To Give Life Meaning is the Meaning of Life



Whatever it is that makes ones life worth living is that person’s meaning of life. In other words, the meaning of life is the constant pursuit of happiness. I believe this has been true all throughout history. What may vary from person to person or from one period of time to another is what exactly a person might pursue in order to gain that happiness. In the Paleolithic period fulfilling that need may have been as simple as catching a large game to feed the whole tribe or being able to survive the winter. The Sumerians may have found happiness in creating some form of art such as sculptures or music. King Hammurabi probably found a great  sense of achievment in the creation and enforcement of Hammurabi's code. As callous as it might sound, a woman of this time may have felt a great deal of happiness when she was able to give her husband a son. In ancient Egypt the people may have felt that their meaning of life was to prepare themselves for happiness in the afterlife. Sophocles, I can imagine, had a feeling of success when he received positive feedback from the crowds that attended his plays. It can probably be assumed that Alexander the Great found his joy every time he conquered a new territory.

In my opinion, the most prominent desire that gives life meaning, is to love and be loved. The love I speak of is not necessarily the love between someone and his/her significant other. This can be the love of a mother for her child, the love of a child for his/her grandparents, a love between friends, or a general love for humankind. I know that in my life, my children, more than anyone give me that happiness and joy that I need. Their lives give my life meaning and most everything I do in life is to make their lives better.



After careful consideration I am led to believe that the desire to love and give love has always existed and that it is part of the human nature. We can speculate that this need dates back to as early as 200,000 B.C. because humans would perform rituals for their dead to insure preferable afterlives for those people. Without love for that human being, what would be the point of a ritual? Why would someone care what happened to that person in the afterlife? No one would care, and the dead would have been buried merely for sanitary reasons. The artworks of King Akhenaten and Queen Nerfertiti depict them showing emotions and affection which could lead someone to believe that people of this time openly sought out love. In the time of ancient Greece, it is obvious that the people desired love because they worshipped Aphrodite, the goddess of love.

We have always sought many things in order to give our lives meaning such as love, success, knowledge, and among many other things, a sense of belonging. I believe that at some point or another we all yearn for the same things in this life.

 

Stephanie Luke