Originally posted by @fmf "The beauty of life does not depend on how happy you are - but on how happy others can be because of you."
Just read that on a friend's 'status' on WhatsApp.
How true is it? As explanations of 'the beauty of life' go, can it be bettered?
It's a touchy-feely statement that looks good on paper, but most people are either too selfish, or too concerned with their own life to actually do it consistently.
Originally posted by @chaney3 It's a touchy-feely statement that looks good on paper, but most people are either too selfish, or too concerned with their own life to actually do it consistently.
This has not been true in the human environments I've been living in for the last 30 or 40 years. Far from it. Maybe I have been lucky. Furthermore, I think it does apply to almost all parents for significant slices of their lives - which accounts for billions and billions of people. Your comment sounds cynical to me, but if it is the product of the life you've lived and the people you've been around, then you have my sympathy.
Originally posted by @fmf This has not been true in the human environments I've been living in for the last 30 or 40 years. Far from it. Maybe I have been lucky. Furthermore, I think it does apply to almost all parents for significant slices of their lives - which accounts for billions and billions of people. Your comment sounds cynical to me, but if it is the product of the life you've lived and the people you've been around, then you have my sympathy.
I don't need your sympathy, I'm just telling it like it is.
People are mostly selfish, with brief periods here and there concerned about others.
*Especially so if making someone happy interferes greatly with their own life.
Originally posted by @chaney3 People are mostly selfish, with brief periods here and there concerned about others. *Especially so if making someone happy interferes greatly with their own life.
People who are "mostly selfish" - like the people you presumably live amongst - are then probably not experiencing the beauty of life to its fullest extent.
Did you really think the statement in the OP somehow comes with a built-in claim that it's actually true for every single person everywhere?
It's surely just taking a stab at how one might define the 'beauty of life'.
If you don't think the OP's take on it is true - or makes a valid proposal about what life's priorities ought to be - what would be your definition of the beauty of life?
Originally posted by @chaney3 It's a touchy-feely statement that looks good on paper, but most people are either too selfish, or too concerned with their own life to actually do it consistently.
So do you believe that the supposed selfishness of "most people" is the beauty of life for them?
Originally posted by @chaney3 Or maybe you're just a privileged white guy in a foreign country.
You have my sympathy if this is the kind of thing that an OP like this makes you want to say. For me, the OP rings true and I probably absorbed the outlook that it encapsulates from being a Christian for such a long time. I also believe that one of the key meanings of life is to affect people around you positively and lovingly. Perhaps life has a differnt meaning for you? Maybe you will share.
Originally posted by @fmf You have my sympathy if this is the kind of thing that an OP like this makes you want to say. For me, the OP rings true and I probably absorbed the outlook that it encapsulates from being a Christian for such a long time. I also believe that one of the key meanings of life is to affect people around you positively and lovingly. Perhaps life has a differnt meaning for you? Maybe you will share.
I'm just saying that a privileged white guy living in a foreign country, along with his internet friends, may look at life through a different lens than that of normal people.
Originally posted by @chaney3 I'm just saying that a privileged white guy living in a foreign country, along with his internet friends, may look at life through a different lens than that of normal people.
So what's your take on the beauty of life? You've heard mine. How do you define it?
16 Sep '18 11:58
The beauty of life
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