Thursday, June 23, 2011

The Meaning of Life

The answer to the age old philosophical question, 'what is the meaning of life' is actually pretty simple, and you need not scale a Himalayan peak and ask a hermit guru to find this answer.

The answer?  Don't be an asshole.

We were put here on this earth along with every other living creature for reasons known only to God.  But while we're here, it was clearly not God's intention for us to use our lives in ways that are detrimental in the fullness of time to our environs, including our fellow creatures (human creatures included).  God also put us at the top of the food chain, and the pursuit of nourishment is not detrimental to God's wishes, so you vegans can just save your breath on this last part, OK?

Assholes are a detriment to society, and in general come in varying degrees of assholiness.  The low level asshole is the guy who flips a burning cigarette butt out of a moving car window.  The high level assholes are sociopaths who care only of their hedonistic pursuits oblivious to the care or concerns of anyone else.  These of course include (but are not limited to) murderers, rapists, arsonists, robbers, thieves and all other manner of felons. 

And low level assholes can become high level assholes at random moments: the low level asshole who carelessly tossed the burning cigarette butt out of the car window becomes a high level asshole when that burning cigarette butt catches a dry countryside on fire, and subsequently burns out a community and perhaps in the end kills people. 

The meaning of life comes into play when we all do our best to try and avoid being assholes.  This entails doing the right thing when nobody is watching.  Like the low level asshole drinking directly from the carton of milk after a few glances around to make sure the ol' ball and chain isn't watching.  Can you imagine Pope John Paul II reaching into the refrigerator, taking a few looks left and right, and then chugging right from the carton?  Nope, never happened. Not that the Pope ever had an  'ol' ball 'n' chain,' but I digress.

That's because Pope John Paul II knew that the meaning of life is to not be an asshole.  Additionally, as a trained and professional theologian, the Pope also knew that this unwritten law is enforced in the end.  When we all leave this earth, and stand before St. Peter at the Pearly Gates, there is nothing we have ever done that escapes St. Peter's clipboard, the one with our name and photo ID at the top.

Everything we do, every act we commit whether it be low level asshole actions or worse, they all end up on St. Peters clipboard.  In essence, nobody can do anything without someone watching. 

Accordingly, the meaning of life should be abundantly clear: do the right thing, because someone is ALWAYS watching.

That was an easy question.

14 comments:

WomanHonorThyself said...

amen!...but according to libs..everything is relative..except of course what THEY deem as offensive or 'right'...oiy! Have a beautiful weekend my friend!:)

Fredd said...

Woman:

I might argue that being a liberal in and of itself would be categorized as a low level asshole. Of course, that's just my view.

And have yourself a righteous weekend as well. And in the process, try not to stake out the refrigerator and catch your perp hubby in the act of guzzling straight from the carton....;-)

Anonymous said...

I've never even understood the question: "What is the meaning of life."

I can understand what is the purpose of life, but the meaning?

Fredd said...

Trestin: semantics. It's much akin to opening AOL and that guy proclaims 'You've got mail.'

We all know it should be 'You have mail,' or 'You have received mail,' or 'You've gotten mail,' but we accept it as is.

The Conservative Lady said...

You mean we need a Photo ID to get into heaven? Don't tell the Democraps that...they'll claim St. Peter is a racist.

Kid said...

You've touched on a subject I know to be the answer to all our problems on this rock. Meaning...

*LANGUAGE*

Kill All The Assholes.

All of them. Define them, tag them, declare open season.
As far as the meaning of life, it is different for each of us, but to do it right, we must respect all other creatures. Which as you say, doesn't mean we can't eat them. There is a reason this is called Earth, and not Heaven after all.

Fredd said...

Lady:

Yup, you can't get by St. Pete without a valid ID, and all of those liberals who insist that undocumented folks are OK in the 'very long run' are patently wrong.

Fredd said...

Kid:

So drinking milk right out of the carton would be a death sentence under the 'Kid Amininistration'?

After all, killing all the assholes would mean offing both low and high level assholes, right?

Don't get me wrong,Kid, there's basic merit in your proposal, I'm just trying to set the parameters...

Kid said...

Ok Fredd, I don't define an asshole as someone who drinks out of the milk carton. (They may be good people after all as they support the immune system of others in the household.)

No, Assholes are people who rape, torture, and kill others for example. People, mostly sociopaths, who trample the individual rights of other people or animals for that matter. Do unto others describes it pretty well. You want me to write the entire criminal code in this little box? ;-)

Let me know when someone has to do community service for drinking out of a milk carton.

Fredd said...

Kid:

You've hit on the major issue here: exactly when does one cross the line into asshole-dom?

And then, once they cross that nebulously defined line, do we then execute them on the spot?

We would definitely agree that sociopaths have crossed that line long ago. But at what point did that occur? When they were infants, I'm pretty certain that they were innocent, cute babes whose cheeks you just wanted to reach and and pinch.

At what point did sociopaths cross over into darkness that we now only want to reach out and punch those cheeks?

I would argue that it happened during their first swig out of that milk carton. Or some other seemingly innocuous anti-social act, like jay walking. Or spitting on the side walk. And they never stopped....

There's got to be a line somewhere, right Kid?

Kid said...

Fredd, there is a line, and it's defined pretty well by the law, although in my opinion, the law is too lax.

We dick around with pussification of all things and hereby coerce criminals into doing things they wouldn't have done if the punishment was strong enough and they had no reason to believe some slime-ass lawyer could get them off.

Take DUI. Make it Zero Tolerance. You don't want people to drink and drive? Stop making laws that sound like they were written by some chick staring off into space twirling her hair around her fingers.

Take adult on child sex crime. A man over the age of X has sex with a girl under the age of Y and it's death sentence. I'm not sure what the ages would be without twirling y hair a bit, but certainly a man over 30 and a girl under 10. He's defective.

Take a swig from a milk carton and put it back and 50 hours of community service.

Kid said...

PS - you can't kill someone for being a sociopath, that would be like killing someone for thinking about rape. But when their actions provide the catalyst, Bang!

Too bad space travel is so far off, I think it would be cool to send them to prison planets and make them live with each other.

Silverfiddle said...

@Fred: The high level assholes are sociopaths who care only of their hedonistic pursuits oblivious to the care or concerns of anyone else. These of course include (but are not limited to) murderers, rapists, arsonists, robbers, thieves and all other manner of felons.

You left out professional politicians.

This is an excellent post. People used to understand that what you are saying is key to a well-functioning society, but we lost it somewhere along the way.

Boorish behavior is now applauded, to society's detriment.

Fredd said...

Silver: yes, professional politicians are simply a subset of 'thieves,' and accordingly are present in my list of high level assholes.

And our modern culture has indeed become numbed and desensitized to daily assholiness we see all around us.

I wonder if we can ever recover our polite society that is now only a memory.