A Quote by Anna Akana
I do believe I was put here to tell stories and be creative in that way. It's given my life so much purpose and meaning, and it's ultimately what I live for.
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Our stories are all stories of searching. We search for a good self to be and for good work to do. We search to become human in a world that tempts us always to be less than human or looks to us to be more. We search to love and to be loved. And in a world where it is often hard to believe in much of anything, we search to believe in something holy and beautiful and life-transcending that will give meaning and purpose to the lives we live.
If Darwinism is true, then there is no purpose or meaning to life, there is no morality, there's no qualitative difference between humans and animals, there's no life after death, and there's no purpose to human history. Now, are you trying to tell me that it doesn't really matter if people believe we evolved or not?
The Nigerian storyteller Ben Okri says that ‘In a fractured age, when cynicism is god, here is a possible heresy: we live by stories, we also live in them. One way or another we are living the stories planted in us early or along the way, or we are also living the stories we planted — knowingly or unknowingly — in ourselves. We live stories that either give our lives meaning or negate it with meaninglessness. If we change the stories we live by, quite possibly we change our lives.’
The meaning of life, Nikodemos, is to live life with meaning. The purpose of life is merely to live it, perhaps to give it.
We read novels because we need stories; we crave them; we can’t live without telling them and hearing them. Stories are how we make sense of our lives and of the world. When we’re distressed and go to therapy, our therapist’s job is to help us tell our story. Life doesn’t come with plots; it’s messy and chaotic; life is one damn, inexplicable thing after another. And we can’t have that. We insist on meaning. And so we tell stories so that our lives make sense.
Humans impart meaning and purpose to almost all aspects of life. This sense of meaning and purpose gives us a road map for how to live a good life. This guidance emerges spontaneously from the interactions of human beings living in societies and thinking together about how best to get along. It doesn't require a god or sacred text.
For me philosophy begins with these experiences of disappointment: a disappointment at the level of what I would think of as "meaning," namely that, given that there is no God, what is the meaning of life? And, given that we live in an unjust world, how are we to bring about justice?
We all tell our own stories the way we live our lives. My story is: Life is too short to not believe in fresh voices. I don't have Hollywood stars. I have great American artists.
Ultimately the way to win the game of life, is found in only one thing: Our ability to choose meaning in any life circumstance. Become the master of meaning and you master your life.
I used to believe the purpose in life is to find happiness. I don’t believe that anymore. I believe we are all given gifts from our Father, and that our purpose is to offer them to Him. He knows how He wants us to use them.
That's the way life is: meaning is always there, but there is no clearly given way of decoding it. Conventional cinema obscures this with an easy reduction of meaning to plot and schematic characters.
Real success is found in radical sacrifice. Ultimate satisfaction is found not in making much of ourselves but in making much of God. The purpose of our lives transcends the country and culture in which we live. Meaning is found in community, not individualism; joy is found in generosity, not materialism; and truth is found in Christ, not universalism. Ultimately, Jesus is a reward worth risking everything to know, experience, and enjoy.
Humans are kind of story-propagating creatures. If you think of how we spend our days, think of all the time you spend on entertainment. How much of your entertainment centers around stories? Most pieces of music tell stories. Even hanging out with your friends, you talk, you tell stories to each other. They're all stories. We live in stories.
If you feel stuck in your present life, if you feel no enthusiasm for anything, if you think you have no purpose or that you lost that purpose somewhere along the way, I guarantee you are living in a dungeon made of stories. And that none of those limiting stories are true.
It has been my experience that nothing changes a person's life more than the discovery of one solitary truth: There is a meaning and purpose to life. More specifically: There is a meaning and purpose to your life.
The secret to a happy life is to recognize that no matter what the situation, there's a creative opportunity in it. Also, finding meaning and purpose in your life to make a contribution.
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