“Alright everyone, raise your hand if you want to die!”
*Nobody raises their hand*
Wow, people really like to stay alive…
Everyone must highly value human life!
Just kidding
We all know that’s not true
Then why do we want to live so bad?
YOLO? You only live once, so you better make the most of it?
Maybe
Still doesn’t explain humankind’s healthy fear of death…
Around the 1st and 2nd centuries CE, a Roman satirist, Juvenal, coined the phrase “Panem et Circenses”
Thanks Juvenal!
The phrase is translated “bread and circuses”
In a political context, it refers to the complete degradation of the Roman Empire
In a philosophical context, however, it refers to human nature
Good ol’ human nature – gotta love it!
We humans want our food, we want our pleasure, and we don’t want much else!
Thus, we live to enjoy ourselves
Too bad toiling away and being responsible is the only way not only to stay alive but also to be in a financial position which allows us to acquire pleasure
So we toil to live to have fun, but we toil so much that we don’t have the time nor the energy to have fun!
It’s all quite the hopeless cycle…
I wonder, maybe there’s something higher than mere pleasure that could provide purpose for a life of toil…
(*cough* Ecclesiastes!)
But I can’t expect anyone to be unnecessarily superstitious
So I leave you with this: If you don’t have purpose, then you get to toil though a life of meaningless depression…and that’s the fun part.
Have a good day!
“For God so loved the world that He gave His one and only Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life” – John 3: 16
“That if you confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus and believe in your heart that God has raised him from the dead, you will be saved.” – Romans 10: 9
The Wise Ry Guy 