Random Thought Thread

There are so many comforting and inspirational quotes about life and living, some borderline cheesy, a mere few clicks away by using your keyboard but I have a different take:

Imagine if you could back in time, hundreds or even thousands of years removed from today and if you could ask an ancient person about the meaning of life. I would bet that many who were not born into wealth and prosperity would give your sobering definitions like life being hard, miserable, dangerous, truly a one-day-at-a-time sorta event! To package the definition in a more palatable way, life was always meant to be a struggle if left to Mother Nature's own devices. I don't have to resort to hyperboles to prove this point; all I have to do is to point toward every other creature in nature other than the modern human being of say mid 20th century and onward. Everything else is somewhere in the food chain and subject to the infamous Darwinian phrase, "survival of the fittest".

Those of us born in the industrialized nations, past the Great Depression and the 2nd Great War, have been very fortunate relatively speaking because we have, by and large, have reaped the rewards of peace & prosperity through some distribution of wealth specially when coupled with some form of higher education and/or sheer hard work. The marvels of technological + pharmaceutical advancements have rendered our lives to be extended well past that of our ancestors. Many of us take this relative ease and comfort for granted but not so with someone who had lived 90+ years. They knew the struggle as reflected by every deep line on their faces akin to earning another stripe in the regiment of life.

If you learn to condition your brains, just like your elders did, to tell yourself that you must plow through the struggle, not to give up to the easy whims of quitting, you may then be lucky enough to be spoken of fondly when you leave this life behind. A long life well lived, leaves a wonderful legacy behind. It says that you mattered and that you overcame the struggles.
 
Casinostocks said:
There are so many comforting and inspirational quotes about life and living, some borderline cheesy, a mere few clicks away by using your keyboard but I have a different take:

Imagine if you could back in time, hundreds or even thousands of years removed from today and if you could ask an ancient person about the meaning of life. I would bet that many who were not born into wealth and prosperity would give your sobering definitions like life being hard, miserable, dangerous, truly a one-day-at-a-time sorta event! To package the definition in a more palatable way, life was always meant to be a struggle if left to Mother Nature's own devices. I don't have to resort to hyperboles to prove this point; all I have to do is to point toward every other creature in nature other than the modern human being of say mid 20th century and onward. Everything else is somewhere in the food chain and subject to the infamous Darwinian phrase, "survival of the fittest".

Those of us born in the industrialized nations, past the Great Depression and the 2nd Great War, have been very fortunate relatively speaking because we have, by and large, have reaped the rewards of peace & prosperity through some distribution of wealth specially when coupled with some form of higher education and/or sheer hard work. The marvels of technological + pharmaceutical advancements have rendered our lives to be extended well past that of our ancestors. Many of us take this relative ease and comfort for granted but not so with someone who had lived 90+ years. They knew the struggle as reflected by every deep line on their faces akin to earning another stripe in the regiment of life.

If you learn to condition your brains, just like your elders did, to tell yourself that you must plow through the struggle, not to give up to the easy whims of quitting, you may then be lucky enough to be spoken of fondly when you leave this life behind. A long life well lived, leaves a wonderful legacy behind. It says that you mattered and that you overcame the struggles.
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