Evolving Paper

Life does not have to be meaningless. At least, almost anyone will tell you this. So what in fact makes it meaningless or possibly meaningful?

First I’ll give a brief overview of a certain outlook to this question that is tumbling around in my head at this particular moment. In the reality that I live in, so far as I understand it, there really are no definite truths – only perceptions, and every perception that a person may have is formed by previous experiences and knowledge, their personality etc. I believe that bias exists everywhere. When considering such questions – like what defines meaning in a life – I believe that we must take this understanding with us.

People tend to follow the crowd so to speak, and consequently millions of Americans are able to say that they share a common understanding of what makes up a meaningful life. Additionally, in a society such as ours where media has been contributing to the average American’s life for as long as it has and as much as it has, the messages it gives are generally accepted as truth. In modern day American society there are countless examples of media inspired morality and media driven messages about how one should aspire to be in order to fulfill their desire to live correctly or meaningfully. Public figures such as movie and rock stars, on screen people that others are taught to admire, often live (or at least provide the image of) “meaningful” lives possibly filled with money-based wealth. In other words people are told what they should like then shown what it is supposedly like to have it. The many millions desire to be like the very few and because of this, a person might spend their whole lives trying to attain bits and pieces of that way of life they have been made to understand as meaningful.

Evidence of people falling to influence such as this is seen all over the place. As a matter of fact almost all that we believe to be important is a result of things we have been told. Given, in most minds this can’t be completely bad because it is hard to imagine development without outside influence. However, it seems that some people strive to follow relatively linear paths to specific ways of life imposed on them to be the most meaningful thing they can aim for (even if that isn’t how they would describe it). These goals often affiliated with similarity to the lives of their “American idols”.