Can Someone Who is Over 40 Please Explain the Meaning of Life Please?

All you have to do is have fun and then stage a death bed conversion.

When I was 16 I couldn't imagine being in my 40s, but now that I'm here I don't feel as different as I assumed I would (the 16 year old me is still kicking and squirming in me).

Fuck youth, be here now.

thats what they tell me and i'm finding it hard to agree.

relax, there is no meaning other than what you create for yourself, in whatever way suits.

What DOES still depress me is articles in Broadcast magazine about successful twenty-somethings. I RESENT THEM SO MUCH

I'm just now starting to look in the mirror and feel old. I used to always swear I wouldn't be one of those people who worried about aging. Don't think about it too much, but I have a feeling that now is the time to do the things that still require physical ability, later might be too late. It's a cliche and all, but I do feel a lot wiser. I didn't care about turning 30 (28 was the one that got me) but I think I'll probably be depressed when 40 hits.

then I realized
that I had no time for that
little luxury

got some therapy
lost some weight, got a new job
40? BRING IT ON

be happy.

and everyone knows the meaning of life is 42. but who can remember the question?

42 really is where it's at, at least for the next month

Love and only love will endure.

What about great art?

will be dust soon enough.

ars longa vita brevis

http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2009/apr/30/stephen-fry-letter-gay-rights

that's great. good to see someone take the way they felt at 16 seriously, reaffirm it even.

i'm not 40 yet - just!!!!! - and although my 16 yr old self never wrote my adult self any letters, i certainly wrote certain songs as messages to my future self

should dig them out on my 40th birthday and see if they still have any resonance (apart from "lay off that effing delay pedal you cunt")

Asking what is the meaning of life is like asking what is the meaning of rocks, or the meaning of ice cream. Those questions make no sense and answering them only generates nonsense.

Instead, ask how should I live. That question generates answers that do have a meaning. But don't expect there to be just one right answer, just as there is not one answer to a koan.

There are some wrong answers, though. The wrong answers feed our delusions, such as the delusion that we can control anything beyond ourselves, and even our self control is tenuous and requires constant attention. Another delusion is that we can avoid suffering by any means other than the arduous path of wholeheartedly removing the prefix mis- from whatever is our fortune.

So, how should we live? Here's a start: be kind, be grateful, and cultivate patience.

(I'm 55, btw. Oh and I'm white.)

xp Oh, you're Kate.

who is kate?

http://17.media.tumblr.com/RaAhBBk4TosukqlmKBk3MuFeo1_400.gif

^
meaning of life imo

i (who am not kate by no means unnecessary) hope to be 50 next spring. yo, am i white and medieval or wot.

oh ..as per "the meaning", i dunno wot it means.

Sorry Karen, if you're not Kate, I think you'd get on with her: she's also a nearly 40-year-old woman in the UK who makes music and likes Aphex Twin, School of Seven Bells, Lindstrom, the Delays, and history.

hey, is she single?

kidding!

quite flattered that i've been able to pass for an actual woman on an internet messageboard despite posting quite incongruously about the gender of my self and my screen name (also implicitly stated in the choice of screen name, if you anything about the artist whose name i've chosen) - i've never pulled that off before

off-topic but would anyone like a banger in the mouth?

we call them sausages

sausages are in fact the meaning of life

I mean just look at this dude

http://www.danielefoods.com/images/product/sopressata_large.jpg

Sausages by Jewel

While leaving the airport,
a gypsy woman stole my luggage.
She wore a rice paper mask over her eyes.
A mole showed neatly on her chin, hairless.
She laughed while sausages
fell from her pockets in heavy shivers.
I hope she misses them sorely.

sausages are in fact the meaning of life

But what is the meaning of sausage?

life

Love and only love will endure.

― Rage, Resentment, Spleen (Dr Morbius), Tuesday, December 22, 2009 8:51 AM (2 hours ago)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ww-88rwt4ms

"You poor dear, dear thing. Look at you weltering in your misery. The extraordinary truth is that you want to stay there. Unlike so many of the young, you do not yearn for adulthood, pubs and car keys. You want to stay where you are, in the Republic of Pubescence, where feeling has primacy and pain is beautiful. And you know what ... ?

I think you are right." otm steven fry

But what is the meaning of sausage?

leftover meatparts + spices

def one of my fave scenes in TP there, omar.

Do species have an inherit right to exist?

Exhibit A:

Can Someone Who is Over 40 Please Explain the Meaning of Life Please?

Exhibit B:

― darraghmac, Saturday, September 11, 2004 9:10 PM (thirteen years ago)

Proof positive that dmac is MUCH older than he lets on.

Answer to OPQ: no

be kind

Yeah, pretty much. At least try.

Huh

You don't even wanna know how disgustingly young I was if that timestamp is accurate

47?

Days I doubt I'll see 47 tbh

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Myth_of_Sisyphus

CAMUS ERRY DAYYY

I’ve decided I can get up before dawn. I did it today and it was fine, it felt great, actually

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-5215599/amp/Dawn-French-60-talks-naughty-sex-scenes-Delicious.html

I’m only 39 though

'only' gtfo granddad

ilxors are 27 iirc

Have we talked about the Please Sandwich in this thread title yet because it is mod worthy imho

I think it's vital tbh

Synchronicity

Okay.

Life
Is the only thing worth living for

I’ve decided I can get up before dawn

you're sick, this is sickening

A particular subset of the world’s population think a particular age group think they learn some objective truth about “life” by conflating older age with life experience and/or knowledge

a certain amount of life experience always comes with age. knowledge is hit-and-miss.

Not so good at recognizing Shakespearean or Biblical allusions--I never miss a Flipper quote, though.

I’ve decided I can get up before dawn

Of course you can, but why would you?

Don't give your conscience a reason to kick your ass. Why because it won't stop, ever. This includes regrets over having done nothing.

Enable everyone else to do so as well. You may have heard about people without a conscience - they are the tiniest of minorities and not virulent, unless you let them make the rules.

Well, it's not much of a philosophy, I know. I'll be 40 in April.

live the life you love, in the god you trust, and don't take it all too seriously.

i only live by love & rockets lyrics.

Xp: Because it is the best time of the day? When the day is still virgin. Everything is still possible before dawn.

I’ve decided I can get up before dawn

What you gain on the swings, you lose on the roundabouts: you may have some good early mornings, but you're more tired late evening.

Make the best out of the bad, just laugh it off. You didn't have to come here anyway. (I do a poor job of living by these words.)

Laughing it off is a probably a bit manic in the face of suffering and tragedy.....Probably best to settle for the Buddha’s smile of calm acceptance and inner amusement at seeing the divine comedy of life.

After the dissolution of your last dregs of dignity and self respect, the prospects of wearing cardboard clown shoes en-route to Skid Row and dying there very soon, don't seem so bad.

I haven't sold one fortune cookie yet.

i would buy a set of calzino-penned fortune cookies or greetings cards, though i'd probably stop short of framed embroidery