Infinite Reconstruction

Mohammed 1

Marissa Mohammed

Professor Hopkins

Intro to Humanities

April 1, 2020

“You’ll understand when you’re older”. That is a sentence we spend the majority of our

childhood hearing. Sometimes when we do become older we do understand and other times we

don’t. One thing that even the brightest people on the planet have yet to understand and put into

a definition is the meaning of life. Why are we here? Why were we born? Do we even serve a

purpose? It is such a broad question and I feel many people believe that there can only be one

true definition to the meaning to life or that there is no meaning to life at all. I, however, believe

that there is a meaning to life and as we get older we discover the meaning of life and how it

changes and evolves as we do.

Personally, I feel that babies and children from the age of 0-12 years old do not ponder

the meaning of life because they simply do not have that higher level of thinking or curiosity of

things bigger than them yet. At this age they are rapidly developing menatlly and physically.

Children around those ages typically are more focused on the present time and living in the

moment. However, that does not mean they don’t have a meaning to life. I feel that their

meaning to life is to provide the innocence and continuous fun that the world lacks as we get

older. I feel that this is their meaning to life because of how little they think about the future and

how unaware they are of the world around them is, because of that they have a more carefree

personality which allows them to be more goofy and happy in any situation.
 Mohammed 2

When the child reaches adolescence or the age of 12-18 years old and starts going

through puberty, and starting to become a teenager that’s when they become more aware of the

world around them and start to develop questions that require a deeper level of thinking. Also,

during this age they are in school, becoming more educated, more social and overall going

through self discovery. Therefore, the meaning of life at this age is self discovery because this is

the age where we start to become more interesting in our education and figure out which subjects

we prefer over others as well as which ones we excel at more than others. This is also the age

where we discover which kind of friend groups we prefer to hang around, sometimes even the

kind of people we romantically cooperate with better than others. Since this is more of an age of

self discovery and testing the waters it’s more laid back and adventurous than if they were a

young adult.

A young adult can be defined as someone between the ages of 18-21 years old. This is a

more serious age than any of the previous ones. This is the age where higher education starts or

even where going into the workforce starts. This is also the age where our relationships with

other people become more serious and at this point people are fully aware of the world around

them and think more into the future. I would say the meaning of life at this age is getting

prepared to enter the real world as an individual. When I say as an individual I mean

independently because at this age most people start to leave home to go live on their own and

gain more responsibility because of that. I chose this to be the meaning of life at this age because

many people this age go to college to pursue further education in a specific field of interest that

then will become a job and responsibility, ideally for the rest of their life. This is also the age

where the friend group gets smaller and you could potentially have a more serious romantic

relationship, but the social circle still remains small. That is because our focus shifts from a more
 Mohammed 3

carefree aspect to a more serious one as people get their lives in order to provide for themselves

and depend more on themselves than other people.

Finally, as an adult or anyone 21 years of age and up are people in the real world working

and providing for themselves and maybe even a family now. At this point in life there are a wide

range of possibilities for the meaning of life. It could be to have a family, to provide for a

family, focusing on work, focusing on oneself, the options are endless at this point. This is the

point in life where more people debate the meaning of life and even try to find one. It really is up

to an individual to determine for themselves what they want to focus their life around at that

point. However, many people around this age and up feel that there is only one meaning to life

and look to philosophers to help them discover the answer.

A philosopher named William James “was a leading philosopher and psychologist at the

turn of the 19th century” (The Pursuit of Happiness). After receiving his medical degree he

suffered from deteriorating health and depression because he would spend his time trying to

determine what the meaning of life was and would refer to it as the “crisis of meaning”. After

some soul searching and the help of his other philosopher friends he decided to not focus on

finding a meaning but to live in the moment and find happiness. He then determined the meaning

of life was to find happiness. “James comes to this conclusion after much reflection on the

perennial question “Is Life worth Living?” Some people seem naturally happy and do not need to

consciously choose to be happy” (The Pursuit of Happiness).

In his depression he found out that the majority of people who did not ponder the

meaning of life were more happy than those who did ponder the meaning of life, like he did.

William James became so obsessed and overwhelmed trying to find a meaning to life that it

consumed his every thought, removing the happiness from life. That is when he decided to take a
 Mohammed 4

step back and live life and enjoy moments with his friends and family instead of constantly

trying to research and read and find one meaning to life. Once he realized that when he took a

step back and enjoyed life, finally starting to feel happy, he decided that the meaning of life was

to enjoy life and find happiness.

My opinion was that the meaning of life is continuously changing as we evolve and even

as the world evolves, I mentioned in better details how that different ages and stages have

different life meanings. I still think there is no one solid meaning to life unlike William James,

who thought there was only one meaning in life. William James thought the ultimate meaning to

life is to find happiness in everything and not to focus on things that can consume the mind with

sadness. After reviewing my point of view and William James point of view, I think if there is

an ultimate meaning of life it would be to not stress on finding a meaning because of how fast it

can change and evolve, but also to find happiness in everything we do like William James

decided to do.
 Mohammed 5

Work Cited

“William James.” Pursuit of Happiness, www.pursuit-of-happiness.org/history-of-

happiness/william-james/.

Goodman, Russell. “William James.” Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Stanford

University, 20 Oct. 2017, plato.stanford.edu/entries/james/.

“Ages & Stages.” HealthyChildren.org,

www.healthychildren.org/English/ages-stages/Pages/default.aspx.

“CDC's Developmental Milestones.” Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Centers

for Disease Control and Prevention, 5 Dec. 2019,

www.cdc.gov/ncbddd/actearly/milestones/index.html.