how does the young ones enlighien the others in the ship
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Answer:
CONTENTS
A. Life’s Chronic Ailments
Gilgamesh and Death
Sisyphus and Futility
Boethius and Cosmic Insignificance
Job and Suffering
B. Ancient Greek Solutions
Epicureanism and Pleasure
Stoicism and Accepting Fate
Skepticism and Doubt
Cynicism and Defying Convention
C. Western Religious Solutions
Having Children
Life after Death
Furthering God’s Kingdom
D. Eastern Religious Solutions
Daoism and the Way of Nature
Buddhism and Extinguishing Desire
Hinduism and the Four Goals of Life
E. Philosophy and Life’s Meaning
Study Questions
John is a fervent Star Wars fan and has devoted much of his adult life to attending Star Wars conventions dressed as a storm trooper, and contributing to Star Wars websites. He keeps a particularly close eye on the main “Star Wars” entry in Wikipedia to weed out factual errors and cleanse it from what he calls “Light Side of the Force ideological bias.” John’s pride and joy is his collection of nearly 500 Star Wars action figures, including three design concept ones used in film production. It is not merely a toy collection, he explains, but a way of exploring the meaning of life:
The Star Wars narrative contains all the major motifs of classic literature, and the action figures give reality to them. How I place figures together on the shelf will evoke different thematic tensions based on their respective personas. When I pair Han Solo with Greedo, that displays a completely different light-side dark-side dichotomy than when pairing Hans Solo with, say, General Grievous.
While some people find meaning through religion or acquiring wealth, John says that he finds Star Wars action figures to be a more flexible and organic expression of life’s relentless struggles and how we meet them. John’s wife tolerates his collection of action figures, but thinks it is a little too intense: “I feel like I’m surrounded by 500 tiny warriors poised for battle; I can think of more soothing decorations to place around the apartment.”
John’s action figure hobby is an unusual way to investigate the notion of the meaning of life. This fundamental of all philosophical questions comes in a variety of forms:
• Does life have a purpose?
• What kind of life is worth living?
• How can I overcome despair?
• How can I achieve happiness?
• Why do I exist?
• Why should I exist?
• Do my life activities have any lasting value?
Each of these questions focuses on a unique point. The first, for example, asks whether there is an over-arching design or goal to human existence that might clarify our place in the grand scheme of things. The second asks whether some approaches to life are better than others. All of the above questions, though, presume that something’s not right with life as we currently experience it, and we’d like a solution to the problem.