Useless
I have just decided that every universally applicable axiom of life[5] is utterly devoid of any value toward guiding you how to act in your day-to-day life, toward abiding to said axiom.
“Universal truths” like the following come to mind:
- Life is all about balance[6]
- Practice discipline
For advice you can actually implement, it’s hardly applicable to any reasonably universal degree, which unfortunately makes it useless to borrow and apply, from person to person and situation to situation. For example, early to bed, early to rise isn’t going to do much for someone working the night shift!
Life has no inherent meaning
I don’t mean that in a Well great, let’s just all give up and go kill ourselves kind of way, but rather…
Well..OK..I guess that’s just how it is. I’m here now, we’re all here…let’s just find some meaning for ourselves, to get the motivation we need inside to get done the things we need to get done.
I came at this conclusion[1] via the biological imperative[2]. I had the thought that people work hard to make a name for themselves, and then have kids, with the underlying motivation that they want their legacy to live on, to leave something behind after they’re gone…and while that seems silly[3] to me personally, it really is the most basic motivation I can think of behind people’s actions – starting from the grandiose and distilled all the way down to the daily repetitions.
If evolution is to be believed[4] then life goes on just because it does, and not some greater meaning or purpose. So if people didn’t have that drive to perpetuate their legacy – just for its own sake – the biological imperative would be severely jeopardized.
