Phoenix
by Dale J. Sprague
White Papers
Semantics
This, being an exposition of fundamental semantics asks, "What is the meaning of life?" The answer to this query would be more meaningful if it were expressed subjectively, in terms of the individual posing the question, given that the answer to such a question may be meaningful to all or most of all, all subject to change. It seems less oppressive, certainly more interesting to contemplate such a query from a subjective point of view. And an answer to such an existential query should be detailed..lest, through the course of one's life's events, the meaning unwittingly slips into oblivion, ending in a doldrum of some existential lurch.
Only one, self'aware, is concerned with such a question. This query would not exist unless one is first, self'aware. Attendant with vision, embarrassment, contemplation, and re'cog'nition is self'consciousness, self'awareness. When one seeks the meaning of one's self, one seeks a strategy to resolve the meaning of their life..in terms of who they are, why..righteous versus wrong..eros or agape, when or what to belong.
For effective search towards the meaning of one's life, one must first retrieve any authority they may have delegated out. As limited as one may be, one is first and last of themselves. Without this first, what follows has little or no value. With full possession of one's authority, one may observe the first principle of that authority..that is, 'be true to one's self.'
With the awareness of being self'aware, 'consciousness of consciousness' as it were, the whole realm of knowledge is posed before one, a perspective to knowledge is obtained..or 'indeterminism,' where one is not exclusively any particular element within any system of knowledge. Subsequently, one's beginning begins as a self'aware being who is indeterminate in the beginning about anything. This, by itself, can not serve, however, as suitable motivations for day to day activity..unless one is perfectly happy to sit with a catatonic grin.
It is emphasized here that without assuming full responsibility for one's self, that is, canonizing one's state of self awareness for the eternal station that it is, any pursuit of existential query with regard to the meaning of one's life would be irrelevant since one has already delegated their authority away. If one has, ask to whom it was given...what the meaning of life is. If there are still problems feeling it, then there are too many authorities delegated. If passion in one's life is not needed, then the question of 'the meaning of life' is academic.
But if passon is needed in one's life, this becomes the authority within one's self. Aware of this authority is useful when the pitch and shudders of life compel one into some transcendental twilight, and undergo the inevitable death and transfiguration that love surely promises..a place to go, as it were, an authority to appeal to, when love's grim reaper compels one to adjust an attitude, tweak a philosophy..in general, reconfigure one's epistema, as necessary.
One's self and one's epistema, one's system of knowledge..emotionally evolving, one can come across a new idea and be inspired by it, but if an idea doesn't inspire, is it because one is not ready for it? Does an idea inspire only after one sees the greater relevance and context of it in terms of the meaning of one's life? Is the measure of an inspiration's sensation in direct proportion to how much greater light is cast upon one's epistema?
But again, all these queries are irrelevant if one has given away their authority..has delegated the responsibility of what one thinks and even feels, to someone else...their meaning of life.