Buddha

Life is pointless, I choose to accept this. Most people would rather not. So they fill their lives up with distraction. These may include things such as family, jobs, hobbies, religion, addiction. This way they don't have to think about the hard questions. I have never been able to understand how everyone does it. Nothing I've ever done has been able to distract my mind from those questions. Nobody I've ever met has looked at life this way. I don't know what to think. I never have.

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Compromise, conformity, assimilation, submission
Ignorance, hypocrisy, brutality, the elite
All of which are american dreams

shadowind

most people i've meant don't seem to deal with questions either, then again i'm in highschool, mostly what i hear is gossip, homework, and stupid things. its frustrating.

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remember "for mere impulse of appetite is slavery, while obedience to a law which we prescirbe to oursleves is liberty"-rousseau: the concept of the general will "if we can not reconcile all opions, then let us endeavour to unite all hearts."-?"to be is to be perceived"-? "‘We can be as honest as we are ignorant. If we are, when asked what is beyond the horizon of the known, we must say that we do not know’-Robert G. Ingersoll

Lanya

I assume it's not a matter of accepting "Life is pointless" as the truth; it's more not believing "Life is pointless" to be the truth in the first place. So
The concept of "accepting" a falsehood ("Life is pointless") wouldn't make sense.
The concept of viewing one's main focus in life as just "a distraction" wouldn't make sense.
The concept of looking at "hard questions" that have already been answered wouldn't make sense.

Personally, my assumption as to whether life is pointless varies over time. Sometimes, I see my meditation practice as something I do just because. Other times, I assume it's important.

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Please take each statement of mine as an assumption only. I don't mean to state anything as a truth.

xexon

Pointless? What a lazy person you are.

Life is a blackboard. You're supposed to draw on it. It comes blank for a reason.

x

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Destroyer of Worlds

debdodd

Life is pointless only if you live a pointless life .... I agree with Xexon ...

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"Ubi dubium ibi libertas."

"We are all lone souls. It pays to know humility, lest the delusion of control, of mastery, overwhelms. And indeed, we seem a species prone to that delusion, again and ever again ....."

GX

Buddha is not lazy but is actually enlightened and has discovered the meaning of life and is stating a key universal truth. Life is pointless and that is Gods greatest gift. We are not "supposed" to or "required" to do anything. It is precisely because God has not emblazoned his purpose across the pages of life that life itself is an open book. A book we get to write. We get to decide what purpose we choose.

Buddha, you have wisely chosen not to take the road of distractions, however spending your time endlessly pondering the concept of "life is pointless" is "pointless" in and of itself. Instead, decide and declare what life is all about--for you. What is the purpose of your life? If you cant answer that question, go to a larger one: What is the purpose of life in general? Now...and here is the tricky part...do not look anywhere else for an answer. Just sit down and decide this for yourself. Dont ask yourself...tell yourself! Tell yourself the purpose of life in general and then tell yourself what your purpose in life is going to be. If you do this diligently, all sorts of ideas will come to you, they will crowd in so fast you wont know what hit you. You can then reduce this list to the few ideas that really resonate for you.

You are carrying around knowledge you do not know that you have. Or to put this another way, you dont know the half of what you know. The only way to find out what you know is to call upon yourself to know it. The problem will not be in your not knowing the purpose of life, the problem will be in your believing that you know it. In other words, it will be easier deciding for yourself what the purpose of life is than it will be to agree with yourself that your answer could be correct.
The reason for this is that you still think there is a "correct answer"--and if there is you couldnt have possibly just guessed it. Yet there is no "correct answer."

The function of life is to give the question an answer--and the answer you give to the question is the "correct answer". You do not believe this, and so you have spent years trying to figure out the purpose of life. And all the while life (God) has been waiting for you to decide its purpose. For now, dont try to understand this whole process, or the why's and wherefore's of it. Just get going with the questions I mentioned in the 2nd paragraph and things will become clearer for yourself as you go along. Life is a process of your own personal creation, and to use x's analogy, it gives you a blank blackboard on which to create whatever you choose. What you choose now is not something you will be bound to for the rest of your life and you can always change it later. Search your feelings on this!

Whatever it is you choose, dont think you have to "do" something first in order to "be" it. Just "be" it from the get go e.g. if you want to be a "healer" dont think you have to quit your job and open a shop to do it, just be it wherever you are and with whomever you are and things will fall into place. Same thing with music: You dont have to buy an instrument or start a band first, develop your musical soul by humming and singing if you dont have the money for an instrument. Just come from your "being" and things will fall into place.

People usually have this process backwards. They think they have to "have" something in order to "do" something so they can "be" something. These are the people you see going through life "distracted". Just start from "being" and the doing and having will fall into place naturally.

Go for it and good luck Buddha!

romansh

Hi Buddha

My initial reaction was to agree with xexon, but after GX's post I realized that would be hypocritical.

A couple of comments:
1) having recently lost what had become a major purpose in life for me, I am struggling to find my feet, even to look for a new purpose or meaning. I also need to understand what "purposes" I still have; for I did not know that I had a purpose until it was lost.
2) The purpose I lost ... had grown on me. It was something that found me. Don't sweat looking for your purpose(s). They have not found you yet or you may not be aware of them?

nice to see you back ... all the best

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There is a theory which states that if ever anybody discovers exactly what the Universe is for and why it is here, it will instantly disappear and be replaced by something even more bizarre and inexplicable. There is another theory which states that this has already happened. ........... Douglas Adams

xxkayxx

Yh, this realization led me to swallow a bottle of pills. Luckily...as far as failing everything else...i also failed killing myself... and met a great friend.I guess you have to make your own meaning...even if it is to "distract".

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If a million people say a foolish thing, it is still a foolish thing

Buddha

Well, I'm glad my post made sense to you all. I wasn't sure it was going to.

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Compromise, conformity, assimilation, submission
Ignorance, hypocrisy, brutality, the elite
All of which are american dreams

romansh

There are, for me, two aspects to this debate ... academically/philosophically I agree with you 100% "life is pointless".

Having said that ... practically, what am I going to do about it? Rights and wrongs irrelevant, what is it that you are going to do??

Don't answer .... just think of the Nike advertisement.

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There is a theory which states that if ever anybody discovers exactly what the Universe is for and why it is here, it will instantly disappear and be replaced by something even more bizarre and inexplicable. There is another theory which states that this has already happened. ........... Douglas Adams