What is the meaning of
life? Has it changed from ancient cultures?
Does
life have a meaning? What does life mean? What is the purpose of life? These
are some of the questions that have been asked by thinking man for ages now.
What answers have we come up with? Have the answers to these questions been
answered? Have some of these answers changed over the ages of thinking
man?
From
the beginning of time the meaning of life really didn’t have a meaning at all,
it was mostly about acquiring food, water, sex and just surviving the environment,
whether that meant animals trying to kill and eat them or surviving the
possibly being beat to death by a rival tribesman.
As
the age of man progressed and became more civilized, we start to see humanity
master it’s surrounding and become more settled with the land that they occupy.
We start to see more permanent huts; crops and inter-tribal protection system
arise. With this added security in their day to day lives we start to see the formation
of love, friendships, and sexual monogamy. There might have been some thought
of the meaning of life, but no true deep thought of the meaning of life, we see
more of a polytheistic reasoning of why things good and bad happen.
It
was not until May 28, 585 B.C. when we see that humanity starts to look for
answers of what was actually going on with not only themselves, but their
environment. On this specific day there was a great battle between the Medes and Lydians that was interrupted by a darkness, this darkness was
viewed by the combatants as a sign from the “God’s” and in
fear of this darkness the battle was abandon in fear of repercussion from these
“God’s”,
except for the first western Greek philosopher Thales that predicted a solar eclipse to happen. Humanity and the
way it thought of the meaning of life would change forever after this day.
From
the time of Thales to the present
time there has been a great change in what and how we define the meaning of
life. In the ancient times of Thales, the
Pre-Socratics, Socrates, Plato, etc., we see these great philosophers try
and explain the world around them, how it worked, the meaning of life, the
purpose of life, etc., because of their limited knowledge they explained a lot
through their polytheistic beliefs. Even though Thales calculated a solar eclipse on May 25, 585 B.C., it was not
until Copernicus and the publishing
of his book in 1543 C.E. that explain the heliocentric
theory, that was later proven correct by Galileo in 1632, from this point in time you start to see a
separation of science from theology. During this time the movement away from
theology and to science had a grave consequence that lead to either
excommunication or death.
In
present day humanity has created a social
contract that has allowed us to respect one another, to have self-esteem, have
confidence, strive for achievements in life, and reach self-actualization. This
has allowed us to explore the meaning of life in great depth. Not all of us
have looked for the meaning life in the same way, some of us have looked to the
meaning of life in either monotheism, polytheism; others have felt lost and
looked for the meaning of life in drugs; while others have felt a great void in
life and have taken their lives by committing suicide.
As you
could see the meaning of life is not easy to define! The meaning of life should
be what you make of it! Whether you find the meaning of life in love,
technological achievements, or just by living life by the seat of your pants!!!
Find a passion in your life and pour everything you have into it and find the
joy of life. Then and only then will you find a reason for life. Only through
experience will you gain knowledge!
“You
will never live if you are looking for the meaning of life” David Seaman
