THE FUTILITY OF LIFE

   'A human being is a weak, ugly, sinful creature born that way, rotten in his bones-so humility is the virtue he ought to practice. He ought to spend his life on his knees, begging to be forgiven for his dirty existence. When a man thinks he is good that is when he is rotten. Pride is the worst of all sins, no matter what he has done.'( Ayn Rand)

   Solomon wrote and said, “Meaningless! Meaningless!” says the Teacher. “Utterly meaningless! Everything is meaningless.” What do people gain from all their labor at which they toil under the sun? Generations come and generations go,but the earth remains forever.The sun rises and the sun sets, and hurries back to where it rises.The wind blows to the south and turns to the north; round and round it goes, ever returning on its course.All streams flow into the sea,yet the sea is never full. 

To the place the streams come from,there they return again^.All things are wearisome, more than one can say.The eye never has enough of seeing, nor the ear its fill of hearing.What has been will be again,what has been done will be done again; there is nothing new under the sun.Is there anything of which one can say, “Look! This is something new”?It was here already, long ago; it was here before our time. No one remembers the former generations, and even those yet to come will not be remembered by those who follow them.(Ecclesiastes 1:1-12)

  God gives some people wealth, possessions and honor, so that they lack nothing their hearts desire, but God does not grant them the ability to enjoy them, and strangers enjoy them instead. This is meaningless, a grievous evil.There is something else meaningless that occurs on earth: the righteous who get what the wicked deserve, and the wicked who get what the righteous deserve. This too, I say, is meaningless.

  So I commend the enjoyment of life, because there is nothing better for a person under the sun than to eat and drink and be glad. Then joy will accompany them in their toil all the days of the life God has given them under the sun.When I applied my mind to know wisdom and to observe the labor that is done on earth—people getting no sleep day or night—  then I saw all that God has done. No one can comprehend what goes on under the sun. Despite all their efforts to search it out, no one can discover its meaning. Even if the wise claim they know, they cannot really comprehend it.

    Go, eat your food with gladness, and drink your wine with a joyful heart, for God has already approved what you do.  Always be clothed in white, and always anoint your head with oil.  Enjoy life with your wife, whom you love, all the days of this meaningless life that God has given you under the sun—all your meaningless days. For this is your lot in life and in your toilsome labor under the sun.  Whatever your hand finds to do, do it with all your might, for in the realm of the dead, where you are going, there is neither working nor planning nor knowledge nor wisdom. 

   Now all has been heard; here is the conclusion of the matter:
Fear God and keep his commandments,for this is the duty of all mankind.For God will bring every deed into judgment, including every hidden thing,whether it is good or evil. 

THE SYSTEM OF GOVERNMENT

   That laws are made to be broken, so that the powerful can control the weak, so that they can blackmail one another, so that in the end it is a man-eat-man society .These are the times when wealth is acquired through conquest not by intelligence and integrity. Money is no longer made through brilliance in innovation, no, we are back to slavery.

   The weak work tirelessly to make the little they can to survive. But the powerful sit down and come up with regulations to rob the poor of the little they have.The powerful have immunity from almost all the rules they make. They are not expected to break them. If they do, then its not wrong and they were doing it for the poor and the weak.Look at the cocoons the tribes represented by the individuals facing charges at the ICC have retreated to.

  Who should be more powerful? The scientist who invents a great machine that can produce goods that improve livelihoods or the politician who decides on tax rates and awards himself hefty salaries and allowances? The great thinkers who spent years behind closed doors indulging their minds to come up with manuscripts that instil intelligence to other minds? Ask yourself who should be more powerful, the doctor who comes up with a procedure that can safely remove a brain tumor?

   We don't reward human power anymore, we reward brutality, guns, and bloodshed. We give in so that we can live. There is no way to rule innocent men. The only power any government has is the power to crack down on criminals. Well, then there aren't enough criminals, one makes them. One declares so many things to be a crime that it becomes impossible for men to live without breaking laws. Who wants a nation of law-abiding citizens? Whats there in that for anyone? But just pass the kind of laws that can neither be observed nor enforced nor objectively interpreted, and you create a nation of law breakers, and then cash in on guilt.Now that is the system.

THE MEANING OF LIFE

'Every art and every inquiry, and similarly every action and choice, seems to aim at some good; accordingly, the good has rightly been declared to be that at which all things aim.'(EN 1094a 1-3)Aristotle
Is there an obvious candidate for the final good for human beings?

According to Christopher Shields a philosopher,the final good and ultimate reason for all our action is simply our happiness. We all wish to be happy. We wish happiness for its own sake, and not for the sake of anything beyond it, we pursue other things for the sake of happiness; happiness by itself, suffices to make our lives good. This is why, in fact, we wish for happiness above all else. Moreover, this is why the question 'yes, but why do you want to be happy' is otiose. In the domain of purposive behavior why questions come to an end with happiness.

What is it though, that we desire? Though we all agree that we seek happiness, it turns out that our agreement obscures important forms of disagreement because we turn out to disagree about the nature of happiness. When queried some of us will say that happiness consists in warm and fuzzy self-regard; others suppose that happiness is fame; others wealth; and many more are confident that happiness is pleasure.
Ayn Rand, another philosopher, came up with a philosophy she named objectivism and described it as a philosophy for living on earth. Objectivism, according to her is an integrated system of thought that defines the abstract principles by which a man must think and act if he is to live the life that is proper to a man. She argues that reason is mans only means of knowledge, his basic means of survival.

 Reason is mans only proper judge of values and his only proper guide to action. Man is an end in himself, not a means to the end of others, he must live for his own sake, neither sacrificing himself to others or others to himself; he must work for his rational interest, with the achievement of his own happiness as the highest moral of his life.

Rand seems to reject any form of altruism- the claim that morality consists in living for others or society. No matter how much we may dedicate ourselves to the service of others we are never truly appreciated and whatever appreciation we get is in itself a cold demand for more. We hope such service will bring us some sense of self achievement but in the end it erodes our sense of happiness. It is at this point that we begin to use our dedication to others as a means of domination. We then realize that what we are doing in essence is to try and find happiness and that we should have been focused on that initially.

In order for man to achieve happiness he must live in his head. Creating what he wants first in his head and then working to realize it. Trying to copy others only leads to self destruction. The government does not build infrastructure for the people, but to create opportunities to achieve the selfish goals of each of the individual leaders in such a government. That is why they never concentrate on what does not serve their interests. May be that is what man was made to be. Looking out for himself first and then the rest will fall into place. If everybody builds a road to their home and everywhere else they want to go, then we will never lack good roads and that is in the interest of everyone.

 However, remember that the purpose of philosophy is not to help men find the meaning of life, but to show them that there is none and that the duty of thinkers is not to explain, but to demonstrate that nothing can be explained.