Life is Pointed

Sometimes poignant, pedestrian, pabular, filled with pablum, can be paced, or pacated, pacifiable, pacifistic, painful, and alternately painless, paintable, paired, paralleled, paisely, or prosaic, perpendicular or filled with perplexity, almost rarely perpetual even if seemingly so, sometimes pleasant, other times putrid, not nearly parsimonious enough, preserved, present, past, persistent, almost always personal, patronizing, always from a perspective, very rarely perspicacious, and because of this often pungent, yet profound, persuadable, pertinent, perverse and p-p-p-p....

From the moment we are born we discover that life is hard. If life does come with an owners manual few can agree as to which book or text applies to the life we personally are leading, and sometimes we personally can discover some book, text, or ancient wisdom that guides us as we wander through this life. Some of aimlessly, others on track, whoever we are, wherever we are, whenever we are, life most certainly has a point, even when everything appears to be pointless.

Immanuel Kant was once a philosopher. He's dead now, but when he was alive, he was a philosopher. While few knew of him then and few know of him now, somehow this not very well known philosopher managed to - almost single-handed - bring an abrupt end to the Age of Enlightenment and that glorious subset of that age; The Age of Reason. Kant argued that we should forget happiness and do our moral duty and somehow this thought took hold and has taken on a life of its own.

Even so, and even in this day and Age of Disinformation, there are still those who hear such an idea and instinctively understand the fraudulence of a dictum that demands we forget happiness and do our moral duty. Ayn Rand was once a philosopher. She's dead now, but when alive, she argued that there are no contradictions and if we are confronted with a contradiction, we should check our premise. The problem with Kant's premise is that if we are to even have morality, then happiness is our moral duty.

The point to life is a probably, like geometry, an infinite collection of many points, but I have grown certain...as certain as a limited perspective can be...that the point to life includes happiness, and that happiness, when viewed as a moral duty, is hard work.

I don't think life necessarily has a "meaning" but isn't the purpose of all life to reproduce and to avoid extinction?

The only reason why we are able to ask these questions is because we're a product of evolution, if we hadn't evolved to where we are now, we would still be walking on all fours while sitting on tree branches eating bananas and eating fleas off each others back.

Our brains have specific parts that deal with different emotions and sensations and if you can't get any satisfaction from anything, then I'm afraid you are doing something wrong or you need psychological help.

reply to post by muse7


Are you talking about life or Life? Because life's purpose is to propagate, but to Live is an entirely different matter.

Great post as usual, Mr. Zodeaux.

reply to post by ErroneousDylan


I meant that our brain is the one that gives our life "meaning" but that meaning is subjective. Some like helping animals and others like helping the homeless. If you can't get any satisfaction from anything then your brain is defective.

I'm not trying to be hash but that's just my opinion

reply to post by muse7


evolution won't save us from the asteroids

reply to post by muse7


But Life gives you that brain.

reply to post by someguy0083


Of course it can't save us from Asteroids. But our brain which is a product of evolution might very well could

Originally posted by Jean Paul Zodeaux
The point to life is a probably, like geometry, an infinite collection of many points, but I have grown certain...as certain as a limited perspective can be...that the point to life includes happiness, and that happiness, when viewed as a moral duty, is hard work.

Another quality post JPZ, well done.

While we might not know the exact purpose of life, there are many directions life can take us. And at the end of the day, almost all of our actions are driven by our desire to experience happiness and fulfilment for ourselves and those we care about.

Originally posted by Jean Paul Zodeaux
The point to life is a probably, like geometry, an infinite collection of many points, but I have grown certain...as certain as a limited perspective can be...that the point to life includes happiness, and that happiness, when viewed as a moral duty, is hard work.

Wait, are you trying to tell me that happiness is not sitting at home getting paid by the government to eat junk food and play on my various smart-tech appliances?

Say it isn't so, Zodeaux!



Totally agree with you on this point - I feel happiest and most fulfilled when I have done some honest-to-goodness hard work and actually achieved something. It doesn't matter if it's finishing a load of laundry or finishing a doctoral degree - hard work is what we are made for.

I am of the opinion that it doesn't matter what you are doing in the business world, just make sure you are doing what makes you happy. And, if you aren't happy? Do some hard work and get into another field where you WILL be happy.

Thanks for the thoughtful post, JP.

reply to post by Jean Paul Zodeaux


This is very beautiful.

If we are creating our experience (and we are) and we believe that life is hard and that true and constant joy is an illusion (or not possible) shouldn't it obvious that we are going to create for ourselves a life that is hard and an experience that is devoid of true joy and love?

This is sooo easy to see in our perspective as a people. For example we believe that if somebody is kind or happy there is something wrong with him or that he has an ulterior motive. We cannot receive kindness or joy from another even when the source is genuine or true. Life can't be that good we say. We do not believe somebody is being "real" unless he is in pain and talking about how difficult life is. This perspective is very much engrained in how we have been conditioned to view ourselves and therefore life. As a result we do not see kindness, love, joy, etc... as our natural state of being or something that is an inherent part of who we are. To a point where we attack anybody who even attempts to embrace it as such.

We can explore this for ourselves the next time we are around somebody who is talking about how difficult life is. Don't play into the illusion. Say no life does not have to be this way. I am not going to participate in this perspective anymore.. We can explore this and see how everything will change for us as we refuse to engage in this illusion.

Again taking this back to how we create our world.... With this perspective how could we NOT create what we see in our world today? With a perspective that does not embrace everything beautiful and magnificent as our divine right or natural state of being. Instead of enjoying this as our experience in a way that is natural and therefore effortless we spend each and every moment in constant conflict determined in every way to make it so that what should be our natural and effortless state of being is not even part of our experience. This is how powerful we each are when it comes to what we are creating for ourselves.

Our focus is just in the wrong places...

reply to post by Jean Paul Zodeaux


Hard work provides a feeling of accomplishment.
Which gives me a sense of happiness or almost content...until another project rolls on.

Also, to go along with your "p's" and hard work...

The 6 "p's".

Prior
Planning
Prevents
Piss
Poor
Performance.

That way all you hard work was worth it.



Great write-up!

reply to post by Jean Paul Zodeaux

The point to life is a probably, like geometry, an infinite collection of many points, but I have grown certain...as certain as a limited perspective can be...that the point to life includes happiness, and that happiness, when viewed as a moral duty, is hard work.

I agree but think people work harder to make things hard, if everyone thinks life is not hard it would change everything. All I hear is that everything is hard, negativity breeds negativity, I chose to think my glass is half full and in fact full.

Time to change the math.

Fantastic thread JPZ

"It is impossible to be permanently happy in an impermanent world" thus some ancient scribe scribbled
In the Constitution of the USA we have the Pursuit of Happiness - those Founding Fathers were smart enough to say pursue happiness and not find happiness and hold onto it.
To pursue happiness is like trying to catch the wind or like a dog chasing a car - once the dog catches the car it does not know what to do with it.
I believe we each have a purpose in life not to be confused with objectives.
I think that which brings us a sense of fulfillment, joy even - is an indication of our purpose.

Originally posted by artistpoet
I believe we each have a purpose in life not to be confused with objectives.
I think that which brings us a sense of fulfillment, joy even - is an indication of our purpose.

You know, I finally came to that conclusion a couple of years ago - after spending much time doing what I was "supposed" to do and existing in such an unhappy state that I no longer wanted to exist.

It is very strange how we have been trained to ignore our feelings and go with our social intellect, even in matters of self-worth, happiness, and safety.

I hope we all learn to listen to our hearts more and learn to ignore the "socially correct" commentary of the mind.

Originally posted by artistpoet

In the Constitution of the USA we have the Pursuit of Happiness - those Founding Fathers were smart enough to say pursue happiness and not find happiness and hold onto it.

Very true, these are more than just some words to twist to fit someones agenda. The pursuit of happiness. The happiness is in the actual pursuit because happiness is fleeting. I personally enjoy the work or pursuit better than reaching the goal. When I reach it, I just need another goal! Some things I will pursue my entire life, and never attain fully.. but there isnt any disappointment or discouragement in it, its just all in the way you look at it.

Sesame Street not only explained relativity, but explained this paradigm. Jean, you should use more sesame street references..