Assignment 21 - Kelden Andrews

As a middle class white kid I trust you’ll understand why I have had few if any significant problems in my life. But on a more personal level I’ve had what I think is a large problem, possibly the largest I and everyone to a lesser extent will ever face. What meaning will I take from life, what is my purpose? My sister is a wonderfully motivated person and has seemed to have a goal more or less for her entire life, finish high school, go to college, always moving forward focussing on the present. I find myself personally unable to do this. I can feel my time slowly slipping away, slowly dragging myself into the future all the time. And all this time I’m trying to figure out where to go, where to end up. Is doing good the most noble and best goal of life? Is it to enjoy myself? is hedonism the answer to my philosophical woes? Should I aim for the white picket fence? Is the simple family life the best goal? At first I believed that all I would need to resolve these woes was a profession, a  profession after all defines the daily life of any given individual. However I’ve more or less decided what I want to do profession wise but this has not helped, at all. It may sound cliche and a bit pretentious but I turned to books, great men have lived and breathed this essential question for literally thousands of years and from my reading I’ve already learned a few essential things. Plato is naive and pretentious, Epicurus was an idiot and Confucius was a simpleton and arrogant. I’ve recently made progress on this essential goal by reframing it, not what is the meaning and purpose of life, but what will make life the best it can be. To this end and to solve this problem I’d recommend Aurelius and Nietzche, any of Aurelius’s stuff is good, Nietzche wrote on so many things that only specific ones help in this situation, the one that has been most helpful to me was the Beginning of Thought.