Sunday, January 30, 2011

An 80-Year-Old Knows the Meaning of Life

The ultimate blind meaning of life is revealed by listening to hits.  Nature equips every creature with a will to live. Its primary content is to continue life, to maintain the DNA chain. That's what the hits are all about, and nothing else. When this purpose has been fulfilled, nature deserts the individuals to manage as best they can.

So starts the wait for the death, so starts philosophy. Plato said there would be no philosophy without death. When you think and live every day, remembering that you could die tomorrow, you start philosophising. Man is doomed to freedom, said Sartre. But what to do with freedom? I think, therefore I am, said  Descartes. Marcus Aurelius keeps repeating that I must concentrate my attention on what I am thinking about at this moment, what is happening to me right now... what I am doing, and I want to do what serves the human community... Wittgenstein wrote: If instead of the infinite duration of time, we understand eternity to mean timelessness, then who lives in the current moment is living in eternity.

So I can't live in yesterday or tomorrow. If I intend to live in the first place, I need to do it now. I only have got this moment. I feel very happy right now, at this timeless moment – thus in eternity.

Photo: Markku Aalto

Identifiers: An 80-year-old