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Our lives drifts along with normal things happening. Some ups, some downs, but nothing to go down in history about. Nothing so fantastic or terrible that it'll be told for a thousand years.
"But because we grew up surrounded by big dramatic story arcs in books and movies, we think our lives are supposed to be filled with huge ups and downs! So people pretend there is drama where there is none."
That's why people invent fights. That's why we're drawn to sports. That's why we act like everything that happens to us is such a big deal.
We're trying to make our life into a fairy tale.
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I thought this was interesting, and also sad. I don't think it's wrong to want to make your life seem bigger than it really is... we're just human beings trying to feel as if we matter. It's not the noblest sentiment. Or is it? It's a rather naîve one. Nevertheless it shouldn't be dismissed easily.
Someone (oscar wilde?) once said that friends are like art -- not absolutely necessary, but nonetheless one of those things that add value to life. For this reason, these things are precious.
We're essentially just trying to value-add our lives here, attempting to give it meaning of some sort. If we didn't have this perpetual drive to keep adding drama/('a bigger meaning') to life, then there would be no art, no intensity of emotion, and possibly no religion.
People recognize, deep down inside, their own insignificance in relation to the enormity of the entire cosmos, the seemingly pointless mundanity of life, and they fear it. And in an attempt to convince themselves that there is a higher meaning, they start looking for it everywhere, creating meaning where there was previously none. Or possibly they reject the notion of meaninglessness because they know something bigger does exist, like God, or something. I don't know.
Either way, why do human beings (or philosophically-disposed ones, at least) question the existence of meaning? Descartes said that to doubt that we are perfect means that something perfect does exist, and he named that 'perfect something' as God. Going by his logic, would doubting the existence of meaning necessarily mean that somewhere out there, meaning must exist?
Anyway, I don't think I particularly care. As far as I'm concerned, something is meaningful as long as we think it to be meaningful, and it doesn't really matter whether this opinion is validated by an external truth or not. I.e. life is what we make of it. I would write/edit more but I'm lazy and want to get back to watching House xp
