big paper thing

money, family, love; are these aspects of life or is one of them the meaning of life. In the last couple weeks the class has explored what the meaning of life is, what other people say it is, and what people tell us is the meaning of life. During this exploration I have come to the conclusion that there is no real meaning of life, there are just excuses that people think up to make their life worth living.
There is no such thing as a meaningful life, but there is such thing as a wasted life. When people spend all day in a cubicle then go home and watch tv, just to end up in the cubicle the next day, that is a wasted life. A non wasted life is a life in which someone takes chances and creates stories. to me a "meaningful" life is one that is full of new things and adventure. we are on this earth for a set amount of time before we die and are forgotten. as long as we are on this earth we might as well have fun.

The first person I asked was a white business man. The first question was “On a scale of one to ten how meaningful is your life?” He replied “Ten”. “How so?” I asked. He once again replied with a small answer “Because I’m alive and that’s what is important.” This was similar to the answers I got from most wealthy looking people. Another business man replied “A full ten because I live in this great country.” It seemed that the richer they looked the faker the answer seemed.


The middle class people’s answers were much more scattered. One white middle class man said “I like my life because of my friends and trees.” When I asked him to clarify what he meant by trees and he said he meant nature, and not marijuana. While this answer was unique it was a little dull. The most interesting answer came from a working class Latino man when asked what makes life meaningful he replied “Helping other people because your life is meaningless unless you change some one else’s” This answer is exactly like mine. It seemed that the middle class people were more humble then the upper class, but still had lame answers.

When looking at corperate culture you see alot of the same dominate messages. many of them are focused on material goods and how they can improve the quality of life. In the music video lipgloss by lil mama, the message is that material goods, such as lip gloss, can improve your life by making everyone want you. “Is that my lip gloss is cool my lip gloss be poppin all the boys be jokin and chase me after school”. She is saying that her lip gloss is the reason she is so popular. This brings up the point that to be popular you need the best material goods. “the girls don’t speak they rollin their eyes they lip gloss cheap.” According to this song there is nothing more to a person then what they are wearing. The girl is cool because she has nice lip gloss, all the boys want her because she has nice lip gloss and all the girls are jealous because she has nice lip gloss. The video backs up my points. The beginning Lil Mama wants to be in the cool crowd, so her friend giver her some make up and in one day she is the coolest kid in school. This gives the impression that they key to as meaningful life is to be popular and pretty; and the key to a popular and pretty life is to buy material goods.

A major part of dominate messages is that you are almost perfect, but by buying some products you can be truly perfect. this can be seen most in diet pills. such ads that scream "get flatter abs" give the impression that to have a truly meaningful life you need to be skinny. In early 2000 a very common ad on the subway was trimspa. these ads usually included anna nicole smith on a beach along with other "success stories". in the corner of the add it says "are you ready". this message tells you that you are close to living a meaningful life, in this case being sexy on a b each, but all you need to get it is one material good that you can get in three easy pavements of 19.99.

another type of message is marginal messages. these types of messages usually go against the dominate messages, but there is some factor that makes it so we dont take it as seriosly. An example of this was the movie fox fire. The movie is about a group a girls who become friends and learn to depend on each other. This idea of women dont need men to survive is not seem very often. It says that a meaningful life can be lived with out a member of the opposite sex. The message in this movie is unfortunetly contradicted. In the movie the group is started by a girl name legs, played b angloina jolie, who defies the rules.

you need more then love

Video 1: lip gloss
This song talks about how small material things, such as lip gloss, can improve your life by making everyone want you. “Is that my lip gloss is cool my lip gloss be poppin all the boys be jokin and chase me after school”. She is saying that her lip gloss is the reason she is so popular. This brings up the point that to be popular you need the best material goods. “the girls don’t speak they rollin their eyes they lip gloss cheap.” According to this song there is nothing more to a person then what they are wearing. The girl is cool because she has nice lip gloss, all the boys want her because she has nice lip gloss and all the girls are jealous because she has nice lip gloss. The video backs up my points. The beginning Lil Mama wants to be in the cool crowd, so her friend giver her some make up and in one day she is the coolest kid in school.

Video 2: good life
This is another song about how great it is to have material wealth. Unlike the lip gloss song, you need much more material wealth to have a “good life”. “Im going back to vegas cause I always had a passion for flashin before I had it I close my eyes and imagen good life.” Kanye is saying that he has the good life and most people don’t. To have a good life you need to have enough money for material goods. The video backs up the same point. You see kanye having nice stuff, traveling the world, going on shopping sprees and getting ladies.

Video three: al you need is love
This song goes against the need for material wealth of the first two songs. It states “all you need is love”. It tells you that as long as you have love you don’t need anything else, which is ironic coming from a group of rich guys who are in a popular band. This “all you need is love” idea which is backed up by a simple and happy video; is naïve and is more meant to sound nice then to be actually true. We can all say that all you need is love. But if you ask a homeless man who needs to beg for change to get some food, I’m pretty sure he will ask for a little more then just love. The Beatles can sing this song because they can get what they want. They can have this happy mushy all you need is love life style because they don’t have much to worry about. It is just as hard for a poor struggling family in the ghetto to relate to this song as it is for them to relate to the other two songs.

revised meaning of life

There are over two billion people in the world. Each one has there own opinion on the meaning of life, even if it is there is no meaning. In order to see other people’s answers I went around asking people questions of the meaning of life. I ask how important there life was on a scale of 1-10, what made their life meaningful, and if they liked their life. I asked strangers, friends and family. I realized that the wealthier they were or looked, the lamer and more generic there answers were.The first person I asked was a white business man. The first question was “On a scale of one to ten how meaningful is your life?” He replied “Ten”. “How so?” I asked. He once again replied with a small answer “Because I’m alive and that’s what is important.” This was similar to the answers I got from most wealthy looking people. Another business man replied “A full ten because I live in this great country.” It seemed that the richer they looked the faker the answer seemed.


The middle class people’s answers were much more scattered. One white middle class man said “I like my life because of my friends and trees.” When I asked him to clarify what he meant by trees and he said he meant nature, and not marijuana. While this answer was unique it was a little dull. The most interesting answer came from a working class Latino man when asked what makes life meaningful he replied “Helping other people because your life is meaningless unless you change some one else’s” This answer is exactly like mine. It seemed that the middle class people were more humble then the upper class, but still had lame answers.

The deepest and most meaningful answer from strangers came from a homeless person. When asked what made her life meaningful she replied “Man, I use to go to school, life was stupid. Then I did drugs, life was different but still not meaningful. Now I’m a hopeless addict and life is still as meaningless as it ever was. The only difference between the different lives is I went through different problems.” This was the most interesting to me. It gave me the perspective that there is no meaning to life. The point of life is to deal with the problems handed to you. This made sense because the wealthier a person is the fewer problems they usually have. From the answers I got the wealthier they are the more they find life meaningful. It seems those who have the easiest lives think they have the most meaningful ones.

While some seem to have put much thought in it like the homeless person, others had a different view of meaningful. When asking a friend who’s name doesn’t not want mentioned how meaningful their life is she said eight. When I asked why and eight she said “I don’t know because I love it and I don’t find anything bad enough for me to make me hate my life” Even after a few tries to clear up the question I realized two things. The first thing I realized that she had not put much thought into it; and that she was confusing life being meaningful with life being enjoyable. This raises a question; is there one meaning of the word meaningful? Or are they both right, or are some people wrong and other rights?

When I asked my family members I got the same reply “family”. I could not tell if this is what they really felt or if they were saying this because a family member was asking them and they wanted me to feel special. But I began to think about what the homeless women said about dealing with problems. Maybe family being important is one way of dealing with a problem. You are born then forced to spend every day with the same people, which sounds like a problem. The way you fix this problem is by learning to love them. This can also be seen when you spend a lot of time with a group of people. Over the summer I worked in a camp and spend everyday working with the same six kids; we became, as they say, like family. The project gave me an interesting insight into the meaning of life. The meaning of life is to deal with problems given to you. The rich have the least problems and stupidest answers. The middle class probably have a few more problems and more interesting answers. The poor has the most problems and the most meaningful answer. Family all had the same problem, so they had the same answer. There really is no meaning to life, life is just the processes of solving all the problems handed to you.

There are over two billion people in the world. Each one has there own opinion on the meaning of life, even if it is there is no meaning. In order to see other peoples answers I went around asking people questions of the meaning of life. I ask how important there life was on a scale of 1-10, what made their life meaningful, and if they liked their life. I asked strangers, friends and family. I realized that the wealthier they were or looked, the lamer and more generic there answers were.
The first person I asked was a white business man. The first question was “On a scale of one to ten how meaningful is your life?” He replied “Ten”. “How so?” I asked. He once again replied with a small answer “Because I’m alive and that’s what is important.” This was similar to the answers I got from most wealthy looking people. Another business man replied “A full ten because I live in this great country.” It seemed that the richer they looked the faker the answer seemed.

The middle class people’s answers were much more scattered. One white middle class man said “I like my life because of my friends and trees.” When I asked him to clarify what he meant by trees and he said he meant nature, and not marijuana. While this answer was unique it was a little dull. The most interesting answer came from a working class Latino man when asked what makes life meaningful he replied “Helping other people because your life is meaningless unless you change some one else’s” This answer is exactly like mine. It seemed that the middle class people were more humble then the upper class, but still had lame answers.

The deepest and most meaningful answer from strangers came from a homeless person. When asked what made her life meaningful she replied “Man, I use to go to school, life was stupid. Then I did drugs, life was different but still not meaningful. Now I’m a hopeless addict and life is still as meaningless as it ever was. The only difference between the different lives is I went through different problems.” This was the most interesting to me. It gave me the perspective that there is no meaning to life. The point of life is to deal with the problems handed to you. This made sense because the wealthier a person is the fewer problems they usually have. From the answers I got the wealthier they are the more they find life meaningful. It seems those who have the easiest lives think they have the most meaningful ones.

While some seem to have put much thought in it like the homeless person, others had a different view of meaningful. When asking a friend who’s name doesn’t not want mentioned how meaningful their life is she said eight. When I asked why and eight she said “I don’t know because I love it and I don’t find anything bad enough for me to make me hate my life” Even after a few tries to clear up the question I realized two things. The first thing I realized that she had not put much thought into it; and that she was confusing life being meaningful with life being enjoyable. This raises a question; is there one meaning of the word meaningful? Or are they both right, or are some people wrong and other rights?