1,000 WORDS (2nd attempt): DAY 38: Philosophy and The Meaning of Life.

Philosophy is great, but it can be dangerous. Everything is usually great and has the potential to be dangerous if used in the wrong ways, or by the wrong people at the wrong time. But we all must philosophize, at least personally, about our own lives, in order to create some kind of order. We all need to have a meaning in life, and simply living, loving our family and friends, and being the best we can be is possibly the greatest source of meaning we can find, other than sincerely searching for, and finally finding, God. How should we give meaning to our lives though? Some argue that life has no meaning, yet I notice that even these people try to improve their personalities in some way. If life was truly meaningless, then what would be the point of trying to better ourselves, to try to create order from chaos in our own lives. The only way we can come to this realization of order is by analyzing, by understanding the philosophies of the world and the ones we have subscribed to, unknowingly, over the years. Then what we need to do is to develop new habits, ones that will allow us to break free from an often nihilistic and depressing viewpoint of life, and to embrace the fact that, in reality, life has much more meaning than they were previously willing to admit. The mere system of union between a loving couple, of procreation and of life continuing in a family, of parents raising and unconditionally loving their children until they grow, instilling love into their children’s hearts with their very own actions. There is a flip side however, as there is to everything in this world of duality, as parents can impose their destructive beliefs onto their children, even without knowing it at times, by being bad examples when confronted with any given situation. The point is that, one cannot ignore the great significance of this unity between two people, to complement each other throughout their lives, to learn what it means to truly have to sacrifice yourself for someone at times, especially when children come along. Then these children take the best and the worst of both parents, plus a whole lot from its own unique environment as well, and blends all of it together to create a new person, who might very likely be a new family man or woman. And so life goes on, indefinitely. What for though? Are we free to assign meaning to anything and everything, just as we please, trusting everything we believe to be true? In a way, yes, we are all free to find meaning in our own lives, and we should definitely do this, we should never ignore or depreciate those blessings which have been ours all along, some of which we have actively neglected for so long. One example is when we try to act tough, so we try to stop being vulnerable, we try to stop connecting with people, we feel that there is no point to life, or to play the game of life with all these people around us. It’s tempting to feel like this sometimes, like a lone wolf, like it’s me against the world. I used to have this mentality back in the days a lot, I felt alone against forces which were beyond me. I’m glad I’ve overcome that now, for the most part, as I understand that life is, without a doubt, a collaborative experience, and that connections between people should be nurtured and appreciated, that for true communication to take place, we need to be true to ourselves and to those we interact with. If we play a part everywhere we go then no one will ever know the real you, they will only know fragments of you at each place, depending on how much of that true self you let show at each event. We need to come to terms with who we are, and what we are in this life. We need to understand that every human life matters equally, but that no one is superior to anybody else or matters more. We agree with this, yet we ignore the fact that, in any situation of danger, we would always look out for ourselves. We would attempt to save only those of our immediate family, our loved ones, precisely because of that, because we love them. Love compels us to go beyond our selfish self, beyond our personality and to connect, to truly feel a connection, between who we are, and who somebody else is. This love is usually complicated enough between two people, but if it’s true it will endure through the storms. What if an equally true love, but on a different scale, not in a romantic sense, but an even more complete love, a Divine love, existed and could be realized by all human beings if only we understood and truly felt a connection between our lives and those of other human beings, random people to us? After all, we are random people to them, and so are all the people we love. They would sacrifice all of us in the blink of an eye to save those they themselves love, should the tragic situation arise. We can never truly escape from this love of ourselves while we live in this world, or perhaps we can, but not living in this society. We must exchange love for the self, for love of the Self, and we must be the light that shines eternally everywhere we go, being an example of humility and love that people can feel the truth in, that people can feel inspired by. Philosophize and understand, realize that people have been attempting to figure out the meaning of life for millennia, and that philosophy and all the various religions are the result of this fact. We all feel that there’s something more to life, and that is why we try to life a meaningful life, or at least one that means something to us. Don’t give up on your life before you truly look at the value which is hidden in every crack, in every bad habit, in every problem you keep on facing, in every issue with a family member or friend, in every blessing and every love, in every enemy and friend. What does a friend mean to you, or an enemy? Is there such a thing? Reflect, philosophize, experiment, observe. Take your life in your hands, but remain humble, under the Higher Power which has given you the opportunity to live, and to even try to understand.