William Jamesalways tried to find in 'life.' We come screaming out of our mothers, live for some time, and then our life ends—it's no wonder that humankind has been searching for something more in life than that. Our language has been stretched to the very limit of sophistication in its attempt to explain what processes are at work. Because the question is complicated, we assume that there is a complicated answer. Much of art, much of science, much of philosophy, and many other fields have been created to answer these questions in the most convoluted way possible.
I think it's time to look at the question a little more simply.
One of my favorite philosopher is a man named William James. Unlike heavyweights like
Kierkegaard, Kant, or Socrates, James didn't want to tell everyone what to think. That's good: he was a teacher, so he didn't have to tell people what to think. All he tried to tell them was how to think. If I were to ask William James, “What does life mean?” his response would probably be “Whatever helps you live it in the way you want to live it.”
“Arrogance!” some might say. “Useless!” others might cry. James didn't believe that there was
an absolute truth to discover; just that we need to live life as best as we can.
He once said that the only time we ever have to question our own assumptions is when we can't figure out what's going on. If what we know or think we know doesn't match the world around us, we need to find out the mistake and change.
There's one thing which I don't know anything about, and I need to figure out how to understand
it. That's death. The problem with death is that we have no realm of experience. As Rosencrantz puts it in Tom Stoppard's Rosencrantz And Guildenstern Are Dead: “It's silly to be depressed by [death]. I mean one thinks of it like being alive in a box, one keeps forgetting to take into account the fact that one is dead...” We have spent our entire lives being alive. How can we possibly dream of being dead?
Socrates, as Rosencrantz points out, said that if we don't know what death is, we can't be afraid
of it. James would tell us to figure out a way of looking at death which helps us figure out how to live our lives. His conclusion, and I would agree with it, is that believing in a God and Afterlife gives us a positive view of death which not only allows us to continue living, but furthermore gives us a reason to live a good life. Schopenhauer, another philosopher, agreed... until he lost faith in God and became anihilist, believing in nothing.
Ref: Life as Art by Guy Yedwab,Victoria Anderson
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Hi there! I'm glad you liked my essay. William James is a very important figure to me, and I'm happy you passed his spirit along.
~~Guy Yedwab ( http://www.guyyedwab.com/ )