I am a new user and going to be over here for a long time. I am working on a topic for my hobby. If you guys can help me, then it will be great. Because I believe, keen observer are those who possess the writing ability. Well, my writing ability is not that great then few of you guys over here but I can use your help and learn. Question: Life is too short and beautiful. This quote might be highest spoken one in the world. But the person who is dying would be the one who regard this quote as gospel truth. Otherwise, normal human being are so occupied in Capitalism that, they don't wight this quote. When I said, dying person over here, I mean to say older generation who are retired and living in old age house, playing cards, reading books and talking with their other old fellows about the golden days of youth. I am working on the subject, "What we can learn from them?" Well, life is too short but there are infinte things to learn and feel. Past is something you learn from. So if we ask this older generation, what do you think about life? what do you think about love? What do you think about war and technology? what do you think about friendship? How money is important in life and upto what extent it plays the role? What will be in your mind when you close your forever and why? and more question in this category. Can you guys please help me to learn and understand the thinking about the old people about basic question of life? Shru
Is that all? The meaning of life? Piece of cake... Umm. Stereotyping much? Are you looking for a life perspective from those who have given up on life, and are simplly waiting for Death to reach out his bony hand to lead them away? You don't need to look to the old age home for those. Just look in any alley for the withered husks, many who haven't seen twenty years, sticking needles in their bellies and shoving powders from dubious sources up their noses. Or are you looking for those who have known decades of love and loss, joy and despair, and who still look forward to a new surprise every day? Then look to the mountain trails and rocky coasts for the wrinkled but unbent artists, photographers and poets. Look to the businesses for the elder firebrands who challenge their younger colleagues to think from a different angle. Look to the shops for senior craftsmen patiently training their apprentices to keep a tradition alive.
I love your answer. I thank you, for giving me two categoris to look into. But, I want to know, a person who was great businessman yesterday. To get that status and money and fame, he made a lot of choices which he is regretting for. E.g, left his family, forget the birthday of his kid, let go someone who loved him, deceive honest people etc. He is successful but I want to ask hime, what is the importance of family? I want to find a person, who has been served in war and has to kill another human being in order to be alive. Who has lost friends and passed his days in the hope of returning to home.. I want to ask hime, what does he thinks about war? I want to meet a person, who has lost his love due to social borders. Who has loved someone with all his heart and mind but could not be with her/him due to social or religious reasons. I want to ask him, what does he thinks about religion, love and race? And the some more questions like this. Because every successful or unsuccessful person has made choices in his/her life. Take any single person's biogrphy. There will be phase in which he must have said, "I hope, i would have done that." I want to know that and see what he has advice for the upcoming generation. I believe, past, present and future, are linked. Thank you for your reply.
why are you coming here for those answers, when the members of a writing site, even if a rare few or them may be old like me [nearly 74], are all still active and living productive lives?... you need to be interviewing actual old people to get your answers, not aspiring writers... look for books by elderly folks who have written about those issues... watch the tv talk shows about old age... talk to people on the street and in parks/old age homes...
I think that in the middle of life you begin to lose all the illusions you are beefed up with as a child through numerous things like television, advertising, periodicals, and other forms of media. But at the same time you also begin to find the bad and the beauty of life's simpler truths. One of the greatest truths I have found was to stop searching for other peoples's opinions on life and discover your own...discover yourself. Money, war, and all that...I was once a very activist type person that railed against these things and tried to change people through writing when I suddenly realized what I was doing. I was trying to change human nature. Trying to separate the good from the bad, which is impossible. Because of that, all these forms of vice, oppression, and pain will exist alongside the good. In my opinion money isn't everything. In fact, it's nothing. But it is a powerful illusion of value that keeps people chasing it and, consequently, enslaved to a perpetual need or reliance of it. It's one of the most subtlest forms of slavery I know and everyone is a part of it. EVERYONE. But this system will not change overnight so you have to work with it. You can't heal change the world so just do as much as you can for the people closest to you. I really appreciate your thread and it was pretty cool seeing someone who really thought like me...I guess, lol. I hope you write more like it. Welcome to the site. Best regards.
I have said clearly, I want to know your view, your observation about their thinking.. I believe, wiriters are crtical thinkers and observer....
I kind of like this answer also. Life has no meaning or ultimate purpose. You don't need to do anything other than eat, breath, and sleep. But sometimes we do have something we really feel we would like to do and f you are true to yourself and pursue it without wavering, whatever life you may end up with, I think you'll find much more value in it because you were chasing what you wanted to do rather than having to compromise as so many do these days. But I liked Cogito's description. For some reason, it feels like the time for true artists, visionaries, and craftsman are passed us. As if everyone was just carrying on the echoes of past innovations. The image brought back a little hope. We need another renaissance.
Oh, that was my view. It wasn't meant as an insult or anything that's just exactly how I view it. Life is about personal discovery and discovery of things around you. But so many people look to other people for a definition of their own lives (like the horoscope or these new Jung-type personality tests) that they seem to lose that perspective.
You can rent the move Shawshank Redemption. It's about people that live in a prison for majority of their lives and when a few of them get out 50 years later or so, they don't know what to do with themselves. The world has changed so much in their lifetime and they weren't apart of it time. Some kill themselves. Other recommit crimes so they can go back in prison, where they are comfortable. And others never lose hope of a life outside of the walls. Although not quite what you are looking for, I think it would be a great place to get your creative thoughts flowing. I'm sure elderly people that did that same job for 50 years then retired might have a similar feeling, they don't know what to do with all the free time. They almost rather be working again.
To me, your examples seem to say, "I want to find people who made the wrong decisions, and tell them they were wrong." The above is the one that seems to most clearly say this, but I'm getting the same vibe from the others. If you really want to learn from people, I think that you need to approach them with fewer preconceptions about what you want to learn, and you need to approach them with the idea that you do want to _learn_, rather than teaching them how they're wrong. For example, why don't you ask that successful man about the joys of business as well as the importance of family? Because you've already decided that what he valued and perhaps still values isn't important? Maybe I'm misunderstanding your focus, but that is definitely the focus that I'm getting from the post that I quoted from.
I think this is an excellent question, one that should make us all open up and ask ourselves how we feel about the choices we have made in life. My mother always says, 'Will it matter in ten years' time?' If you focus on work when your children are young, they will remember an absent parent. They won't remember amazing holidays or top quality childcare. At the same time, if you don't work at all and you are the kind of person who needs that external stimulus (I am), they will remember a stressed shouty parent. Then again, if you focus on work your entire life then you risk dying before you get a chance to enjoy the fruits of your labour. It's too easy to focus on the next goal and the next and the next without thinking about why you are trying so hard to achieve all these goals. For most people, the honest answer will be: for the sake of the goal itself and nothing else. I hope you get the answers you're looking for. BTW: not sure I'm convinced you're from Canada originally - not even French-speaking Canada - as a linguistic I'm looking at sentence structure and trying to place you. Iranian origin maybe? Am I right?
shru... i'm an 'old person' who will be 74 in september, so i will answer your questions not only as one who has been a writer for many decades, but as a specific object of your survey... i'll add links to some of the relevant works on my site that will explain my answers further: ...too broad/vague a question to answer in a post... it's whatever it is for each of us living creatures... not the same for any two of us... for some it's too short, for others, too long... for some it's meaningless time-marking till death, for others it's meaningful and used to the fullest extent possible... to some it has meaning, to others it's a complete mystery... and so on... that platonic love of one's fellow creatures and mother/child love is to be desired, but that romantic love is a societal construct that was meant as a control mechanism and ill-serves mankind [and especially womankind!]... see my essay 'love and sex' you'll find on my website, for a detailed validation of that view... http://www.saysmom.com/maia/content.asp?Writing=77 ...war is an abomination, period... technology can be good, but is almost always turned to evil uses, thanks to mankind's inherently violent/aggressive nature... http://www.saysmom.com/maia/content.asp?Writing=137 http://www.saysmom.com/maia/content.asp?Writing=67 ...a good thing too infrequently found in perfect reciprocity, which is the only way it really works... ...too important to too many for all the wrong reasons... and most often ill-used or mismanaged... http://www.saysmom.com/maia/content.asp?Writing=103 http://www.saysmom.com/maia/content.asp?Writing=139 ...my last thoughts/words will be a hearfelt 'Thank you!' to whatever/whoever allows/causes me to leave this benighted human-made mess of a world... ...the why is found throughout my writings on the site... some of my thoughts on death: http://www.saysmom.com/maia/content.asp?Writing=293 ...the 'philosetry' section also contains my thoughts/feelings/conclusions on the subjects you're asking about, so feel free to browse to your heart's content... if any questions are raised thereby, don't hesitate to email me for discussion or comment... ...i've traveled canada from coast to coast, from the border to as far north as rose lake in BC and the pas in manitoba, lived in toronto for a year and love both the country and its people... what part do you live in?... love and hugs, maia maia3maia@hotmail.com
