The meaning of life and, I'm sorry, a test

[chrisvenus]

What is your meaning of life?

OK. The meaning of life is something I have given a lot of thought to and I know what I consider to be the meaning of life. This is in a way right but I was very amused by the concept that I was "cheerful and optimistic". That having been said this is the meaning of life in my opinion.

For lack of anything better, other overriding goals I think people should be happy. Why not? Other things might come into it but fundamentally I believe happy is what people should be. To look at some of the other answers from this test I believe that all of them are things that lead a person to happiness. Those who pulled up "popularity" as their meaning I'm sure gain happiness from being popular. "Having fun" is something you enjoy and so makes you happy.

However, I think what defines my life more is kindness. The reason I didn't get that? Because of my view on life. I believe that everybody should be happy. I thus try to make this so in whatever way I can. One of the questions was "what is the worst thing in teh world?". My answer? Being sad. I would rather see somebody being merciless than I would see them being sad (that is of course except for the fact that their lack of mercy might make another unhappy etc.). Looking at that one individual though and assuming he affected no other I would rather him to merciless than sad.

However, I would not want to ever do anything to make somebody else less happy if I could help it. That is why when applied to myself I would rather be sad than merciless. And since I put everybody else ahead of me I think somebody else being sad is worse than me having no mercy. Its something I have thought about.

I am a pacifist and one of the things I have been asked and thought long and hard about is this: Could I kill somebody. I think the answer is a mixed one. I am good at self-deception and if I could give myself deniability then I might be able to (note might). For example pressing a button to kill somebody not present. However, I would have to be able to make myself not think about it as I was doing it. If the reality hit me hard? then yes, there are extreme circumstances that would make me kill. And cliched though it may be I would kill for those I love. There is one thing though. I don't think I could live with it afterwards.

If anybody ever convinced me sufficiently that I had to kill somebody then amongst my plans of how to kill them would be how to dispose of myself afterwards. Its a really not nice thought to be having but I am not a complete stranger to thoughts of suicide. I don't think some people realise how against confrontation and violence I am and how much I dislike getting involved in some things. Without going into too much detail my not wanting to get involved in a confrontation has several times almost cost me a very important friendship and has still seriously damaged it. And I should add that this person needn't be guilty of anything in my perception, it is entirely to do with how the person I care about feels. And don't worry, it would take a *hell* of a lot to get me to do that. I am quite attached to my life at the moment.

So I would be able to be mercyless in preference to some people being sad in summary. Other people that I have talked to have certainly not seemed to have as much problem with killing as I. There are those that are in the armed forces that in theory kill for a living (though they are not asked to do it every day thankfully) and then at the other end of the extreme are those who kill to get their way. I heard a story about a girl who was shot to get her mobile phone. That tells you a little something about the value that this person placed on a life. A mobile phone that would probably be deactivated within a month at most is worth more than somebody's life. Sometimes people scare me.

The questions all elicited answers that varied between the two options of kindness and happiness. The only one that didn't was "what do you never leave your home without?" They didn't have options for keys, phone, wallet, credit cards which are the only things I never leave the home without. I often leave the house without a smile. I usually have spare change but it isn't with the intent of being able to give it away. I don't wear make up. It does matter or they wouldn't have asked. I would only leave the house with tickets to the concert I was dying to see when on the way to this concert. Its not like I'd have such tickets every day of my life or anything... And I rarely take towels places. :) The best answer was a good book which I think is always useful and the only one of the options I actually left the house with this morning (Foundations's edge for those interested).

I never know if this separation between how I should act and how others should is something that is good or not. It is gtting a lot less know as my sense of personal worth is rising slowly but surely. Sometimes I will turn around to people and say "No, I'm not going to do that" or "Can I have petrol money then?". However, I will still not expect people to be nice to me but still expect that I should be nice to them. Is this good? Not necessarily.

A lot of people say it and I will add my voice to the chorus. If everybody in the world was more like me then the world would be a better place. My thinking being that if everybody thought of other people first then people would be worrying about other people's happiness so there wouldn't be a problem. As it is you can often run the risk of worrying about other people's happiness and having nobody worrying about yours.

And there are my thoughts on life. There might be more to add later but I think I need to go and find some food. Probably just a snack since there is a company wide meeting at 3:30 about 30 minutes drive away and I was going to leave 15 minutes earlier and grab a pasty or something from a shop.