The meaning of life?

Colleges and Universities A-Z Columbia University
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<p>….To have a ball in THIS present life or ….to prepare yourself for the spiritual life/the next life?</p>

<p>I have officially gone crazy. I’m having one of these very strange days – I woke up in the morning, in the best of moods, feeling absolutely amazing (on an ultimate high), then as the day progressed, everything just deteriorated. Now, at 5:15pm, I’m really down and feeling de-motivated and insecure about college, school and LIFE!
The mountain of homework never gets any smaller… am I lazy? Am I getting dumber? Has my brain shut down?
And then I start to wonder… What IS the purpose/meaning of life…?
Tis a profound question… probably without an answer. </p>

<p>These past few weeks I have asked myself, and my friends….
Why ARE we in this whipped up “college frenzy”… scrambling to get into one of these top institutions..? WHY am I in this whipped up frenzy!?!?! NOONE told me I had to go to a highly “selective” uni. This stress and suffering is entirely self-inflicted.
And then this is what I start to think……….
You spend 12 years in school… working your arse off to get into a good uni… in a way, that’s what it all boils down to – the uni you end up at, is a consequence of your entire school life.
So, you get into a good uni, to get more intelligent, to acquire more knowledge la-di-da and it’s all hunky dory.. BUT – again, it’s ultimately to get a good job to earn lots of money or to get into a good grad school to then get a good job to earn lots of money.. So once we have these amazing jobs that we “love” and are proud of… we save up and live a comfortable life with “luxuries”.. and we continuously work our butts off… to prepare ourselves for a comfortable retirement… to find out that once you retire you’re OLD and dying…. Yep, then you realize that death is fast approaching and perhaps you look back on life and feel like you haven’t accomplished anything THAT worthwhile and you still haven’t “found” yourself… So why are we just chugging along… ?</p>

<p>Wow, the cynic in me is talking… but I really DO wonder… what would happen to me if I just didn’t CARE! If I didn’t strive for Columbia or had big ambitions in life… Would things be easier?
AND are my “big ambitions” even big ambitions?
.... and am I just a selfish human being who only cares about myself?</p>

<p>It’s the natural process in our societies to go straight to uni after HS…Is this the right thing to do? But of course, everyone else does it…. :s
And then here’s another scary thought … One of my friends asks me ‘Does it even matter when life ends? …Whether you die tomorrow or when you’re 89?’
Goodness me.. LIFE – what essentially is it? And why am we here….
(Gosh, I don’t even know what I’m taking about!! If I’m even making any sense or just ramblingggg…)</p>

<p>Do I dare post such intimate thoughts on a public forum?</p>

<p>Maybe life is just a playground… and we’re all here to have FUN! But right now it’s NOT fun…. I do go out and have fun, but while I’m having “fun” I can’t help but feel guilty about not studying and doing uni apps etc. etc. </p>

<p>I would love to hear the opinions and comments you smart people put forth… This could turn out to be a very good discussion topic. Or maybe I am really crazy and I need to seek professional help.</p>

<p>But thanks for listening cus writing this out has made me feel a lil better… I don’t feel so claustrophobic anymore… I’m still scared though.</p>

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<p>Reading rather.. (not listening)..</p>

<p>I can't imagine what the outcome will be like.. It's weird.. I can't imagine it.. It seems sooo unreal!!!</p>

<p>OH YEY! I'm a SENIOR MEMBER noW!!!!</p>

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<p>I am taking a year off after high school. I'm going out, getting a minimum wage job, just to discover why I DON'T want that. Then I'll go to Columbia enlightened and happy. what do you think?</p>

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<p>You're taking a gap year?
So even if you get into Columbia .. you're going to defer admissions for a year?</p>

<p>I was going to take a gap year, because my HS is insanely advocating it.. they're practically indoctrinating us with gap years... anyway I probably won't go through with a gap year but I have the option to go to Kenya/Thailand etc...</p>

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<p>hey...everybody (almost everybody in this country and who can afford to go to college) is born in hospital, they recieve similar if not almost same education, go to college, graduate, get a job, get married, make decent of amount of money, have few kids, travel several times, retire, die, then go into almost-same-size coffin....</p>

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<p>yeh so if that's the case.. then WHat ISSS the meaning in life?</p>

<p>and angelnikki - does THIS thread lack SUBSTANCE too? o you probably won't read this one anyway....lol</p>

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<p>Here's the question: are you afraid of death?
What do you want to feel as you die? Happiness, fulfillment, chagrin, or nothing?
A way to look at is from the end backwards. Someone on here had a quote from Costanza about how life should progress the other way: exit the coffin, get younger, get progressively stupider and more naive, finsh as an orgasm.</p>

<p>I sound like I'm rambling as well. Often I tend to advocate the apathy perspective you were talking about, but usually when things are bad and I am not happy.
If you don't care about anything, how can you attatch emotion to it? Do you even want to? There can be no happiness w/o sadness.</p>

<p>I've presented several questions but given no answers, a problem that I find both in philosophy and HBO drama series.</p>

<p>Keep going.</p>

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<p>:) you just made me laugh ineedcolumbia!!! lol... haha o and i need columbia too!!!</p>

<p>finsh as an orgasm???</p>

<p>lol
well maybe we just need to make life one big orgasm!!!! at least it'd feel absolutely amazingggg</p>

<p>o and i'm feeeling a LOTT better than when i posted that first post about 10 hours ago...
but umm i understand what you're saying.. i guess ramblers just understand each other</p>

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<p>guys you're meant to be answering to the profound question.. what is the meaning of life?</p>

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<p>the meaning of life? </p>

<p>gee i like to think of death...</p>

<p>read ee cummings.</p>

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<p>the meaning of life is different for everybody. I don't believe in applying one meaning to everybody. Like how Columbia might be the perfect college for you, but for someone else UPenn, or UNC or UMich might be the perfect college. Our perceptions color our realities basically. If you perceive things differently from someone else, than your reality is different, which means you don't value the same things, which means what you think life means isn't what everybody thinks life means. For me, the meaning of life is to spend our time on Earth searching for internal happiness, but not at the expense of others. We're all meant to find love, and have something we really believe in. If you don't have these things, and really found them for yourself, you have nothing, and your life isn't anything. Also, we're supposed to help others in all ways- big and small. Life is about discovery, personal discovery, discovering who you are and why you are. Life is a meaningless sequence of events without discovery.</p>

<p>Chris, that's my meaning of life :)</p>

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<p>Here's my problem, and I'm sure many other people feel the same way. I find meaning in Columbia. I think Columbia is where I'll "discover" as you were saying. What if I don't get in. There will be a hole in the meaning of my life.</p>

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<p>See, I don't think so. My meaning of live invovles college, for sure, but definately not exclusively Columbia. I believe that I need t obe in a city. I know Columbia is the perfect city college, but there are other city colleges which would suffice. Like Chicago. I know I'll find msyelf in a city, but that doesn't mean New York City is the exact place in which I have to be. I just like the atmosphere better. There are SO man ycolleges in Philly which are so easy to get into that not a lot of people discover. So if you think your meaning of life is solely based on Columbia, maybe you are mistaken?</p>

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<p>The meaning of life is a box.</p>

<p>When we are born, we are placed in a crib (a box). As a toddler a playpen (another box). As a little kid, we play in sandboxes (yet another box). When we get to grade school, we spend most of our days in a desk (yes, another box of sorts). As teenagers, we spend our lives watching tv, being on our computers, talking on our cell phones (boxes of course) etc... When we finally get to college we find ourselves in our dorm room, another box. After receiving our degrees, many of us will find ourselves working at a cubicle (what else? a box!). We work hard to get promoted and get into that office (which is still a box). And when we die, we get put into a coffin -- the ultimate box.</p>

<p>So when Forrest Gump said life was like a box of chocolates, he wasn't totally crazy. Life is like a box (i suppose the chocolate thing is up to you if you so choose to make it sweet). The meaning of life is a box, if that means anything to you. If you want your life to have unique meaning, then I think that is where the cliche of "to get out of the box" or "think outside of the box" would come into play.</p>

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<p>if you can't think outside of the box, destroy it.</p>

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<p>But that would be to destroy life or at least the meaning of it.</p>

<p>By the way, some may argue that they were put in a bassinet (which is oval) and that they're cell phones are round, but AIM (which I'm sure the majority of you use) is definitely a box, and if you say you don't chat, well CC is the utlimate boxes of boxes.</p>

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<p>and my dorm room actually isn't square. it has a strange ... outoming thing. so it's like...a box minus a box.</p>

<p>so does box squared + box squared equal ???? or what about box cubed. how do yo ucube a box. that would be fun.</p>

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<p>HAHAHAHAHA. Interesting.</p>

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<p>i think so too.</p>

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<p>wow.. some interesting stuff here!! :)</p>