Teeth, language and racial origins

Originally posted by Copperbod: ↑

"My point was, if you achieve much in life, or very little, it is still precious to somebody, but at the individual level, if one has studied hard, achieved much, been dearly loved, then you die and absolutely nothing of you remains, for you, not the memories of other, then the sum total of your life is zero.

I'm sorry, but that is a hard truth. The sum of your life may echo in the lives and memories of others, but if you are extinguished, then your life led to zero."

Our life has "value" while it exists.
The food you eat and air you breath has no existence beyond it's necessity and transformation at the time of it's absorption.
That doesn't mean when it's time to move on to the next breath that it had no value.

Perhaps the issue is the short sighted ego based version of "life" that most Humans insist on.
Humanity serves Nature and has a "debt" to pay for it's existence.
That's how it is. Like all other species we transform "substances" from one type to another. We are part of the great chain of life on Earth.
Whether we are aware and accept this or not, from that aspect, no Human life is without purpose.

In the same way that every sheep in a flock has a purpose. The sheep thinks it's purpose is to eat, frolic and be merry, which it does, never realising it's greater purpose to provide gainful employment for shepherds, exercise for sheep dogs, food for occasional "foxes" and eventually wool, meat and profit for it's owners. The account of it's life from a sheep would be much different from that of it's shepherd and of course dramatically different from it's "owner".

The interesting thing about Humans is that the possibility was given to voluntarily pay this "debt" whilst retaining some "free" life energy for temporary individual use.
It is said that this can be used to grow another "body", capable of passing on to serve a higher purpose. The excess from fulfilling that purpose can go to serving an even higher purpose .. and so on. But only for a definite number.

So, in evaluating the purpose of an individual life, it is not just a matter of what's in the photo album.

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I was speaking more about the store of one's life achievements. Those acheivements that come at some cost to you. That are over and above the needs required simply to survive.

I understand your point, but if a life is spent in higher education, service to humanity, self-sacrifice, and this ends completely at death then to what avail? It is a sum total of nothing. Sure, on the fly through life we add temporal value here and there, but to me absolute death means that life is meaningless.

I do not think life is meaningless and I do not think it ends with death, but if it does, then I won't even be able to regret all those opportunities I had to be far naughtier than I was.