Defining life
“Life without cause is life without effect” (Paulo Coelho). One of the hardest questions for any person to fully give a clear-cut answer on; the meaning of life. In Order for one to grasp a general understanding of life, it is best to cover a romantic, transcendentalist and personal point of view on life.
Romantics weren’t about doing the same thing every day forever without fluctuation or imagination. Rather they thought life should be based on uniqueness, creativity and thinking outside the normal parameters that people would allow themselves to think. A life that was just living and doing the normal thing wasn’t a life a romantic wanted to live. Most romantics demolished the bounds of what society told them, and sparked the idea of imagination on a whole new level.
“Simplicity, Simplicity, Simplicity” (Thoreau). Many transcendentalists such as Henry David Thoreau were about getting to the basics of life, and not complicating it beyond more than it has to be. To Transcendentalists, toiling for thing such as money, people’s favoritism, or even most comforts were meaning less and had no value to them. Life to someone like Thoreau was about living a very simple life and conserving yourself for a higher cause.
To myself, life is determined by your devotions. Your devotions on this earth are what forms it and molds the life and ethics of the world. If a man were to devote his life to sitting in his mom’s basement and devote his time seclusion and ultimately meaningless things that have little impact, then his life equates to nothing. But if someone were to devote his life to something, whether it’s good or bad that has impact on the world then he will impact the world. The ultimate meaning of life to me is devotion.
The meaning of life can ultimately be open to a certain extent of interpretation by people. To give a clear definition on life is as difficult as trying to count every cell in the human body. A strong foundation to base your definition on life is that of the romantics, the transcendentalists and people’s personal views of it.
