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While in a broad sense this is true, I find it misses the greater points of life by a long shot. The only thing you are guarenteed when you are born is to die. However, to simplify the lives of people to say the only reason they live is to die is extreme. People *cannot* live without meaning, and if you say that you can, you're probably decieving yourself. For even believing such a thing is placing meaning on life. People make what they wish to of life.

A lot of what you wrote here reminded me strongly of Adlerian psychoanalysis. You should read up on it, I think you'd like it. Adler basically states that we all have physical organ inferiorities which are subjectively perceived as we compare ourselves to others. Thorugh that, we strive to compensate for these inferiorities by either striving for success or superiority. Success striving is healthy and involves goals which are altruistic and benefit society, while superiority striving involves only those goals which serve the self.

The emphasis on luck amused me. There's really no such thing as luck. A person becomes successful because they reach out and set themselves into sittuations where these so-called 'lucky breaks' can have a chance to happen. For example, I joined a biology club on my college campus and volunteered to design the T-shirt. As a consequence, the guy who does T-shirts for the campus at that time happened to need a new graphic artist, so I got the job. Was it luck? No. It was good fortune, but it never would have happened if I had not joined that club and volunteered to do the T-shirt design.

I also find the rattling on those with dreams in this post here a bit over the top. Instead of judging someone negatively if they have this dream that they do not appear to be persuing, ask yourself WHY this is instead of branding them with irons. Better yet, ASK them why they aren't doing it. Maybe they've just gotten complacent? Maybe they don't see they're off track and need someone to set them on it again?

As for stupidity, I find the subtle philosophical bigotry and intolerance suggested in the post a far more worse disease that stupidity could ever hope to be. To even suggest that those who one claims are 'lesser' do not deserve respect and kindness to me is just morally distasteful. The elitists who hold this view are bad as, if not worse than the people they are belittling. Standards of 'greater' and 'lesser' are extremely relative and while everyone has the right to set them, when one begins to be an intolerant bigot to those who don't fall within their realm of standards, that's where a line needs to be drawn. It's that sort of thing that has lead to opression of minorities throughout history, both legally and culturally.

I think that dreams are what seperate us. Yes, I think that we are all individuals, I mean we all think different things about everything. However, It is the people who dream that advance us to the stars.

And not all the time trash spawns trash. However it happens a bit. I grew up in an upbringing that is "not normal" and am not "trash" at all.

This is an interesting post... I had a big long thing about something relating to your post, but it's way off topic, and I put it in another thread.

Beyond that, I can't think of anything to say that hasn't been said already. This actually sounds like a case of teen angst to me... I don't mean that in a condescending way. A fair number of people I know have this view, and they are often some of the most intelligent people I know.

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Alright, I understand now what you are saying.

I didn't mean that you actually said "everyone knows that...", I meant that it seemed that you were using the force of the collective knowledge when you said



It sounds like you are stating simple, common knowledge that everyone knows. That's all I meant. You didn't explain what your definitions of purpose and meaning were, but you did admirably in your next post.