We talk about life way too much. We stress on all the small details needed to lead a ‘happy’ life. The desire to lead a perfect and perfectly planned life is strong. But we do we really understand life? While looking for something big and flashy, are we missing out on the basics? Let’s try and figure out.
What Is Life?
The meaning of life can be understood in two different ways. People have turned and twisted the theories over time and generation accordingly for an easier explanation. There resides an absolute meaning that is very far away in accordance with which one has to understand the depths of extrinsic life and intrinsic life.
The meaning has another category to the intrinsic life and it explains that the meaning of life is not found to be separate somewhere else. Rather it lies in the very living self. We, humans, try so hard to understand what exactly life is. We are always desperate to know how is it made better, what are the consequences, and what all are the deep roots from where it all began.
Humans are so inquisitive into the things which demand higher power of understanding. They try to get indulged in the things which become beyond explanation after a point. We don’t generally ask if love has some meaning because we have understood that, love by itself, is not a means to an end or explanation. Similarly, we never question the meaning of the beauty of a flower, because beauty itself is enough. It never leads you to an end but it contains meaning within itself.
Concept of Life and Living
In the process of existence, everything that is valuable is always intrinsically meaningful and life would be equivalent to existence. Life can have a whole meaning if we just change the word ‘life’ to ‘living’ because the word ‘life’ is dead in itself. All nouns are dead but the language would always be created by dead people.
But someday, a newer generation is going to create a language that will consist only of verbs because that is going to be authentic to existence. In actual existence, there is no noun. Have we seen life? Have we met life anywhere? But all that you meet in experience is living.
Living is more understandable because it has meaning in each moment. Sipping a cup of coffee, doing a workout, celebrating festivals, all these small activities make up our living. In fact, each part and moment of living is meaningful, we just have to be there to experience it. If two people are in love, they are simply undergoing the gestures of love. There are no technical gestures or process of love, it’s simply felt. You feel it when you are in it and you go on losing every amount of it by your absence.
Philosophy of Life
Philosophy is a tragic subject that is doomed to fail. It’s just a mere desperate attempt to make sense in the world of the living. It is thinking of the rational mind trying to defy the intrinsic existential anguish of humans in search of meaning in life. Surprisingly, the most valuable elements in life actually belong to the reality of the unknowable. We think of love as a scientific mystery but love and yet love is what gives color to life. It's juice, aura, essence, and inspiration is what keeps everyone going.
Although philosophy rationalizes all the theories, it might get a little tricky when it comes to the absolute meanings of life and love, the things which are already very highly complex in the universe.
Concept of Life- Mind, and Heart
The mind is another beautiful mechanism that is designed for understanding complex yet simple things, and it suffers very much when things turn to be beyond its reach. At that point, the mind would do two things. Either it can except an answer as the truth itself no matter how hurting it could be or keep searching for an answer in denial which will never come to an end.
And hence, the latter will lead to the existential anguish of philosophy itself. Instead of using the mind for digging deeper into impossible theories, why can’t we just let the mind do it’s an amazing job just by wandering around simpler thoughts that are a part of daily life.
The heart lives in the dimension of the unknowable not because it is mysterious in its philosophy but because it is teased in its own mystery. It does not question, it does not approach life with the authoritarian attitude like the mind. The heart does not want to conquer and gain authority, but rather it flourishes in the experience of loving for all and for no reason at all.
Read more: Famous philosophy quotes- The basics of philosophy
Some Basic Ideologies of Life
We try to look for the meaning of life everywhere. But in order to understand something as simple as life, all we need to do is to observe nature closely. Here are some of the basic ideologies of life.
1. If you love a flower don't pluck it, because then it dies and it ceases to be what you loved. So if you love a flower let it be. Love is not always about obsession and possession, love is about being gently towards the other and appreciating it.
2. Don't try to become what you aren’t by nature. Competition is healthy but it shouldn’t be done at the cost of your innocence and affection.
3. Courage is a love affair with the unknown, giving you all the high rides and all the low waves in life.
4. To avoid pain, people avoid pleasure just like, to avoid death, people avoid life. We waste too much time thinking about our end destination that we start forgetting the utmost beauty of the journey.
5. There is no need for any competition with anybody anytime. You are yourself and you are perfectly good, you don’t need to prove it to anybody else, just accept yourself.
6. A man becomes a Buddha, free of pain and stress the moment he accepts that life brings so much and we should be this with gratitude.
7. Think before you decide a thing, either good or bad. This is because there is always going to be every possibility that it will be fulfilled and then nobody is about to suffer the consequences but you.
8. Mind could be a beautiful servant but indeed a dangerous master too. We should always control our thoughts just before they try controlling us.
9. Life in itself has no meaning. Life is an opportunity to let you create its meaning in your own ways.
10. Never belong to a crowd, a nation, a religion, or a race. Belong to the whole existence by not limiting yourself to small things when you can have it all.
Conclusion
What we understand about life, is not in its complexities but rather in its simplicity. All the theories about life are made upon the facts that people have felt about it, what they have suffered through the phase. But you can always be the one to write your own and make them understand to the people around, making it easier for them to undergo this beautiful journey with more optimism.
There is always going to be a conflict between your mind and heart, there will always be a conflict between the meaning of life and how you live it, but in the end, what really matters is how you choose to live and define it in your colors.
Read more: How we spend our time is how we spend our lives
Written By - Pavas Shrigyan
Edited By - Neha Kundu
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