not a religious person wrote:
Has anybody ever come to the conclusion that nothing you do on a day to day basis or in life in general matters at all? 100 years from now you and everybody you know will be dead, all of your life's hard work and "accomplishments" will be forgotten along with your name. What's the point? Surely there are other people who feel this way... How do you deal with it? Are we here just for our own satisfaction and enjoyment of our own short lives?
Meaning, significance and purpose are three words that get thrown around together but don't quite all mean the same thing. Life is meaningful to you if you are connected to it. The flip side is that you will not find meaning if you are detached from your life. The more detached you are, the less meaning you find. Detachment comes from being disinterested. It's easy to become detached when life doesn't make sense. To me, it's life has some similarities to language. The less you understand what is being said (what's happening in your life) the harder it is to care (find the meaning in the events). After all, language and meaning are very closely connected. In reality, meaning is just intent couched in language. Translating that, if life is meaningless to you, you are not getting the intention of life. But, looking at it that way implies, in my mind, there is a purpose to life, that there is something to be gotten, that there is something intended. That is where you switch from seeing life as merely events that happen to you to seeing life as having a degree of connectedness. In other words, you go from believe life is to life is for a reason. Otherwise, how could there be communication in life for which you find meaning. Significance relates to the discovery of meaning in life and realizing there are different vales in things. Although it's a simple example that can easily be deconstructed, marriage is a socially significant event. Great opportunity to find connectedness and meaning exist in such circumstances. In other words, it has many values. If you fail to recognize (or accept) these values, you can easily fail to recognize the significance of marriage. The same is true with any other event. Change the word marriage with work, sex, running, sleep, whatever. The point remains the same. Unless you accept and actively work to understand the value and significance of life, meaning will not be easy to find or hold on to. Purpose is similar to significance only on a different level. I find purpose is more about the why of life and significance is more about the value of life we discover, ascribe and attribute to it. In short, meaning is the message, significance is the value, and purpose is the reason. Trying to find one without understanding there is more sometimes makes it hard to really understand how they all work together.
So, applying all this, yes, most of what we do will have no lasting effect in 100 years. That just makes it easier to try and focus on what does make a difference (and will be remembered 100 years from now). I can tell you what I think matters, but, usually figuring that out for yourself works a lot better. Otherwise, they're "my answers" or "religion's answers" or "somebody else's answers". Until you reach your own conclusions, you won't really know what's true for you. As for how to deal with it: figure out what is it that does matter and do it. If you don't, more often that not, if you're honest with yourself, you walk around with a nagging sense of regret and guilt and wonder, knowing and wondering what would have happened if... As for whether we are here for self-satisfaction and self-satisfaction alone (since life without meaning only leaves one's own self to care about)...I say no, but, that's because I disagree with this fundamental premise, that life is just about ourselves. That's where the part about responsibility comes into play, whether it's social, personal, financial, relational, etc.