The meaning of life

It currently stands at 10:46 a.m., Monday, May 9th, 2011. I have no idea why I said that, but that's what it is. I'm listening to the most beautiful piece of Lost music I have ever heard, sitting outside with the wind blowing all around me. The sky is blue, the grass is green, and by this time in three days, I will be getting ready to leave Stonehill for the final time of the 2010-2011 school year. I was going to use this post to preface a philosophical internal dialogue about what we discussed on the last day of class, which was the afterlife, and some of the conclusions I've drawn from that discussion. Instead, This will serve as my last post before I return home, to offer some final thoughts on the end of the year. I feel as though this is going to be a horribly humbling blog post, and I'm already starting to feel melancholic. As I take this time to reflect on my first year at college, find some time in your life to just reflect. Everyone has some music that puts them in that indescribable mood, and for me right now, it's that Lost music. It's the last piece of music played in the series, where everything wraps up beautifully, despite the six years it took to get there. The last scene is Christian Shephard, the father of the main character, walking out of the church that resembles the afterlife, showing all of the characters together once again, as they were on day one, as they will be forever.

In regards to this afterlife, it's essentially all what you believe. Some believe in eternity, others believe in nothingness, and others aren't sure what to believe. I'm at a point right now where I'm not so sure what I believe. I know I believe that the mind cannot work if the brain is dead, because the mind is dependent on the brain. Based off that logic, it would follow that the mind dies with the body, and does not continue on into the afterlife. Which leaves the soul to question the continuation of. If there is no soul, then there is no afterlife, if you ask me. That's just what I believe. If there is a soul, then we still aren't sure, because we can't conceive of experiencing the soul living on after death. At least I can't. And I'm not entirely sure I want to necessarily believe all of this, but sometimes it is what it is.

Your view on the afterlife probably has an impact on what you believe the meaning of life to be, as well. There are beliefs that we can control what happens to us in the afterlife based on what we do on Earth. I don't think we can control something like that - it is not within our powers to dictate what happens to us after death. And because we can't know for sure what happens, we have to make the most of what we do here, while it is still within our control. And I'm not going to tell you what making the most of it consists of. It's not my place to, because it's your life to live. That's what's most important here. My dad once told me that "life is what you make of it." In my late adolescent stage, I nodded and pretended like I was actually invested in the conversation, while casting his words aside. Sorry, Dad. You were right.

It's now 11:09 a.m., Monday, May 9th, 2011, and I am once again unsure why I inform you of the date and time. I'm still listening to the most beautiful piece of Lost music I have ever heard, and I've been humbled by my own words like I never have before. But I leave you with the words of someone who put the meaning of life in much simpler terms than I did.

"Life is nothing until it is lived, but it is yours to make sense of; the value of life is nothing other than the sense you choose."

            - Jean-Paul Sartre