The meaning of life?

A rather simple question, but the most difficult of them all: What is the meaning of life? I prefer the answer of Rilke: The purpose of life is to be defeated by greater and greater things.

What do you think?

Purpose of life is super-easy to define:

Whatever causes more people to decide to live when suicide is as easy as possible, by definition has more purpose for living, than if more people commit suicide under those same conditions.

That’s how to objectively measure more or less purpose for life in any system. The details are usually intuitive/obvious too… no disease being a big one for example.

Skakos … the question you pose is appealing … the quote you shared as well.

Rilke’s words suggest a meaningful life must be a struggle … agree/disagree?

Ancient Chinese Mythology … “Failure is the mother of success” … inferred in Rilke’s words? … agree/disagree?

Failure.jpg

Begs the question … Why are so few people attracted to the question?

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Do you find the above quote relevant?

Judging from the increasing number of people who commit suicide, modern civilization seems to have lost the meaning of life…

^ This might be because overmodenization of civilization is depriving human life of valuable things like maximizing quality of experience. The exploitation and the false illusion that material things are most important is making people go down a spiral of unhappiness.

LOOK HERE.

I love Rilke. He also said…

“Extinguish my eyes, I’ll go on seeing you.
Seal my ears, I’ll go on hearing you.
And without feet I can make my way to you,
without a mouth I can swear your name.

Break off my arms, I’ll take hold of you
with my heart as with a hand.
Stop my heart, and my brain will start to beat.
And if you consume my brain with fire,
I’ll feel you burn in every drop of my blood.”
― Rainer Maria Rilke

Gives me shivers.
Beautiful - for some it might seem romantic.

For me, I take it that he was addressing life.

Doesn’t appear to be as nihilistic as your quote would have him. But then again, I may be wrong here.

It might all depend on how we handle being defeated by greater and greater things.

Do we rise up, sword in hand, and attempt to cut off the head of that beast OR face off with that fortuitous moment, seizing the moment, depending on how we view it, or do we wallow in self-pity, allowing Life to get the better of us?

…and this…rise up like the phoenix…

“Let everything happen to you
Beauty and terror
Just keep going
No feeling is final”
― Rainer Maria Rilke

Ah…

skakos

It is a simple question that can be difficult to answer. Living obviously holds a greater part to the meaning. Once living is met then Rilke it seems has an idea on what to do next: The purpose of life is to be defeated by greater and greater things - to which I would reply: When living is met then the purpose of life is to be defeated by greater and greater things. Provided that these greater things do not kill us then possibly we are strengthened by that resolve - kind of like how a tree lives - it is stronger as it gets older until it meets the threshold of its living totality . . . all for something . . . not for nothing . . .

:-k

An even simpler question: What is the meaning of garlic?

Answers to life’s greatest questions . . . could possibly be found in garlic . . .

I am certain that if thought about for long enough, one could work it out.

:smiley:

Perhaps the purpose of garlic is to be defeated by greater and greater Allium.

Humunculus

Welcome back. It’s so good to see you in here. Where have you been? You needn’t answer that.

the meaning of garlic is a longer life. Garlic = less vampires. lol o/k
Really, good to see you.

The meaning of Life is to know God through His son Jesus Christ.

For those who existed before Jesus’ incarnation, the ways of Christ were written in their hearts. Everyman knows right from wrong and that love is the true path.

Our purpose here on Earth is to reunite with God through Jesus Christ and to manifest love to other people. We love other people by sharing the Truth of Jesus with them and by helping and comforting them in their distress.

This a fantastic phrase, in any case.
A very noble type of meaning.

The meaning of life is a Germanic word that differentiates plants and animals from the inorganic.

The purpose of life is to fight entropy.

Life is simply the universe’s way of returning order from disorder.

[i]In 1964, James Lovelock was among a group of scientists who were requested by NASA to make a theoretical life detection system to look for life on Mars during the upcoming space mission. When thinking about this problem, Lovelock wondered “how can we be sure that Martian life, if any, will reveal itself to tests based on Earth’s lifestyle?”[8] To Lovelock, the basic question was “What is life, and how should it be recognized?” When speaking about this issue with some of his colleagues at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, he was asked what he would do to look for life on Mars. To this, Lovelock replied:

I’d look for an entropy reduction, since this must be a general characteristic of life.[8]

Thus, according to Lovelock, to find signs of life, one must look for a “reduction or a reversal of entropy.”[/i]

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Entropy_a … ve_entropy

I don’t like it. The goal of life can’t be the seeking of defeat; defeat is an unintended consequence brought on by a miscalculation.

I also don’t like the offshoot, “What doesn’t kill me only makes me stronger.” Rubbish. What doesn’t kill you only leaves you half-dead or else getting hit by buses would be considered a good exercise routine. Choose your scar-tissue well.