At the end of life, how will your life be judged?
When life ends, if mine is held up to scrutiny I hope it will be judged fairly. I don’t know who or what would be judging (perhaps myself) but I would like my life to be judged on how well I lived. How many virtues did I possess? How well did I use them? These are the questions I hope are asked of my life and I hope to have lived to have answered them positively.
How do we figure out whether or not a life has value? When do we make this decision? What is the meaning and purpose of life?
We can’t figure out whether or not life has value. Strictly speaking, there is nothing more going on than molecules and atoms hitting each other sequentially in the way they were always going to. However, as humans, we can decide to ignore this and pretend life has a meaning. It doesn’t matter that this decision to believe in meaning and that life has a purpose comes from human choice because so long as we believe it is true, it is true. That said, the meaning and purpose of life can be anything an individual decides to believe that it is. Some beliefs are more popular than others but none are more true or correct than any other. Even the belief in life’s meaninglessness results in people choosing to fabricate a purpose.
A) List five things you want to have possessed or have experienced by the time you reach the end of your life (whenever that may be).
By the end of my life, I want to have traveled to as many places as I could–I don’t want to put a number on it because then it would take the joy out of traveling. I want to have lived in New York City for a little bit just to prove to my parents that I wouldn’t have hated it. I want to have taught someone something somewhere in a formal setting. I also want to have been Spiderman for at least a day–I know this one is impossible but he’s always been my favorite character in terms of his personality and his powers. The last thing I want to have experienced by the time I reach the end of my life is having eaten the best sandwich possible–not possible for me but the best sandwich that could possibly exist.
B) How will you be remembered? Add to this list one quality you would like to be remembered for.
For at least a short time I’d like to be remembered as someone who cared about others. I’d like people to remember me as someone who had a little bit of insight into different parts of being human. Not that I have these qualities now, but I’d like to develop them and I’d like people to remember me for them. It might not be the case but I’m not in control of what happens, this is just what I’d like to happen.
C) Discuss why each of these things (or ideals, ideas or qualities) are important to you personally.
These are all important to me for generally similar reasons. I want things that feel like they will last, even if they won’t. I know that possessions will wither away and that unkind people are forgotten unless they are tyrants. That motivates me to have experiences that I will be able to remember as long as I live and feel like they will stay with me as I die. It also motivates me to be kind in a selfish sort of way although I do believe that I want to be kind because of some belief I have in a normative morality.
D) Discuss how each of these things (or ideals, ideas or qualities) are valuable to humanity.
Traveling is important to humanity because it makes us more aware of different ways to live. This makes us slower to judge others for their preferences and ways of life and also opens our eyes to the possibility of living in a way that suits us better than how we might live now.
People always want to prove that they are right when told they are wrong. This is why I want to try living in the City. Even if it doesn’t work out I don’t want to have not tried at all.
Teaching is also important to us because otherwise, every person would start completely from scratch in their perceptions of the world.
Spiderman could be the most important of everything. Finding, being, and exceeding our heroes gives humanity the ability to improve. We have something to strive for, something to enjoy, and then something to surpass and become greater than.
Sandwiches make us slow down. The slow bite necessary to appreciate all of the flavors and textures entering the mouth in perfect proportions is a simpler application of what we all ought to do more of elsewhere in life. Humanity needs to slow down more than it does, enough to appreciate how the different parts of the world melt together in delicious fashion. Appreciating goodness in other people, things, events, scenes, etc. makes us happier in turn.