The Meaning of a Finite Life

I have recently been thinking about life, its meaning, death, and decided to write my thoughts down. 

The first thing that came into my mind is about greed and lust we humans pursue. We all know that one day we will die. All the wealth and prestige we long for will never come with us. We are introduced about “death” since our childhood through literatures and movies. 

But when we are grown up, we start to question our own lives like “What is my life for?”, “Is there any purpose of life?” and “What is death? Should I fear of death?”

Especially when we are alone in a room, these questions become more intense in our mind, we just cannot let it go. 

We also ask ourselves- if this life is temporary and we cannot take anything with us when we die then what makes a life meaningful?

For centuries, philosophers tried to find the answer to such questions and gave their own observations. 

Imagination is perhaps the most dangerous part about human mind. Ever thought about those quiet nights after coming home from a stressful 9 to 5 work and sitting alone thinking about the life we are leading? The struggles we have gone throughout in our student and work life? Ever imagined the future we wished to have but the difficulties to realise it? How the future will look like when we die? What will happen to our family members? Will anyone remember us after we die? And the list of questions goes on.  

These imaginations are not necessarily derived from the fear of death always. Sometimes, they are the results of our efforts to find the meaning of life and explain death with our own perspective and thinking. 

Modern psychologists think this awareness about “death/mortality” is part of human experience to find the meaning of our lives. This is why having knowledge about death leads to more difficult questions that make us more depressed and curious at the same time to find the “meaning of life.”

We talk about whether death makes a life meaningless or not.

Put it in a simple way e.g. we die, everything we have done will be forgotten, our family members will never remember us. So, life has no meaning. 

But these thoughts fail to capture the bigger picture. Ancient Greek philosopher Epicurus gave his own views on death and life in his “Letter to Menoeceus.” 

Epicurus thinks death is not something we can experience while we are alive, so we should not allow the fear to dominate our lives. So instead of just fearing death we should focus on the life we are living cause every moment of life has something to teach us. He also suggests that we should limit our unnecessary desires and appreciate the simple things in our life. Cause even in the most ordinary moments, we can find happiness.

Stoic philosopher Marcus Aurelius believed death is a natural process. According to him, the awareness of death makes us feel depressed and hollow. Instead, he suggests accepting what we can and can’t control, and value the moments we are living. Furthermore, he wants us to accept any kind of reality whether it is good or bad. Cause accepting it and learning from it helps us to understand life.  

In my opinion, there are various ways we can make the best moments of our lives to make life meaningful. For example, one can make a small community of same-minded people share our thoughts and feelings. 

Every moment has a hidden meaning. It teaches us something about a certain work or activity. This also helps us to find a purpose in our life as well. 

We will die one day. This is obvious. We can’t change the fact that life is finite and we have short time. But we shouldn’t certainly think that life is just empty In fact, its finiteness can be one of the reasons it matters. every chat we do with our friends , every music we hear, every work we do and every journey we make to various places teaches something valuable that we may not understand at first but slowly when we think about it we some meaning and purpose in it 

Many philosophers viewed death normal and we should cherish every moment, although there are arguments in this regard how we should respond to death and what does it mean. 

But I want to remain optimistic about life. Even the simplest moment that seems trivial will one day become our lesson. I do not think that meaning has to come by living forever. It can come from the moments we have experienced, the people we love and cared a lot, the knowledge we gained in our lives since childhood , the difficulties we overcome every day and the things we leave behind so that people can remember us 

Perhaps the meaning of a finite life is just about enjoying what we have and can do with this short span of life.  The finite life gives us the opportunity to experience, learn, love, happiness, struggle, pain, and become something more than we can imagine. We may not be able to escape death, but we can choose how to live with it and find purpose from this short time of our lives to make it meaningful and feel less depressed and scared thinking when will we die and what will happen to us. Cause in the end life goes on.  Perhaps that is where the meaning of a finite life truly begins.