Mr.Toja NotLiar
New Member
Here's a piece I just wrote in which I muse on the meaning of life, seems a nice easy topic for me to start with.
I've tackled many tough issues in this column, Dune 7, conquering the world, something else I've forgotten; so this time I decided to take month off and tackle something easy, the meaning of life.
A lot of people will say that discovering the meaning of life is difficult. But not to worry, let me assure you that all those people are sodding liars. They're just trying to control the supply of “meaningness†out there so they can artificially inflate the value and then sell you small pieces of it in the form of self-help books. I give it away for free, though to be honest I'm not sure I know the meaning of life (though I've always assumed it had something to do with ham sandwiches) but I am sure that I can probably figure it out in the next five minutes.
Since I've given myself a relatively short time frame in which to discover the meaning of life, I'm going to have to go against my nature and attempt to be methodical instead of my usual method of random guesses. So here's the plan, I go through some of the classic meanings people think are of life, and then discredit them one by one using occam's mirror. You probably haven't heard of Occam's Mirror, and that's probably because I just made it up. Since people tend to believe things that make them feel good, when people are flat out pulling things out of the air “The least vain answer is usually the correct answer.†That's about all I could come up with. I called it mirror since it has to do with vanity and also because I've probably stolen it from someone else so think of this as a mirror idea. But in any case, let me assure you, using Occam's mirror reduces your chances of missing a spot, and or cutting yourself when using Occam's razor.
1. “Do the bidding of a higher power.†There are a lot of different higher powers, and a lot of ways to do a power's bidding; so the vanity level varies a bit to reflect just how high a power you think you're following. It's probably a directed correlation or some other statistics term. But that's not the real problem with this theory; the problem is that it's hard to be sure if your higher power of choice exists. And if he/she/it does exist, it's still damn hard to be positive you're getting their bidding messages accurately. If you insist on following a higher power, I highly recommend following one whose not so powerful as to be intangible. But getting back to Occam's Mirror, what it really boils down to is, why the hell would a higher power care about you and what you do? Unless you can answer this in a way that implies god and or random higher power finds your feeble attempts at success amusing, this meaning is too vain to be correct.
2. “Force your bidding on a lesser power.†This is a very good candidate for meaning of life due to its substantial benefits I.E. You get to make someone do your bidding. And as far as I know that's the only way one can satisfy one's need to bid (other than ebay). I mean, you never hear of someone doing their own bidding, it's gotta be one of those things that only other's can do for you, kind of like a blow job. In any case this option isn't as vain as the aforementioned, as obviously if you're able to force someone else to do your bidding, you obviously have some merit to back up that positive image of yourself bidding people implies. Unless you're forcing a complete wimp to do your bidding. But ultimately this option assumes you have bidding worth doing, which is still a tad too vain for my tastes.
3. “Obtain as much pleasure as Possible.†This is the theory the hedonists follow. It's a pretty sound theory really. One time I tried to argue with a hedonist, but they quickly dispatched all my points with very convincing moans of pleasure whilst sitting in massage chair ignoring me. Needless to say I gave up arguing, broke the guy's neck then tossed his lifeless corpse to the side so I could have a relaxing massage to melt away that tension I get in my shoulders whenever I commit second degree murder. The stunning check mate of an argument I provided, pointed out hedonism's greatest flaw, namely pissing other people off and getting you killed. Which while making it a good meaning of life, also makes it a short one. So, therefore this gets discredited because I said so.
4. “Killing Hedonists†This is probably a pretty good meaning of life too. But it's also pretty dangerous, hedonist slaying is all well and good, but unfortunately it's a lot of fun. So, if your life meaning is slaying hedonists, that's practically the same thing as meaning to live for fun. Which is practically the same thing as living for pleasure, which means your'll probably only get a few good kills in before you fellow hedoninators will cut you down.
5. “Writing Stupid Columns About the Meaning of Life.†This one can be a lot of fun too. It lets you feel smarter than other people via talking about things you don't understand in a condescending way. All you have to watch out for are those folks who subscribe to meaning of life #17 (Killing author's of stupid column's about the meaning of life). But that can easily be gotten around by never getting your list all the way up to seventeen, that way they'll never know about that particular life path. In fact, just to be sure, you should probably stop as low as number five.
I've tackled many tough issues in this column, Dune 7, conquering the world, something else I've forgotten; so this time I decided to take month off and tackle something easy, the meaning of life.
A lot of people will say that discovering the meaning of life is difficult. But not to worry, let me assure you that all those people are sodding liars. They're just trying to control the supply of “meaningness†out there so they can artificially inflate the value and then sell you small pieces of it in the form of self-help books. I give it away for free, though to be honest I'm not sure I know the meaning of life (though I've always assumed it had something to do with ham sandwiches) but I am sure that I can probably figure it out in the next five minutes.
Since I've given myself a relatively short time frame in which to discover the meaning of life, I'm going to have to go against my nature and attempt to be methodical instead of my usual method of random guesses. So here's the plan, I go through some of the classic meanings people think are of life, and then discredit them one by one using occam's mirror. You probably haven't heard of Occam's Mirror, and that's probably because I just made it up. Since people tend to believe things that make them feel good, when people are flat out pulling things out of the air “The least vain answer is usually the correct answer.†That's about all I could come up with. I called it mirror since it has to do with vanity and also because I've probably stolen it from someone else so think of this as a mirror idea. But in any case, let me assure you, using Occam's mirror reduces your chances of missing a spot, and or cutting yourself when using Occam's razor.
1. “Do the bidding of a higher power.†There are a lot of different higher powers, and a lot of ways to do a power's bidding; so the vanity level varies a bit to reflect just how high a power you think you're following. It's probably a directed correlation or some other statistics term. But that's not the real problem with this theory; the problem is that it's hard to be sure if your higher power of choice exists. And if he/she/it does exist, it's still damn hard to be positive you're getting their bidding messages accurately. If you insist on following a higher power, I highly recommend following one whose not so powerful as to be intangible. But getting back to Occam's Mirror, what it really boils down to is, why the hell would a higher power care about you and what you do? Unless you can answer this in a way that implies god and or random higher power finds your feeble attempts at success amusing, this meaning is too vain to be correct.
2. “Force your bidding on a lesser power.†This is a very good candidate for meaning of life due to its substantial benefits I.E. You get to make someone do your bidding. And as far as I know that's the only way one can satisfy one's need to bid (other than ebay). I mean, you never hear of someone doing their own bidding, it's gotta be one of those things that only other's can do for you, kind of like a blow job. In any case this option isn't as vain as the aforementioned, as obviously if you're able to force someone else to do your bidding, you obviously have some merit to back up that positive image of yourself bidding people implies. Unless you're forcing a complete wimp to do your bidding. But ultimately this option assumes you have bidding worth doing, which is still a tad too vain for my tastes.
3. “Obtain as much pleasure as Possible.†This is the theory the hedonists follow. It's a pretty sound theory really. One time I tried to argue with a hedonist, but they quickly dispatched all my points with very convincing moans of pleasure whilst sitting in massage chair ignoring me. Needless to say I gave up arguing, broke the guy's neck then tossed his lifeless corpse to the side so I could have a relaxing massage to melt away that tension I get in my shoulders whenever I commit second degree murder. The stunning check mate of an argument I provided, pointed out hedonism's greatest flaw, namely pissing other people off and getting you killed. Which while making it a good meaning of life, also makes it a short one. So, therefore this gets discredited because I said so.
4. “Killing Hedonists†This is probably a pretty good meaning of life too. But it's also pretty dangerous, hedonist slaying is all well and good, but unfortunately it's a lot of fun. So, if your life meaning is slaying hedonists, that's practically the same thing as meaning to live for fun. Which is practically the same thing as living for pleasure, which means your'll probably only get a few good kills in before you fellow hedoninators will cut you down.
5. “Writing Stupid Columns About the Meaning of Life.†This one can be a lot of fun too. It lets you feel smarter than other people via talking about things you don't understand in a condescending way. All you have to watch out for are those folks who subscribe to meaning of life #17 (Killing author's of stupid column's about the meaning of life). But that can easily be gotten around by never getting your list all the way up to seventeen, that way they'll never know about that particular life path. In fact, just to be sure, you should probably stop as low as number five.
