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It is interesting to think that an individual’s life can be represented with a timeline, containing either two or three defining points, which vary according to the individual. The first timeline that can represent someone’s life contains two important points: birth and death. A relatively stagnant line, which spans between the points of birth and death, factor the normal years life. The other timeline that can be used to exhibit one’s life contains three points: birth, discovered meaning in life, and death. The line that imitates the years between these three major points is generally anything but stagnant. It is a line that varies in height and depth between birth, discovered meaning in life, as well as death. Is it possible that either one of these timelines can represent the life of a specific individuals of the past, present, and future?
Timeline #1 Timeline #2
Birth Years Death Discovered Meaning in Life
Birth Years Death
The first individual that will be assessed with one of the two timeline styles shown above, will be Ivan Ilych. The short story “The Death of Ivan Ilych” by Leo Tolstoy depicts the simple, and most ordinary life of Ivan Ilych, which spans the years of 1837 (Ivan’s birth) to 1882 (Ivan’s death). Just from knowing that Ivan’s life was most ordinary and simple, it can be assumed that the line on the timeline, representing the years of Ivan’s life, is pretty stagnant. Especially if nothing interesting happened. What made Ivan’s life so ordinary? His life was so o...
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...line Style #2
Discovered Meaning in Life
Birth Years Death
Even though timeline style #1 was not used, it is still considered valid among people of the past, future and present. There are people who say that everyone is special and has a meaning in life. Even though this may be true, the individual in his or her lifetime may not find out what makes his or her life so special, or meaningful.
When comparing a meaning of life text (“The Death of Ivan Ilych”) to examples of popular culture (Batman Begins and Batman Beyond), it can be determined that when one finds meaning in life, it is the climax of that individual’s life. Also, everyone finds his or her purpose in life at different times, or not at all. More importantly, there is a strive to find meaning in life, and it is up to the individual to find what his or hers is.
Life is unique for every person, for it is lived through different decisions made and rare metamorphic
According to Wolf, all meaningful lives have both a subjective and an objective aspect to them. These basics can make lives important only together. The general idea is that a person’s projects and activities in the end make his or her life meaningful,
"People say that what we're all seeking is a meaning for life. I don't think that's what we're really seeking. I think that what we're seeking is an experience of being alive...." Joseph Campbell made this comment on the search for meaning common to every man's life. His statement implies that what we seem bent on finding is that higher spark for which we would all be willing to live or die; we look for some key equation through which we might tie all of the experiences of our life and feel the satisfaction of action toward a goal, rather than the emptiness which sometimes consumes the activities of our existence. He states, however, that we will never find some great pure meaning behind everything, because there is none. What there is to be found, however, is the life itself. We seek to find meaning so that emptiness will not pervade our every thought, our every deed, with the coldness of reality as the unemotional eye chooses to see it. Without color, without joy, without future, reality untouched by hope is an icy thing to view; we have no desire to see it that way. We forget, however, that the higher meaning might be found in existence itself. The joy of life and the experience of living are what make up true meaning, as the swirl of atoms guided by chaotic chance in which we find our existence has no meaning outside itself.
For many Westerners, more specifically the driven citizens of the United States of America, time is viewed as a straight line. Our children realize this, consciously or not, early on. They make timelines in school, their classes switch on the hour, their intelligence is measured on a scale. We are born, we come of age during adolescence. We set a goal, we work to achieve success. Birth and death, childhood and adulthood are stages that occur only once. Life is black and white. Separate. The past is the past, the future is the future. Traveling on a straight line, we can only look forwards.
Many people one works with love to discuss the meaning of life, interspersed with life memories of events, physical, emotional, and spiritual in nature, deliberating at their age their need for ongoing life, when many perceived they would not travel so long.
What is the meaning of life? This is one of the most frequently asked questions by all of humanity since the beginning of time. It is a question naturally asked by people because they have the ability to make choices about life. The question would appear to be difficult to answer and different for every individual depending on their circumstances. It is the ultimate search for truth and purpose in life, although the meaning of life is believed to be an idea that expresses their true purpose within life. These expressions can be defined within a given proximity in accordance with their current lifestyles. Ivan Denisovich¡¯s lifestyle differs from all aspects of a normal life, for his was depicted within a Siberian work camp in the Soviet Union. Within this camp all that mattered was the amount of food rations attained and the will to live the best he could. Although he was well aware of how things function in the camp, he learned when to work hard and when to take it easy, defining his acute character. The meaning in life through the eyes of Ivan Denisovich was to live a life of integrity and honesty, utilizing an optimistic attitude in all situations, while maintaining his upholding status.
Issue One When we become part of the fictional world of comics, either through the mediums of comic books/graphic novels, movies or television, our first thoughts do not go to the injustices we see before us. Instead of “Hm, that criminal is not being given his proper rights due to him”, we think, “Holy shit, Superman just punched that guy through a building” and enjoy the thrill of the story. We don’t pay attention to the forms and importance of justice, or better yet the lack of traditional justice we have come to know and respect in our world. We see flashy heroes in colorful spandex race through the sky or on the land to the next big criminal act to halt it in its tracks and deliver them to law enforcement, wrapped in a bow. However, over the years this “neat and tidy” mindset of dealing with crime and criminals, even superhuman ones, has changed.
After Batman Begins, Batman starts to raise the bar on defeating crime in Gotham. Lieutenant James Gordon and district attorney Harvey Dent help with convicting criminals within Gotham, but a new super villain comes into play, the Joker. With the new criminal mastermind, Batman is soon forced to question everything he believes in. The Joker will also take the first fully fledged supporter of Batman and make him question everything, especially Batman.
Susan Wolf tries to show the exact character of the motives and reasons that give meaning to our lives, she claims that meaningfulness is an attribute that cannot be lessened or included under either happiness or morality. According to modern philosophical accounts of meaning of life, personal happiness is the motivation on why people do or should act. Wolf rebukes these theories. Instead she provides sort of a wider understanding of what adds to the aspect of our lives. When meaning is seen as a third sort of value, our understanding of happiness and morality also changes.
In Christy Wampole’s “How to Live Without Irony” and Richard Taylor’s “The Meaning of Human Existence” both authors argue how humans ought to live a meaningful life. Wampole tackles the argument in a different way than Taylor but they both have similar positions on the meaning. I agree with both authors in some of the ways that we should dictate our lives to justify meaningfulness but I also believe that meaningfulness can differ from person to person. Life is very precious to us; since humans have had the ability to consciously think, we have always questioning our existence. No other animal on the planet has had the luxury of pondering whether or not their life is meaningful.
To see the world, things dangerous to come to, to see behind walls, draw closer, to find each other, and to feel. That is the purpose of life”.- Walter Mitty (Movie).
2) “Temporal Paradox – Time Line Protection Hypothesis.” Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Wikimedia Foundation, Inc. 22 July 2004. Web. 05:51, 11 October 2010
Almost every human being is faced with the philosophy of their meaning of life; why they were placed in the setting they are in and what they feel the need to accomplish in their lifetime. Because this question is such a broad, vastly fully unanswerable one, it can be argued that characters in fiction often try and find meaning based on the setting, or environment they find themselves in. Characters might often find themselves on journeys to sudden epiphany, typically in their immediate or close setting in hopes to answer that big question about themselves. Having said that, the meaning of life is always perceived on the basis of opinion, on what the character finds true to themselves, or what we as readers find true to them. Some come to create and realize their own personal meaning, others are ultimately given a meaning with no real personal insight, while others choose to forget the meaning of a real life and find meaning in a secret life. Although it may not be a question needing an answer to many, it is still one that exists. Though there will never be one encompassing answer that relates to all of lifes situations, it is an answer completely reflecting the life journey we took to reach it.
A famous quote by Joseph Campbell, an American mythologist, “Life is without meaning. You bring the meaning to it,” one can lead a meaningful life by knowing what 's important to them and what gives them self-meaning.
The meaning of life, defined by Victor E. Frankl, is the will to find your meaning in life. It is not the meaning of life in general, but rather the specific meaning of a person’s life at a given moment. He believes that if you are approached with the question of “what is the meaning of my life” or in this case, “life is meaningless,” then you should reverse the question to that person asking the question. For example: What are you bringing to me? What are you as an individual contributing to this life? This forces the person in question to take a look at themselves and to ultimately be responsible. Frankl says that if you are a responsible member of society than the meaning of life transcends from yourself rather from your own psyche. He also says that if we for some reason cannot find meaning within ourselves it has to be from some outside source. This is referred to as service. And an example of this is love. Victor Frankl describes three ways in which we can discover the meaning of life; Creating work-doing a deed, experiencing something-someone, and by the attitude we take toward unavoidable suffering.