To think a lot of what we do is just passing time till death?

[crunchymint]

This is going to sound like I am depressed, and I am not. But a lot of what people do is really just filling in our time until we die. Watching TV, MNing, going for walks. All just ways ultimately of using up the hours we have.
I guess this is more an existential question. If you are religious there is an obvious purpose to life. On a biological level the purpose of life is simply survival of the species - individuals don't matter. On an individual non religious level, life doesn't really seem to have any purpose. We are simply filling in our time till death, and on the way if we are decent people, trying to help others avoid too much pain.

I think about this every single day. Sometimes I wonder why I had kids because they're just going to die one day too.

It's the knowledge of death that drives a lot of our deep rooted behaviours I think. All of it - the wars, the narcissism, the greed etc.

This has strangely made me feel better too. thanks.

I'm 1 year past an horrific accident that nearly killed me. My family and other religious people tell me that God saved me. That I have another purpose.

I am not religious. So why am I still here? (To be honest... dying would've been the easiest....now I have constant pain, can barely walk, but 'hey, I'm aliiiive').

So if God had a plan, I've been trying to figure out what it might be, but all I do is drink wine and MN all day

So thank you, wine and MN makes me happy right now so I guess I'm winning at life

RaininSummer That is a lovely poem.

If it is meaningless marking of time until you pop your clogs, why don't you do something useful then. However about helping others who are in pain or fear with less time than you to navel gaze oh the luxury?

I am a bit confused by the passivity of the OP.

Keepithidden - Laiste, I'm not sure I agree that we are the only sentient life form. I suspect our lack of knowledge just means we assume this...

I certainly wouldn't argue. I agree we don't know for certain. Does, for eg, an orangutan know he is going to die one day? Even if he is capable of seeing a family memeber's dead body and understanding they are 'gone', I tend to think he does not understand that one day he too will die. It's fascinating though. Imagine the blissful ignorance.

Tsk.

But think about all the amazing things we do, too.

It's human to be able to take what is ultimately a meaningless, finite project (living, existence) and not simply make it pleasurable but also to recognise the pleasure and amplify it into wonder.

We can explore the limits and the possibilities of what is perhaps an accident and has no firm meaningful ground and we can revel in those possibilities: we can make things (from knitting to buildings, to vast cultural projects like science and literature), we can explore the nooks and crannies of accidental aspects of our existence ('I feel sad, actually, I feel sad enough to eat a biscuit but not to lie on the ground, weeping into the earth - OK, I'll eat a biscuit), and we can build extraordinary structures within this finite precariousness (I'm not just thinking of projects that outlive us - like medicine - but things like love and relationships with others).

There are also different degrees of whiling away the hours, and we're capable of judging and distinguishing between them.

And I do think that recognising that a lot of what we do is rounded by finitude can help in making the decisions - and better decisions - about what we choose to do. I have a personal aversion to people who seem to be very angry about death and finitude, and embark on projects that seem full of resentment against the fact of death, of those who will live after them, of those younger than them.

And, of course, there is a whole argument that one of the things men hate about women is that women have a kind of in-built connection with regeneration - some kind of 'get out' from immediate finitude - because of reproduction. Obviously, there is a whole load of stuff to unpack in there - not least the idea that that kind of regeneration is simply a deferral of the inevitable finitude - but it's an interesting idea to play with (as you while away the hours before the inevitable end).

By the way, OP, I like the way you have essentially turned Mumsnet into a new setting - like the Decameron's plague-surrounded castle, or the prison cell in 'L'Etranger' - in which to discuss these questions.

I think there are two sane responses to the meaningless of life.
Hedonism
Devoting your life to a cause that makes a lot of people's lives better

This is a good thread. I feel this way a lot OP. It makes me want to "seize the day" and make something of my life when I think about it, but sadly it's very hard to change the status quo and things settle until the next time I think, FUCK, I could be dead soon. Cheerful

Raininsummer Roger Waters is pretty litigious you know. I’d quickly put a credit to him on that song if I were you....

Very interesting cat

I have a personal aversion to people who seem to be very angry about death and finitude, and embark on projects that seem full of resentment against the fact of death, of those who will live after them, of those younger than them.

What projects do you mean?

Incidentally i was just thinking that there is only one post on the thread so far which seems angry.

Stephen King once posed a question which to him summed up the futility of human endeavour - if the earth was hit by a meteor, which blasted all evidence of human life off the face of the planet in a hellish firestorm, froze it in a nuclear winter, then set fire to it again just for the sake of it, who would be the only human remembered if and when alien life (or time travellers) come along?

Yes. A relative of mine compared life to driving along a motorway. Nothing hugely amazing. Just cruising along.

blueshoes You could easily argue that there's no point because we're all going to die anyway.

By the way, OP, I like the way you have essentially turned Mumsnet into a new setting - like the Decameron's plague-surrounded castle, or the prison cell in 'L'Etranger' - in which to discuss these questions.
Thanks . Makes a change from parent and children parking threads.

Yes there are many amazing things in the world. Which is why I love travel and reading articles that make me think and question. I do think some of the choices about how we while away our hours until death - and I do recognise it is a luxury not to be in survival mode - are imbibed with meaning that does not make logical sense. So no I don't think watching shakespeare on the TV is inherently a better way of wasting time than watching a soap.

blueshoes No I am not passive at all. In my real life I vacillate between hedonism in a low key way, and volunteering and being politically involved.

who would be the only human remembered if and when alien life (or time travellers) come along?

Would it be the crash dummy driving a Tesla in orbit around the sun?

Laiste Not on this thread, no but I do think that sometimes it creeps into politics, when people seem to embark on projects which punish the young. I think a lot of people have interpreted the war in such terms (it was a popular interpretation of the Vietnam war, for example).

Judashascomeintosomemoney
You'd better hope Roger Waters doesn't see your post, I hear he's pretty litigious.

crunchymint I agree with you. I've decided the meaning of my life is; don't be a dick, do some good, and do what makes you happy. Go outside every clear night to look at the universe, it puts things into perspective.

I think that so much of what we get upset and annoyed about is so irrelevant in the scheme of things.

I think we're taught or led to believe we can control or influence way more than we actually can. Truly accepting that we are best off managing our expectations and learning how best to cope and be resilient can result in a calming, productive state of mind.

That's good for humanity and our existence imo

I was thinking this last night in the sense that when its a weekday Im just counting down til the weekend so am literally wishing away 5 days out of 7

I do this too Pas. I am really aware that I am doing it, and want to stop, but I don't know how!

I've posted this so often, it's in danger of becoming my personal cliche but Nietzsche's story about the 'promising animal' (humans) is a very good encapsulation of the dilemma:

[paraphrase] Once upon a time, a promising animal lived on a small planet, in the light of a distant star. The animal grew and developed wonderful things - it was a very clever animal. It told stories about itself and invented marvellous things. Sadly, the star grew cold, the animal died, and there was nothing in the universe that remembered it.

Before we were conceived we didn’t exist and no one seems bothered by that, so if after we die we don’t exist, that shouldn’t worry us either. Enjoy the bit in between to the best of your ability and help others to do the same.

*fuckoffsnow: blueshoes You could easily argue that there's no point because we're all going to die anyway"

No, it is not an uneventful journey until death for everyone. Say we are all in a concentration camp and we know it is only a matter of time before all of us one by one will die. If you could, would you still not help your neighbour who is in a worse way than you? Will you make the world a better place for others when others are still in it, even if we were all waiting for our number to come up?

Would it be the crash dummy driving a Tesla in orbit around the sun?

Close, but you're way off.

It's Richard Nixon, reviled in his lifetime, whose name is emblazoned on plaques which will not rust or tarnish on the airless surface of the moon.

PS: OK, the plaques also contain the names of the astronauts from Apollos 11 through 17, but the Nixon thing is just more apt for our current times.

PPS: However, if the same meteorite misses the earth and smacks into the moon he's f**d.

Elementree
Not the dummy but three humans presumably. Elon Musk, coz he sent it into orbit, David Bowie because Starman the mannequin is named in his honour and Douglas Adams due to the ‘Don’t Panic’ Hitchhiker’s guide to the galaxy homage resting on the dashboard.
Silly old Stephen King.