The meaning of life to which a person belongs
He is the one who gives meaning to life. Whatever a person contributes to his life, how he relates to it, the meaning of life for that person is limited to the ball of these relationships and their results.
We have entered a new year, 2023. In each new year, people usually say a word or two about life and wish them well in the new year. All of these are ordinary expressions that are expressed mostly on anniversaries, within the meaning of life, but without thinking about the meaning part, and in a sense, trying to give meaning to your life.
Even so, there is a reality; People always have a desire to make sense of life, to understand it. The meaning of life (and therefore its meaninglessness - Camus) is one of the main problems and quests of the 2500-year history of philosophy, which does not change (the problems of philosophy do not change, approaches and solutions to problems change).
The meaning of life is a deep and comprehensive (for some, unnecessary, meaningless) subject. When we talk about life and its meaning, it takes us to many fields from ontology to psychology.
Before I go into this (I'm drowning), I will try to make some determinations on the meaning of life.
Outside of us there is a world woven with objects; stone, earth, tree, wheat etc. Do these objects have a meaning on their own? In other words, if there were no humans in the world, would all these beings have a meaning?
What distinguishes man from other beings (Let's ask more directly, animals)? They called it the production of a means of production (tool), they said that it should stand up on two legs, they called it mind, etc. After all, the main distinguishing feature of man is his ability to question his own existence. And so man is the only being who knows his death and lives on his pendulum like Damocles' sword. For this, Freud says that eros (living drive) and thanatos (death drive) make up the meaning of life.
The human subject (mind world) begins by naming his relationship with objects. The practice, which begins with trial and error, classifies objects and their relations through naming. Classifying one object as a stone and another as an apple is the meaning of man's relationship with the object. The history of the human mind is a journey from the concrete to the abstract. The adventure of making sense of life and adding meaning to life also comes to the fore with this abstraction phase.
Meaning belongs to man and is determined by his subject. Therefore, life without humans has no meaning in itself! He is the one who gives meaning to life. Whatever a person contributes to his life, how he relates to it, the meaning of life for that person is limited to the ball of these relationships and their results. It follows from this that life does not have a fixed meaning, a recipe that applies to everyone. What we call the meaning of life is the network of relationships we establish with life, how we live life and what we contribute to it. Therefore, the meaning of life is different for each person (each subject).
The meaning of life and happiness
What makes life meaningful and livable is the quality of life. (By quality, I do not mean pure material wealth. It is the world of mind, culture, psychic as a whole, together with its material world).
When it comes to quality of life, happiness is what determines it. Therefore, quality of life and happiness produce each other.
Here, the following basic question arises; Is the quality of life in the hands of the individual? In other words, is it the person who determines happiness?
What is written above can lead to an illusion like this; If the meaning of life is my relationships with it and what I contribute to it, then it is in my hands to live my life well! Well, since the meaning of life depends on me, on my subject; I can make sense of my life as good and beautiful by establishing good and correct relationships with objects!
The concept of happiness has two different basic definitions that are still valid today: Epicurean and Stoic definitions. Whether we define the basis of happiness as pleasure with the Epicurean understanding of philosophy (the Epicurean definition of pleasure is certainly not hedonism), or if we describe it as the virtuous life and morality of the Stoics, ultimately happiness is a fundamental factor that makes human life livable and a way of being.
A happy life does not mean a life without unhappiness. A happy life means a life that carries unhappiness with it, but exceeds it and does not make it permanent and effective.
Happiness is enjoying life or happiness is living virtuously; The point where both views converge is that man aims at happiness.
Happiness is the pillar of the joy of living. As happiness increases, the joy of life rises on the pole, just like a flag hoisted.
The social system and the relationship of happiness
Since a meaningful life is directly related to the joy of living and happiness, is the subject of the individual the only determinant of this? That is, does happiness depend solely on the will of the individual?
Although the inner world of the individual is a fundamental beginning in making sense of his life, the subject of the individual is insufficient in this determination. Because there is a huge external world that surrounds the individual, consisting of facts such as family, tradition, religion, state, morality and regime.
Here we have another moral problem; If a person who does evil connects the reason for his evil to the social system, that person is also destroying the absence of "good" in his inner world to external conditions. However, there are concepts such as conscience, love, justice, mercy, empathy, which belong to the inner world of human beings, which, even if the system is corrupt, the whole point is to be a 'good' person by keeping them alive.
Good (And happiness) is attained through knowledge. (There is a striking line that I remember in Tarkovsky's movie “Andrei Rublev”. Church painter Rublev says to his assistant Kiril: “Knowledge brings a burden!” Here is the good of Socrates, another discussion on the relationship between knowledge and happiness!)
The corrupt order (I use it as a generalization for evil powers) is the enemy of knowledge, because it is the enemy of the 'good'!
Individuals do not have freedom of thought, expression and association; there is no equal, fair and universal law; security of life is not provided, rights are usurped; To what extent and how does the individual make sense of his own life in a society dominated by exploitation, oppression and oppression? What is the joy of living in such a society?
The inner world of the individual, the cultural norms, the world of mind are the data that direct and determine the quality of life of the individual. However, if these data are in the grip of that external world, that society is a problematic society consisting of depressed individuals in general.
The problem here is not just economic. A society may be economically weak, but it has the joy of life and hope. As long as there is a system that does not tarnish freedom, universal law, justice and the future of individuals. Joy, which is the indicator of the joy of life, ages like rivers with its colors and scents like flowers blooming in such societies and individuals.
When we look at the system we live in, our life and the level of our joy of life from this perspective, we see the relationship of these three more closely and obtain concrete results.
Is life meaningless?
Sometimes we find life meaningless. These are the temporary ups and downs of human life. However, the chronicity of this state is a sign of a psychic collapse. The futility of existence, the aimlessness, the point reached by the thought that life is not worth living is the judgment that life is meaningless, which can lead to suicidal tendencies (even if occasionally, those who have suicidal thoughts are many times more than those who commit suicide).
We were thrown into the world. We have to live in the world from which we were launched as living beings. After being thrown into the world from our mother, our motives provide the continuation of our existence before our understanding. So, if our coming to the world has no purpose, it is not possible to make sense of life.
There is no rationality, good or bad in nature. Nature is ontologically an immanent being. Rationality belongs to man because it has the subject that produces it. Man tries to give a meaning to the whole existence with himself. However, instead of meaning, he is always faced with a meaninglessness; Every situation he makes sense of is an illusion.
Albert Camus, one of the philosophically competent representatives of this view, who sees the question of what is the meaning of life as an obsession of modernism, sees life as nonsense and says, "Man has to overcome life despite its meaninglessness and all its pressures." emphasizes that.