you do'.
[QUOTE="Ninja-Kitteh"]I think it's far too easy to say 'well that's your fault'. It took a series of catalysts all occuring at the same time to point my mind in this direction. Had my day gone by better i may never have even reached this consideration. You can only derive meaning in life when you actually observe and consider your life's meaning, if you follow me. As such if society creates and stimulates a lifestyle of meaninglessness but does so in a manner whereby people do not stop and consider their lives and their routines, it is not THEIR fault but the simple functions of society. It's like blaming the individual for being a sexist in a time when women did not have equal rights to men. That was just society. It was the rules. It was the way life was. A tiny, tiny number of people question the very fabric of society. Most go on about their daily lives without even considering the way things work and how fair they are. Xx_Hopeless_xX
Society has nothing to do with it...your life is meaningless..as are most of our lives...we die and no one cares..
How can you say most of our lives are meaningless and then say that isn't a problem with society?
Um Yeah really. Life is what you make of it. It's your life personally is meaningless, that problem is on you and only you.
Pirate700
That's very close-minded if you ask me. If that's the case MILLIONS of people have meaningless lives and it's their own fault. Only when you're dealing with THAT many people it's clearly part of the fabric of society isn't it, not the individuals themselves? And as such it obviously is a sociological problem.
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