HOPE

The meaning of life constitutes a philosophical question concerning the purpose and significance of human existence. This concept can be expressed through a variety of related questions, such as Why are we here?, What's life all about? and What is the meaning of it all? It has been the subject of much philosophical, scientific, and theological speculation throughout history. There have been a large number of answers to these questions from many different cultural and ideological backgrounds. Albert Camus observed, we humans are creatures who spend our lives trying to convince ourselves that our existence is not absurd.

The meaning of life is deeply mixed with the philosophical and religious conceptions of existence, consciousness, and happiness, and touches on many other issues, such as symbolic meaning, ontology, value, purpose, ethics, good and evil, free will, conceptions of God, the existence of God, the soul and the afterlife. Scientific contributions are more indirect; by describing the empirical facts about the universe, science provides some context and sets parameters for conversations on related topics. An alternative, human-centric, and not a cosmic/religious approach is the question "What is the meaning of my life?" The value of the question pertaining to the purpose of life may be considered to be coincidal with the achievement of ultimate reality, if that is believed by one to exist.

Meaning of life as a question:

Questions about the meaning of life have been expressed in a broad variety of ways, including the following:

* What is the meaning of life? What's it all about?

* Why are we here? What are we here for?

* What is the origin of life?

* What is the nature of life? What is the nature of reality?

* What is the purpose of life? What is one's purpose in life?

* What is the significance of life?

* What is meaningful and valuable in life?

* What is the value of life?

* What is the reason to live? What are we living for?


The meaning of life:

In Douglas Adams' popular comedy book series The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, the Answer to the Ultimate Question of Life, the Universe and Everything has the numeric solution of 42, which was derived over seven and a half million years by a giant supercomputer called Deep Thought. After much confusion from the descendants of his creators, Deep Thought explains that the problem is that they do not know the Ultimate Question, and they would have to build an even more powerful computer to determine what that is. This computer is revealed to be Earth, which, after 10 million years of calculating, is destroyed to make way for a galactic bypass moments before it finishes calculations. In Life, the Universe and Everything, it is confirmed that 42 is indeed the Ultimate Answer, and that it is impossible for both the Ultimate Answer and the Ultimate Question to be known about in the same universe, as they will cancel each other out and take the universe with them, to be replaced by something even more bizarre, and that this may have already happened. Subsequently, in the hopes that his subconscious holds the question, Arthur Dent guesses at a question, coming up with "What do you get when you multiply six by nine?", probably an incorrect guess, as the arrival of the Golgafrinchans on prehistoric Earth would have disrupted the computation process. However, Dent, Fenchurch, and a dying Marvin did see God's final message to his creation: "We apologise for the inconvenience".


In Monty Python's The Meaning of Life, there are several allusions to the meaning of life. In "Part VI B: The Meaning of Life" a cleaning lady explains "Life's a game, you sometimes win or lose" and later a waiter describes his personal philosophy "The world is a beautiful place. You must go into it, and love everyone, not hate people. You must try and make everyone happy, and bring peace and contentment everywhere you go." At the end of the film, we can see Michael Palin being handed an envelope, he opens it, and provides the viewers with 'the meaning of life': "Well, it's nothing very special. Uh, try to be nice to people, avoid eating fat, read a good book every now and then, get some walking in, and try to live together in peace and harmony with people of all creeds and nations."

In The Simpsons episode "Homer the Heretic", a representation of God tells Homer what the meaning of life is, but as usual the one who really wanted to know (the viewer) is left disappointed. Just before God tells Homer the meaning of life, the credits music starts and the show ends, interrupting God's explanation to humorous effect. Earlier in the episode, Homer founds his own religion, in which he tries to worship God in his own way, later pointing out to Moe that it has no hell and no kneeling. However, Homer quickly abandons his self-indulgent personal religion after his house almost burns down, taking the fire as a sign of divine retribution, and exclaiming "O Spiteful One, show me who to smite, and he shall be smoten." Ned assures Homer that the fire was not God's vengeance and Lovejoy explains that God was "working in the hearts of your friends and neighbors when they came to your aid."

At the end of The Matrix Revolutions, Smith concludes that "the purpose of life is to end" and is determined to move that purpose along. The Matrix series also presents the idea of "living in a simulated reality" and the associated question whether such an existence should be considered meaningless, in a way that may be compared to Plato's allegory of the cave and how certain belief systems view our reality, like Buddhism or Gnosticism.

Popular views:

"What is the meaning of life?" is a question many people ask themselves at some point during their lives, most in the context "What is the purpose of life?" Here are some of the life goals people choose, and some of their beliefs on what the purpose of life is:

...to realize one's potential and ideals

* ...to chase dreams.
...to live one's dreams.
* ...to spend it for something that will outlast it.
* ...to matter: to count, to stand for something, to have made some difference that you lived at all.
* ...to expand one's potential in life.
* ...to become the person you've always wanted to be.
* ...to become the best version of yourself.
* ...to seek happiness and flourish.
* ...to be a true authentic human being.
* ...to be able to put the whole of oneself into one's feelings, one's work, one's beliefs.
* ...to follow our destiny.
...to submit to our destiny.
* ...to create your own destiny.
* ...to achieve eudaimonia

...to achieve biological perfection

* ...to survive, that is, to live as long as possible, including pursuit of immortality (through scientific means).
...to live forever or die trying.
* ...to evolve.
* ...to replicate, to reproduce. "The 'dream' of every cell is to become two cells."
* ...to be fruitful and multiply. (Genesis 1:28)

...to seek wisdom and knowledge
Philosopher in Meditation (detail) by Rembrandt

* ...to expand one's perception of the world.
* ...to follow the clues and walk out the exit.
* ...to learn as many things as possible in life.
...to know as much as possible about as many things as possible.
* ...to seek wisdom and knowledge and to tame the mind, as to avoid suffering caused by ignorance and find happiness.
* ...to face our fears and accept the lessons life offers us.
* ...to find the meaning of life.
...to find the purpose of life.
...to find a reason to live.
* ...to resolve the imbalance of the mind by understanding the nature of reality.

...to do good, to do the right thing

* ...to leave the world a better place than you found it.
...to do your best to leave every situation better than you found it.
* ...to benefit others.
* ...to give more than you take.
* ...to end suffering.
* ...to create equality.
* ...to challenge oppression.
* ...to distribute wealth.
* ...to be generous.
* ...to contribute to the well-being and spirit of others.
* ...to help others, to help one another.
...to take every chance to help another while on your journey here.
* ...to be creative and innovative.
* ...to forgive.
...to accept and forgive human flaws.
* ...to be emotionally sincere.
* ...to be responsible.
* ...to be honorable.
* ...to seek peace.

Dante and Beatrice see God as a point of light surrounded by angels; from Gustave Doré's illustrations for the Divine Comedy

...to attain spiritual enlightenment

* ...to reach the highest heaven and be at the heart of the Divine.
* ...to have a pure soul and experience God.
* ...to understand the mystery of God.
* ...to know God.
* ...to know oneself, know others, and know the will of heaven.
* ...to attain union with God.

...to love, to feel, to enjoy the act of living

* ...to love more.
* ...to love those who mean the most. Every life you touch will touch you back.
* ...to treasure every enjoyable sensation one has.
* ...to seek beauty in all its forms.
* ...to have fun.
...to enjoy life.
* ...to seek pleasure and avoid pain.
* ...to be compassionate.
* ...to be moved by the tears and pain of others, and try to help them out of love and compassion.
* ...to love others as best we possibly can.
* ...to love something bigger, greater, and beyond ourselves, something we did not create or have the power to create, something intangible and made holy by our very belief in it.
* ...to love God and all of his creations.
* ...to glorify God by enjoying him forever.

...to have power, to be better

* ...to strive for power and superiority.
* ...to rule the world.
* ...to know and master the world.
...to know and master nature.
* ...to fill the Earth and subdue it.(Genesis 1:28)

One should not seek to know and understand the meaning of life

* The answer to the meaning of life is too profound to be known and understood.
* You will never live if you are looking for the meaning of life.
* The meaning of life is to forget about the search for the meaning of life.
* One should live the life given to you instead.

Life has no meaning

* Life or human existence has no real meaning or purpose because human existence occurred out of a random chance in nature, and anything that exists by chance has no intended purpose.
* Life has no meaning, but as humans we try to associate a meaning or purpose so we can justify our existence.
* There is no point in life, and that is exactly what makes it so special.
* Life is a bitch, and then you die.
* Life sucks and in the end you die.

Happiness is a state of mind or feeling such as contentment, satisfaction, pleasure, or joy. A variety of philosophical, religious, psychological and biological approaches have been taken to defining happiness and identifying its sources.

Philosophers and religious thinkers have often defined happiness in terms of living a good life, or flourishing, rather than simply as an emotion. Happiness in this older sense was used to translate the Greek Eudaimonia, and is still used in virtue ethics. In everyday speech today, however, terms such as well-being or quality of life are usually used to signify the classical meaning, and happiness is reserved[citation needed] for the felt experience or experiences that philosophers historically called pleasure.

Happiness forms a central theme of Buddhist teachings, which focuses on obtaining freedom from suffering by following the Eightfold Path. In the Buddhist view, ultimate happiness is only achieved by overcoming craving in all forms. Aristotle saw happiness as "the virtuous activity of the soul in accordance with reason," or the practice of virtue. In Catholicism, the ultimate end of human existence consists in felicity, or "blessed happiness", described by the thirteenth-century philosopher-theologian Thomas Aquinas as a Beatific Vision of God's essence in the next life. One psychological approach, positive psychology, describes happiness as consisting of positive emotions and positive activities.

While direct measurement of happiness is difficult, tools such as The Oxford Happiness Inventory have been developed by researchers. Physiological correlates to happiness can be measured through a variety of techniques, and survey research can be based on self-reported happiness levels.

Research has identified a number of attributes that correlate with happiness. These include religious involvement, parenthood, marital status, age, income and proximity to other happy people. Happiness economics suggests that measures of public happiness should be used to supplement more traditional economic measures when evaluating the success of public policy.

The Chinese Confucian thinker Mencius, who 2300 years ago sought to give advice to the ruthless political leaders of the warring states period, was convinced that the mind played a mediating role between the "lesser self" (the physiological self) and the "greater self" (the moral self) and that getting the priorities right between these two would lead to sagehood. He argued that if we did not feel satisfaction or pleasure in nourishing one's "vital force" with "righteous deeds", that force would shrivel up (Mencius,6A:15 2A:2). More specifically, he mentions the experience of intoxicating joy if one celebrates the practice of the great virtues, especially through music.

About one hundred years later, the Hindu thinker Patanjali, author of the Yoga Sutras, wrote quite exhaustively on the psychological and ontological roots of bliss.

In the Nicomachean Ethics, written in 350 B.C.E., Aristotle stated that happiness is the only emotion that humans desire for its own sake. He observed that men sought riches, or honor, or health, not for their own sake but in order to be happy. Note that eudaimonia, the term we translate as "happiness", is for Aristotle an activity rather than an emotion or a state. Happiness is characteristic of a good life, that is, a life in which a man or woman fulfills human nature in an excellent way. People have a set of purposes which are typically human: they belong to our nature. The happy person is virtuous, meaning he or she has outstanding abilities and emotional tendencies which allow him or her to fulfill our common human ends. For Aristotle, then, happiness is "the virtuous activity of the soul in accordance with reason": happiness is the practice of virtue.

Many ethicists make arguments for how humans should behave, either individually or collectively, based on the resulting happiness of such behavior. Utilitarians, such as John Stuart Mill and Jeremy Bentham, advocated the greatest happiness principle as a guide for ethical behavior.

Explanations of happiness in mystical traditions, especially in advanced spiritual techniques, are related to full balance (conjunction, union, "secret marriage") of so-called inner energy lines (energy channels of a soul or deepest dimension of the human): nadi (ancient Indian), gimel kavim (Hebrew), pillars, columns, gnostic ophis or caduceus. In balanced state, two main lines (left & right, Ida & Pingala) form a third line, called Shushumna. Speaking technically, (full) activity of this third or central line is happiness. Left and right lines include all aspects of normal human life: sleep and awake, body and mind, physical and spiritual, and so on. To attain balanced state of these two lines is a main task of life—a paradoxical result of all kinds of activities and endeavours combined with full relaxation or tranquility at the same time.

In Catholicism, the ultimate end of human existence consists in felicity (Latin equivalent to the Greek eudaimonia), or "blessed happiness", described by the thirteenth-century philosopher-theologian Thomas Aquinas as a Beatific Vision of God's essence in the next life. According to Augustine's Confessions, he lived much of his life without God. He sinned much and recognized his sinfulness. As a youth, he sinned for its own sake, and later, in the pursuit of a perceived good. When he lost a dear friend to death, it troubled him a lot, and he turned to God for answers. He turned to God to find true happiness and was converted to Christianity. He found that true happiness can only come from a relationship with God and appreciating God's creation for His sake, and not its own.

Happiness forms a central theme of Buddhist teachings. For ultimate freedom from suffering, the Eightfold Path leads its practitioner to Nirvana, a state of everlasting peace. Ultimate happiness is only achieved by overcoming craving in all forms. More mundane forms of happiness, such as acquiring wealth and maintaining good friendships, are also recognized as worthy goals for lay people (see sukha). Buddhism also encourages the generation of loving kindness and compassion, the desire for the happiness and welfare of all beings.

According to the Buddha, "Mind is the forerunner of states of existence. Mind is chief, and (those states) are caused by the mind. If one speaks and acts with a pure mind, surely happiness will follow like one's own shadow!" In Buddhism, the third of the Four Noble Truths states "to eliminate suffering, eliminate craving," thus establishing happiness as beyond material and emotional possession and attainable only through an attentive practice leading to extinguishing of craving and aversion.

Hope is a belief in a positive outcome related to events and circumstances in one's life. Hope is the feeling that what is wanted can be had or that events will turn out for the best. Hopefulness is somewhat different from optimism in that hope is an emotional state, whereas optimism is a conclusion reached through a deliberate thought pattern that leads to a positive attitude.

When used in a religious context, hope carries a connotation of being aware of what Christians see as spiritual "truth"; see Hope (virtue). In Christian theology, hope is one of the three theological virtues (faith, hope, and charity), which are spiritual gifts of God. In contrast to the above, it is not a physical emotion but a spiritual grace. Hope is distinct from positive thinking, which refers to a therapeutic or systematic process used in psychology for reversing pessimism. The term false hope refers to a hope based entirely around a fantasy or an extremely unlikely outcome.

In some religious contexts hope changes from being a verb to a noun. For instance, when Christians say they have hope in God they are not saying they hope God will give them good things and make their lives happier but that god is in fact, their hope.

Hope was personified in Greek mythology as Elpis. When Pandora opened Pandora's Box, she let out all the evils except one: hope. Apparently, the Greeks considered hope to be as dangerous as all the world's evils. But without hope to accompany all their troubles, humanity was filled with despair. It was a great relief when Pandora revisited her box and let out hope as well. It may be worthy to note that in the story, hope is represented as weakly leaving the box but is in effect far more potent than any of the major evils. In some faiths and religions of the world, hope plays a very important role. Hope can be passive in the sense of a wish, or active as a plan or idea, often against popular belief, with persistent, personal action to execute the plan or prove the idea. Consider a prisoner of war who never gives up hope for escape and, against the odds, plans and accomplishes this. By contrast, consider another prisoner who simply wishes or prays for freedom, or another who gives up all hope of freedom.

In Human, All Too Human, philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche argued that "Zeus did not want man to throw his life away, no matter how much the other evils might torment him, but rather to go on letting himself be tormented anew. To that end, he gives man hope. In truth, it is the most evil of evils because it prolongs man's torment." Emily Dickinson wrote in a poem that "'Hope' is the thing with feathers-- / That perches in the soul--." Ernst Bloch in "Principle of Hope" (1986) traces the human search for a wide range of utopias. Bloch locates utopian projects not only in the social and political realms of the well-known utopian theorists (Marx, Hegel, Lenin) but also in a multiplicity of technical, architectural, geographical utopias, and in multiple works of art (opera, literature, music, dance, film). For Bloch hope permeates everyday life and it is present in countless aspects of popular culture phenomenon such as jokes, fairy tales, fashion or images of death. In his view Hope remains in the present as an open setting of latency and tendencies.

Martin Seligman in his book Learned Optimism (1990) strongly criticizes the role of churches in the promotion of the idea that the individual has little chance or hope of affecting his or her life. He acknowledges that the social and cultural conditions, such as serfdom and the caste system weighed heavily against the freedom of individuals to change the social circumstances of their lives. Almost as if to avoid the criticism, in his book What You Can Change and What You Can't, he is careful to outline the extent that people can hold out hope for personal action to change some of the things that affect their lives. More recently, psychologist Anthony Scioli (2006) has developed an integrative theory of hope that consists of four elements: attachment, mastery, survival, and spirituality. This approach incorporates contributions from psychology, anthropology, philosophy and theology as well as classical and contemporary literature and the arts.

Love is any of a number of emotions and experiences related to a sense of strong affection and attachment. The word love can refer to a variety of different feelings, states, and attitudes, ranging from generic pleasure ("I loved that meal") to intense interpersonal attraction ("I love my boyfriend"). This diversity of uses and meanings, combined with the complexity of the feelings involved, makes love unusually difficult to consistently define, even compared to other emotional states.

As an abstract concept, love usually refers to a deep, ineffable feeling of tenderly caring for another person. Even this limited conception of love, however, encompasses a wealth of different feelings, from the passionate desire and intimacy of romantic love to the nonsexual emotional closeness of familial and platonic love to the profound oneness or devotion of religious love. Love in its various forms acts as a major facilitator of interpersonal relationships and, owing to its central psychological importance, is one of the most common themes in the creative arts.

The English word "love" can have a variety of related but distinct meanings in different contexts. Often, other languages use multiple words to express some of the different concepts that English relies mainly on "love" to encapsulate; one example is the plurality of Greek words for "love." Cultural differences in conceptualizing love thus make it doubly difficult to establish any universal definition.

Although the nature or essence of love is a subject of frequent debate, different aspects of the word can be clarified by determining what isn't love. As a general expression of positive sentiment (a stronger form of like), love is commonly contrasted with hate (or neutral apathy); as a less sexual and more emotionally intimate form of romantic attachment, love is commonly contrasted with lust; and as an interpersonal relationship with romantic overtones, love is commonly contrasted with friendship, although other definitions of the word love may be applied to close friendships in certain contexts.

When discussed in the abstract, love usually refers to interpersonal love, an experience felt by a person for another person. Love often involves caring for or identifying with a person or thing, including oneself (cf. narcissism).

In addition to cross-cultural differences in understanding love, ideas about love have also changed greatly over time. Some historians date modern conceptions of romantic love to courtly Europe during or after the Middle Ages, although the prior existence of romantic attachments is attested by ancient love poetry.

Because of the complex and abstract nature of love, discourse on love is commonly reduced to a thought-terminating cliché, and there are a number of common proverbs regarding love, from Virgil's "Love conquers all" to the Beatles' "All you need is love." Bertrand Russell describes love as a condition of "absolute value," as opposed to relative value. Theologian Thomas Jay Oord said that to love is to "act intentionally, in sympathetic response to others, to promote overall well-being."[citation needed] Philosopher Gottfried Leibniz said that love is "to be delighted by the happiness of another."

Impersonal love

A person can be said to love a country, principle, or goal if they value it greatly and are deeply committed to it. Similarly, compassionate outreach and volunteer workers' "love" of their cause may sometimes be borne not of interpersonal love, but impersonal love coupled with altruism and strong political convictions. People can also "love" material objects, animals, or activities if they invest themselves in bonding or otherwise identifying with those things. If sexual passion is also involved, this condition is called paraphilia.

Interpersonal love

Interpersonal love refers to love between human beings. It is a more potent sentiment than a simple liking for another. Unrequited love refers to those feelings of love that are not reciprocated. Interpersonal love is most closely associated with interpersonal relationships. Such love might exist between family members, friends, and couples. There are also a number of psychological disorders related to love, such as erotomania.

Throughout history, philosophy and religion have done the most speculation on the phenomenon of love. In the last century, the science of psychology has written a great deal on the subject. In recent years, the sciences of evolutionary psychology, evolutionary biology, anthropology, neuroscience, and biology have added to the understanding of the nature and function of love.

Desire is a sense of longing for a person or object or hoping for an outcome. The same sense is expressed by emotions such as "craving" or "hankering". When a person desires something or someone, their sense of longing is excited by the enjoyment or the thought of the item or person, and they want to take actions to obtain their goal. The motivational aspect of desire has long been noted by philosophers; Hobbes (1588 – 1679) asserted that human desire is the fundamental motivation of all human action.

In Buddhism, for an individual to effect his or her liberation, the flow of sense-desire must be cut completely; however, while training, he or she must work with motivational processes based on skilfully applied desire. The Buddha stated, according to the early Buddhist scriptures, that monks should "generate desire" for the sake of fostering skillful qualities and abandoning unskillful ones.

While desires are often classified as emotions by laypersons, psychologists often describe desires as different from emotions; psychologists tend to argue that desires arise from bodily structures, such as the stomach's need for food, whereas emotions arise from a person's mental state. Marketing and advertising companies have used psychological research on how desire is stimulated to find more effective ways to induce consumers to buy a given product or service. While some advertising attempts to give buyers a sense of lack or wanting, other types of advertising create desire associating the product with desirable attributes, either by showing a celebrity or model with the product.

The theme of desire is at the core of the romance novel, which often create drama by showing cases where human desire is impeded by social conventions, class, or cultural barriers. As well, it is used in other literary genres, such as gothic novels such as Dracula by Bram Stoker, in which desire is mingled with fear and dread. Poets ranging from W.B. Yeats to T. S. Eliot have dealt with the themes of desire in their work. Just as desire is central to the written fiction genre of romance, it is the central theme of melodrama films, which use plots that appeal to the heightened emotions of the audience by showing "crises of human emotion, failed romance or friendship", in which desire is thwarted or unrequited.