Where do you think is the MOST worthwhile place to find meaning

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   threekeysposted 7 years ago

   in life? In work, family, religion, hobbies, philosophy or something else?

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      Jessie L Watsonposted 7 years agoin reply to this

      We can find meaning anywhere. I think the search for meaning is one of our oldest instincts. The problem is: some psychopaths find hurting people meaningful. So, I think there is often a confusion between "following one's bliss" and simply cultivating a meaningful life. I have found that standing up to adversity and challenge provides great meaning for me in my life. I live in a perpetual state of development and growth. So instead of looking for blissful experiences, I look for opportunities to justify the suffering in my life.

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         threekeysposted 7 years agoin reply to this

         We need to find meaning in our suffering AND we need a release from  our misery and suffering.
         Yes we can find meaning everywhere but it sounds as if encountering suffering was/is the pathway for you and like that of the lotus flower.
         Here, the only way up and through the mud and water, is to become something beautiful (a lotus) as you reach for the light and warmth of the sun being held up by sky.

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      RTalloniposted 7 years agoin reply to this

      It's not found in a place or thing, but a person.  Jesus the Christ is who offers real meaning to our lives.  His grace is the only true joy, in Him we find meaningful meaning.  The book of John offers truth regarding what a purpose filled life is all about. 
      
      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wXYsqVLjg50
      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DAG07DZ0e7Q

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         threekeysposted 7 years agoin reply to this

         I am happy for you RTalloni that the life of religious values and asethetics, brings deep meaning to you.

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         kenneth averyposted 7 years agoin reply to this

         RT, I agree with you.

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      The0NatureBoyposted 7 years agoin reply to this

      Based on what my background was before my "new birth" in 1976, I would say there is not any one place but that the greater variety of experiences one have and  book readings one indulges in seeking understanding rather than categorizing them into different judgmental states, thus, it is in one's ability to objectively reason with everything experienced, taught, seen or imagined for putting them together in the light of the collection of mentally experienced ingestions.

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         threekeysposted 7 years agoin reply to this

         Yes that is the "big picture" outlook. What about looking at the everyday detail by giving an example of perhaps a person you know who found meaning in one area of their life, if that is easier to do?

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            The0NatureBoyposted 7 years agoin reply to this

            Just yesterday a boy I know was using drugs heavily and I met and he told me how just all of a sudden he didn't want them any more and stopped "cold turkey" and have never looked back with the desire. We didn't talk long but he was happy to report tome he just suddenly didn't want them any more. I'm hoping we meet again soon o we can have a longer conversation. The important thing is the person has to decide to reason.
            
            A about 3 year old was told by his mother got stop playing on some stairs but turned a deaf ear so I asked him "what are you learning from that" and he looked at the stairs as if saying to himself "I should be learning from what i do but I don't see anything to learn from doing that" so he walked away I would suppose saying to himself "I am always supposed to be learning from what I do."
            
            How about those two, Charmaine?

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               threekeysposted 7 years agoin reply to this

               Pretty good:)
               Thankyou Elijah.
               I see.

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   GoodBrains2posted 7 years ago

   In my experience, a dictionary gives you lots of meanings.

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      threekeysposted 7 years agoin reply to this

      Yes a dictionary can be a quick and handy starting point to give meaning or offer a range of singular meanings.

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   Lew Marcrumposted 7 years ago

   These philosophical questions are reminiscent of Sociology-101 in my freshman year.  Everyone knows enough big words to sound of great knowledge and importance, and everyone has the answer to all the world's problems.  None quite realize that, collectively, WE ARE the world's problems. 
   
   Want to find a great and mysterious "meaning" in life?  Then get off your butt and do something MEANINGFUL.  I haven't found that great magical meaning yet, and I'm not looking for it.  If it comes, I will know it. 
   
   I live in Central America amidst the Mayan people.  Finding "meaning" here is also finding pain.  Sometimes I sit among the ruins of the great civilization created by their ancestors and marvel at what they accomplished.  Then I look around at their descendants every day and see only the direst of poverty.  How they came from one extreme to the other is not important, it's merely what I have to deal with emotionally and financially.  Where they once lived in royal splendor, now I see little kids literally starving, still happy because they have never known anything else.  It's meaningful to be able to help a few, but painful because I can't do more. 
   
   In my mind the search for "meaning" is akin to the epidemic of "feeling" particularly among the politically left in the US.  Nether meaning nor feeling accomplish a darn thing without ACTION.  The internet is full of stories about the homeless, the starving kids, etc., in the US.  I defy anyone to show me one kid in the US who is literally starving.  Not being able to afford a new video game or the latest $200 athletic shoes because someone used the family funds for gambling, alcohol or drugs is not poverty.  Going to bed hungry every night of your life is poverty.  Having no shoes at all is poverty.
   
   The internet is full of social warriors without a war.  They use all the big buzz-words, pat themselves on the back at their ability to "feel" the pain of their fellow man, then kick back, toke a joint, have a glass of wine, watch American Idol reruns and fell warm and fuzzy that they found "meaning".

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      threekeysposted 7 years agoin reply to this

      Context is needed for everything so we can get close to the truth and reality of situations.
      Yes its about the balance of revealing it, takking about it but then rolling up our sleeves and putting in the solution at ground level.
      Dont be taken aback by these questions. They are my type of questions I ask myself. But I became lazy and found them already written. (What now isn't on the Net??!!. I was taking the easier route)
      I cant "physically do" all the things I would love to volunteer for or creative social projects.
      I love animals. I do unpaid work for a native wildlife organization that rescues sick, injured or orphaned animals.
      Life has been constrictive and I understand "doing without" albeit in a supposed democratic western country.
      I have always felt my luck lay in a foreign country.
      Lew you must being doing wonders over in Central America. Its a scary lawless country. I reckon if you can make it there you are one true survivor.

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      The0NatureBoyposted 7 years agoin reply to this

      Lew, "collectively, WE ARE the world's problems" I completely agree with. Poverty is more of a state of mind rather than a state of being.
      
      Example.
      In Africa there are many places where rain is so seldom that the people can not grow WHAT THEY KNOW as food and they want to keep allegiance to their nationality and place they consider home rather than going to an area where what they consider food is. Also, with the warm African climate clothes are a social demand and not a NEED since all mankind once lived like all other mammals, i.e., like they came out of their parents.
      
      Another.
      When the U.S. sympathizing Vietnamese were leaving the south after the U.S. pulled out they often told stories of up to 10 days without food although they had been walking on many plants that would have fulfilled their food needs but their TRADITIONAL foods were not available so they went hungry. 
      
      With that being said; calling others poor or impoverished is a subconscious way human are forced to belittle others to make them desire CORPORATION MADE stuff for improving corporation's monetary income. What a trick of socialism to have the people constantly desiring what they see rather than what they need and knowing the difference. HUMAN / WOMAN, being "unable to comprehend all things" because of their judging, are schooled [trained to follow leaders to their own demise] to follow tradition without questioning and tend to "belittle" anyone choosing to be different to feel guilty of not conforming.
      
      Thus, we DO have the answer to the world's problems buried under being schooled into being "followers of tradition" rather than reasoners of "how did we get to this state of being after a beginning of living like all other animals." If we ask and sincerely seek THE answer to that question we will find it. It is written "seek and you shall find, ask and it shale given and to knock and the door will be open to you" but our problem is we ask something outside of ourselves rather than ask our own innermost being. 
      
      Aloha

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         threekeysposted 7 years agoin reply to this

         Have you written to those people in places that can alter legislative practices, Elijah? Unless you initiate a grass roots movement based on what you know.

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            The0NatureBoyposted 7 years agoin reply to this

            I have attempted to get the message across but, although Constitutional, my grievances must be written in a format I am not financially able to afford the book containing them so they get rejected.
            
            The U.S. is about financing corporations rather than fulfilling the needs of the people. As a matter of fact, We The People here have "bar codes" on our "Birth Certificates" showing our worth, by it the nation borrows what is suppose to be coined by our  government, money from the private Federal Reserve bank and pays interest to it for borrowing it. Do you think they would listen to what I have to say? I filed a "Notice of Impeachment" for Obama his "Department of Justice" and refiled it to Session who has also ignored it which makes both heads of the DOJ guilty of Treason for 9/11/01's Bush administration's treason per Article 3.3 of the U.S. Constitution.

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   Lew Marcrumposted 7 years ago

   Thank you.  I apologize for being testy, but the point of view between here and there is so vastly different.  It's really not nearly as scary as the news media make it sound.  However, I try to never leave home without a "Hail Mary" on my lips and a pistol in my pocket, though in all these years I've never had to use the pistol.

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