Creating purpose and intensity in life

I visited a cemetery once and remember this sentiment “She Lived Life with Intensity” engraved on a head stone. It has an appeal to most citizens but I suspect there would be many different interpretations for its meaning.

What does it mean to ‘live life with intensity’? I suspect most would judge that money is the key to such a life. I think that money is the key to comfort, which is not a key that would fit the lock on a ‘life lived with intensity’. I suspect that wealth is often the death of ‘life lived with intensity’.

I will have to recognize at least one exception to this and that is George Soros. George Soros is both rags to riches--fantastic riches in a domain of finance that he alone began--and an individual with a highly developed intellectual life. I read a book about him and also one by him and I find him a model of one who has lived life with intensity.

I think that developing an intellectual life through a self-actualizing self-learning process is the means to a ‘life lived with intensity’. I am convinced that Soros philosopher/tycoon followed that process.

What does this cryptic message “She Lived Life with Intensity” mean to you?

A dilettante just dabbles at this and that never doing anything with intensity. Intensity is living life with some degree of disinterested passion. Disinterested passion is gusto with small regard to self aggrandizement. A person who has developed their own intellectual sophistication lives a life of passion and depth that few others can even recognize. Carl Sagan said “Understanding is a kind of ecstasy.” Carl knew what living with intensity is all about. It is about billions and billions while others live with thousands and thousands.

This quotation of Carl Rogers might illuminate my meaning of disinterested knowledge.

“I want to talk about learning. But not the lifeless, sterile, futile, quickly forgotten stuff that is crammed in to the mind of the poor helpless individual tied into his seat by ironclad bonds of conformity! I am talking about LEARNING - the insatiable curiosity that drives the adolescent boy to absorb everything he can see or hear or read about gasoline engines in order to improve the efficiency and speed of his 'cruiser'. I am talking about the student who says, "I am discovering, drawing in from the outside, and making that which is drawn in a real part of me." I am talking about any learning in which the experience of the learner progresses along this line: "No, no, that's not what I want"; "Wait! This is closer to what I am interested in, what I need"; "Ah, here it is! Now I'm grasping and comprehending what I need and what I want to know!"

I agree, coberst!

When I tell people that I will probably be majoring in philosophy, often times their eyes glaze over. But, as you have pointed out quite eloquently, usually the pursuit of knowledge and the examined self is a worthy objective in itself with no need for external and material validation. I can't say how many times I see my friends or fellow classmates choose this or that major not because it is their interest but because of various social expectations and for the false comfort in material attachments.

"O my friend, why do you who are a citizen of the great and mighty and wise city of Athens, care so much about laying up the greatest amount of money and honor and reputation, and so little about wisdom and truth and the greatest improvement of the soul, which you never regard or heed at all?"
-Socrates, Apology from Plato

Kat...

I am a retired engineer. I started taking philosophy seriously about 30 years ago. But it was only about 15 years ago that I began to comprehend it. Good luck!

Fuck philosophy and having a so-called "purpose" in life. It's all about making money and anybody who disagrees with that is very poor and/or very stupid. You can stand on your head and chant all you want to, or ponder the "meaning of life"; however, at the end of the day your rent and/or mortgage is due.

Try making a living with a degree in just philosophy. You'll find out quickly that nobody gives a shit about such an education and you'll end up making $21,000 a year teaching at some bullshit liberal arts college in Vermont.

The fact that you were an engineer gave you the means to take philosophy seriously.

Funny story. True.

Just a little over six years ago, when my son was 8, and I had moved out of all things comfortable and of means. . .

we moved to a town that was getting a new toystore. A Geoffrey's.

The day of the grand opening, my son wanted to go in and have a look-see. He asked me for some money. I dug in my purse and only had 80-some cents. He thanked me, took it and went in. I stayed in the car with my daughter. When he came out, all smiles, he showed me he bought a Hot Wheels car and said that he told the lady at the check out that his mom was at the puberty level!

He meant poverty level!!! Not that I wanted him to announce that either, but...

Best philosophy I can offer anyone: laugh!

OhDear

Actually having money is far better and people are generally much happier as a result.

That may be true, but I do not think so, truly, Pen. I drove the long way from Houston to Wisconsin in 2006 and noted the very simple and out and out poor conditions of many in North Texas and Arkansas, and too in West Tennessee. And I saw families sitting out on porches, and I think that they were happy. There were, in many of those places more churches lining the roads than bars. And perhaps that had something to do with it.

Still I would say that money is a nice cushion to have. So long as it does not conflict with one's conscience and that more accurately identified as the "universal conscience"...

OhDear

I totally agree with you Pen. If I hadn't been in the Marine Corps when my kidneys failed I would be living on SSI right now and would have to have a job. It's MUCH MUCH MUCH easier to be sick with money than to be sick and poor. I don't see how it can be any better if I were healthy.

You don't have to be filthy rich, but a decent income makes life a lot easier. Anybody who disagrees is on crack.

Those that would rather learn and have knowledge are stupid? Interesting induction.

Mere material acquisition isn't true happiness but an impermanent sense of pleasure. You can have built an empire of wealth and at the end of the day feel empty and unhappy. Hopefully you will realize that by the end. Incidentally, the richest among us are just as unhappy as the rest of us.

"Give me neither poverty nor riches." (Prov 30:8)

Actually, a PhD in philosophy can expect to have a starting salary between $45,000 and $55,000 a year, and a respected tenure professorship can make up to $100,000 and up (it's the same with any other profession; if you're good at what you do and you love it, you'll do fine). Which is good enough for me.

I don't see the reason of all the negativity behind philosophy majors. Perhaps it is because they are following their passions and saying 'fuck the rest'? Maybe those that are bitter gave into pressure and followed bad faith?

Incidentally, most philosophy majors seek positions in the faith community (pastors, priests, etc.). I wonder if people would put their pastors down in negativity for deciding to follow a life of improving the spirit as opposed to gaining wealth?? Would you, pensacola niceman, go up to your pastor or priest and tell him in his face "fuck spirituality and following Christ, money is what it's all about!"?

Perhaps, without self-examination and improvement of the intellect, you are unable to even recognize such a life of passion and depth as coberst pointed out. Perhaps you are too attached to your life of conformity, consumption, and conservatism (not the political sense).