hw 30

What are the sources of this sense of meaninglessness, but also of the need for a sense of meaning? People are constantly wanting to be things so that they can be viewed and judged by others. whether we like the ways that we change, or we dont, it is a constant thing that happens especially in America. Deep down we know that our lives are going to end, and that we all live meaningless lives. No matter what we do, we cannot change that. these sources of meaninglessnss come form the ways that we learn from others and can depend on how we were raised in this world. A big source of this meaninglessness comes from early childhood. Sometimes we are neglected by our parents, when this becomes a constant thing to live with, we react to that by feeling like we don't matter. The need for meaning can also come from our times of being neglected. Some of us grow as people and decide that we will no longer be that other person who lived and died and nobody noticed except for a few people. people want to feel like they matter by walkng into this house of cool. this is a place where people go to feel unique and to sort of learn the ropes of things to do to be cool, like being relaxed, having a sense of humor, looking good, etc. Once we can harness all of this, we feel like we matter because we stand for something,sort of like we play on a team and that is the cool team instead of being on the neutral team that noboy pays any mind to. now there are millions of people, mostly teens who play on this cool team and feel that sense of meaning. since people labeled them as cool, they now have a role to play in life, and that's the cool kid role that everyone wants, the role that's involved with poplarity and being noticed on a daily basis, also being respected is another reason why people feel like they matter. most humans share this feeling of emptiness, and try to reverse that feeling by acting a role sometimes that people admire. The war hero who was sent to kill people and not be jailed for it because they are doing an honorable thing for their country. Their sense of emptiness is gone for this role that they are now war heroes. humans never live their lives in a way that can be respected and recognized. If someone wanted to live in a tribe in a remote area, that wouldn't be considered cool. You would be scolded. so instead, that person does what other people expect him to do, which is, go to school, graduate from college, get a great boring well paying job, have a family and a house and die somehow. This person never experiences their ideas of what cool is, but of what other people's idea of cool is. They feel this sense of meaning though because they did what the majority of society wanted, but they haven't lived their life. they have just wasted it for someone else. This was a passage i found descibing how we regret the way that we live. "Another fresh approach, regret theory, was proposed in 1996 by Adrian Tomer and Grafton Eliason. Regret theory focuses on the way in which people evaluate the quality or worth of their lives. The prospect of death is likely to make people more anxious if they feel that they have not and cannot accomplish something good in life. People might torment themselves with regrets over past failures and missed opportunities or with thoughts of future accomplishments and experiences that will not be possible." Regret theoryRead more: http://www.deathreference.com/A-Bi/Anxiety-and-Fear.html#ixzz0a0OVGnNe. My way of intertwining this with my writing is that basically we regret many things that we do in life. We don't focus on the true ways that we want to live, becuase it may not be something that other people feellike was a good way to live. we continue to please other people by living their ways so it is sort of like we are giving those people a second life. A way to keep their legacy alive on earth. A way to be remembered long after they die. we always say this thing like, "make them proud." or, "they would be proud of you." We incorporate this with our senses of powerlessness and meaninglessness. So in order to create a sense of meaning in our lives, we look up and listen to this higher power than you, which makes a great impact on you, especially if you are listening to someone who is influential in your life. Therefore when you grow up to live a certain way, a way that the saying of, "they would be proud of you," would come into play. yet we aren't proud of ourselves and we arent happy with ourselves, making us still empty inside, and always finding newer ways to fufill this emptiness, so this sense of meaning, never ends. Freud's theory suggested that at birth, a baby is acred for and always wanting the attention of their caregiver. This is how the baby gets it's sense of meaning. they feel on top of the world by getting everything they so desire, which is being spoiled, but they don't know that. once these children gow up into teens and further on, they feel alone. They are put into the real world and need to fend for themselves. It seems like they are meaningless because they are new to the real world where they are now in competition with thousands of other people. This competition can be for anything, a new job and a new position within a job, this is mainly what people in the work or strive for, because with this title, you gain respect and more meaning in life. Viktor Frankl described our meaninglessness as a vaccum. he said, " If meaning is what we desire, then meaninglessness is a hole, an emptiness, in our lives. whenever you have a vaccum, of course, things rush to fill it." he goes on to say how we fill our vaccum with stuf so that we get some sense of satisfaction, but it is a superficial satisfaction that can only last for so long. I would agree with frankl and his theory because i see it a lot today and how majority of the people i am around, live lives filled with things that can't provide an extensive happines, but a short happiness before it has to be replenished with another happiness. We all fall under this theory of living meaningless lives which we all try and make meaning of. Some people can succeed at making meaning of their lives, but they have had to live very long and endure many of life's tests to ultimately discover a meaning for their lives. But yet many people haven't thought about their meaninglessness because along with those thoughts, come greif and shock of how they live, and people become anxious and a bunch of other things. It is tough for people to think about the meaning of their lives, and some people never find true meaning or even a true satisfaction for their lives. They just find a vaccum.