Monday, October 20, 2003
#1 The Meaning of Life
Well you might think this is a big one to tackle right at the start but I want to get a big one out of the way just to get the ball rolling (me = the ball).
I'll start by qualifying this a little. This is more of a definition of the purpose of life not the meaning of life.
The purpose of life is pretty simple...
1. Pick something (anything).
2. Start doing it (the sooner the better).
3. Make as much progress as you can before you die.
That's it.
I'm pretty sure I'm right about this by the way, so anyone else out there working on it can stop now. Also, this definition supersedes any previous definitions you may have seen.
I'm confident that there is no other explanation that identifies and addresses the single defining truth that is the purpose of all life in the universe, and that single defining truth is obsessive determination.
You can identify it everywhere, it's infinite.
It's almost silly to list examples because discrete examples suggest that there are boundaries to what is in fact an all-encompassing reality. But because you will no doubt want some examples, I'll give you some.
We reward obsession... professional athletes are one good example. These are some of the most one dimensional, generally useless people on the planet and yet we idolize them and pay them exorbitant amounts of money for having mastered only a single skill that is useless in any practical sense.
You might try to argue that not all professional athletes are paid well and that's certainly true, but this is just another example of the randomness that is an integral part of this same construct (In other words, #1. Pick something -anything- ).
There are any number of other examples of this playing out, from our obession with beauty (and our loathing of things that aren't perceived of as beautiful) to fame, wealth, poverty, our appreciation of history/ritual/tradition, religion, etc. The universe itself is starting to look like nothing more than one all-encompassing obsessive event (a big bang that is still going strong 15+ billion years later... now that's obsessive). Everything is obesession... science, math, music, technology, disease, all of the forces in the universe that are responsible for creating life and for ending it, globalism/the movement against globalism, economy, law, language, and on and on...
Of course, there are a few gotchas but I'll even give those to you.
Gotcha #1: It is a requirement that you pick only a single direction. The amount of work you do isn't important only the amount of progress you make as measured in a straight line. The direction itself (what you decide to do precisely) is more or less irrelevant.
Gotcha #2: Doing something someone else has already done is a 'no no' (reinventing the wheel). This is where people make their mistakes. If you need to make your own mistakes in life then you are a failure.
Gotcha #3: Depending on what you decide to do you may never get far enough along to be successful in your lifetime. You may do everything right only to have someone else benefit from all of your hard work long after you're dead (if you think about it just a little you'll probably be able to figure out tracks that are more or lees likely to pay off soon).
Gotcha #4: You have to document what you do or it doesn't count.
I think that's everything... but I promised the meaning of life originally, not the purpose of life. The meaning of life is even easier. There is no meaning in life only purpose.
4:15:29 PM
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OK Here goes...
This is it...
After almost a full year of being out of work and a lot of failures (like being out of work for almost a full year) and small successes (like not killing myself after being out of work for almost a full year) I'm ready...
I'm going to do everything all at once. I'm going to accomplish everything I want to do in my life as part of one giant task and I'm starting right now.
I'll let you know when I finish. Ready... SEt... GO!
3:13:36 PM
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Well hi there (he said to no one). I really do want to do a better job of keeping up with my posting. I have about a thousand things to post that just haven't made it up here, and pictures and just all kinds of junk. I'll get this straight eventually. I also have a bunch of other stuff that I want to be working on including: weblog templates, maybe a dozen ideas that I'm trying to push forward with (nothing I want to talk about here... at least not yet. If you think I'm brilliant and you have some money to invest, I'd love to talk to you about some of my ideas), I'm looking for a job (I'd say desperately looking for a job but I'm afraid that it would make me sound desperate), I want to organize my life (everything, all at once), up and running etc.
Oh well, I won't waste a lot of time talking about what I want to be doing. Hopefully that will leave me more time to actually do what I want to be doing.
3:09:25 PM
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