“I don't know the meaning of life. I don't know why we are here. I think life is full of anxieties and fears and tears. It has a lot of grief in it, and it can be very grim. And I do not want to be the one who tries to tell somebody else what life is all about. To me it's a complete mystery.”
― Charles M. Schulz, Charles M. Schulz: Conversations

“I live for sex.

I celebrate it, and relish the electricity of it, with every fibre of my being.

I can see no better reason for being alive.”
― Fiona Thrust, Naked and Sexual

“To feel aroused is to feel alive. Having great sex is like taking in huge lungfuls of fresh air, essential to your body, essential to your health, and essential to your life.”
― Fiona Thrust, Naked and Sexual

“What's the meaning of life? Other people.”
― John Green

“Home is watching the moon rise over the open, sleeping land and having someone you can call to the window, so you can look together. Home is where you dance with others, and dancing is life.”
― Stephen King

“I love being aroused.

I relish that delicious feeling of freedom, the delirium of being naked, and my flesh being born again.

It’s like I’m being made new.”
― Fiona Thrust, Naked and Sexual

“… when people ask about the meaning of life as if it were the job of our cosmos to give meaning to our existence, they’re getting it backward: It’s not our Universe giving meaning to conscious beings, but conscious beings giving meaning to our Universe.”
― Max Tegmark, Life 3.0: Being Human in the Age of Artificial Intelligence

“Comedy is Camusian...the world is absurd”
― Carol L. Covin

“Maybe life has no ceiling, no floors, no walls, and we're free-falling from the moment we're born, lying to each other, agreeing to make invented ideas important, to numb ourselves from the secret."

"What's the secret?"

"Maybe what happens between birth and death isn't as precious as we think.”
― Emily Habeck, Shark Heart

“Reason is incompetent to answer any fundamental question about God, or morality, or the meaning of life.”
― Carl Lotus Becker, The Heavenly City of the Eighteenth Century Philosophers

“The treasures in our lives, are found and are gathered in the moments that we experience and that we create. These moments happen in the minutes that we indwell. If only we could see that these are the treasures of life; and not all those things we have believed to be treasures, that we always go so hard at. Stop and feel the minute you are living in right now: what does the wind feel like? What do the trees look like? What does that smile mean? Do you feel there is love? Gather your treasures.”
― C. JoyBell C.

“One must have a reason to "be happy." Once the reason is found, however, one becomes happy automatically. As we see, a human being is not one in pursuit of happiness but rather in search of a reason to become happy, last but not least, through actualizing the potential meaning inherent and dormant in a given situation.

This need for a reason is similar in another specifically human phenomenon - laughter. If you want anyone to laugh you have to provide him with a reason, e.g., you have to tell him a joke. In no way is it possible to evoke real laughter by urging him, or having him urge himself to laugh.”
― Viktor E. Frankl, Man's Search for Meaning

“Dear child, it matters not if the boy loves you. It only matters if you love the Sun, and the Rain, and the Donut, and the Cat, and the colour Purple. It only matters if you love having this one precious life. It doesn't matter if the boy doesn't love you.”
― C. JoyBell C.

“Anyhow, he say, you know how it is. You ast yourself one question, it lead to fifteen. I start to wonder why us need love. Why us suffer. Why us black. Why us men and women. Where do children really come from. It didn't take long to realize I didn't hardly know nothing. And that if you ast yourself why you black or a man or a woman or a bush it don't mean nothing if you don't ast why you here, period.

So what you think? I ast.

I think us here to wonder, myself. To wonder. To ast. And that in wondering bout the big things and asting bout the big things, you learn about the little ones, almost by accident. But you never know nothing more about the big things than you start out with. The more I wonder, he say, the more I love.”
― Alice Walker, The Color Purple

“Don't die with your wisdom and experiences longing to live forever after you are gone: write a book.”
― Dr. Jacinta Mpalyenkana

“What is the meaning of life? Why are we here?

Philosophers have pondered that question for centuries. I'm afraid the answer is disappointingly simple: Mating.

That's it.

Christians seem to think that life is a test, and that the goal is to get into Heaven. But that's like saying your job is to get a promotion. No, your job is to work. And then, if you worked hard, then you get promoted. Heaven is supposed to be a reward or promotion, for a job well done. And what's our job? "Be fruitful and multiply." We are here to mate and procreate. That's it. That's all there's to it.

That's the meaning of life. Mating.”
― Oliver Markus Malloy, Why Men And Women Can't Be Friends: Honest Relationship Advice for Women

“Maybe life is playing the role it should: forever taking us on a journey where it makes it impossible for us to predict what will happen next.”
― Nico J. Genes, ADHD: LIFE IS BEAUTIFUL

“Then my mother begins to dance, re-arranging
this dream. Her love

is difficult; loving her is simple as putting raspberries
in my mouth.

On my brother’s head: not a single
gray hair, he is singing to his twelve-month-old son.

And my father is singing
to his six-year-old silence.

This is how we live on earth, a flock of sparrows.
The darkness, a magician, finds quarters

behind our ears. We don't know what life is,
who makes it, the reality is thick

with longing. We put it up to our lips
and drink.”
― Ilya Kaminsky, Dancing in Odessa

“My mom gave me life
When I gave her back silence not a grandchild,
She reconsidered the entire cycle of life…

(July 1, 2015)”
― Louis Yako, أنا زهرة برية [I am a Wildflower]

“I'm thinking how beautiful the world is, Eben; and how it keeps on being beautiful--no matter what happens to us. The spring comes year after year, for us, or Egypt; the sun goes down in the same green, lovely sky; the birds sing...for us, or yesterday...or for yesterday...or for tomorrow. It was never made for anything but beauty, Eben--whether we lived now, or long ago.”
― Robert Nathan, Portrait of Jennie

“Life without music would be mistake, because music takes me where words can not.”
― Sophia L Skaalerud

“The purpose of life seems to be to torment human beings with the question as to what the purpose of life is.”
― Mokokoma Mokhonoana

“I believe If you can help just one person in life then your life has been worthwhile.”
― Ken Poirot

“A lot of people spend a lot of time chasing a lot of things that will never bring lasting happiness.”
― Wayne Gerard Trotman

“We are each called to reach out to others. On rare occasions that can happen on a grand scale. But most of the time it happens in simple acts of kindness of one person to another. Those are the events that really matter.”
― Francis S. Collins, The Language of God: A Scientist Presents Evidence for Belief

“[Our Contemporary Lexicon]
As years go by
And lives are wasted,
As we lose everything,
We discover the real meaning
Of the words shaping our lives…
Words that have filled our contemporary lexicon,
We know the words yet don’t fully grasp them,
And the more we hear them,
The more confusing they become…
Words like
War
Bank
Justice
Media
Capital
Investment
Advertisement
Weapon
School
University
Hospital
Humanitarian organization
Civil society
Ethnicity
Race
Religion
Modernity
Backwardness
Secularism
Trade
Love
Family
Prison
Home
Immigration
Visa
Passport
Borders
Democracy
Elections
Car
Plane
And countless others…
Words that may pretend to oppose each other publicly,
Yet are secretly in bed with each other
Making love, acting as synonyms and French kissing…
Words that in reality
Walk hand in hand and are united against us
To achieve the mutual goal of depriving most of us
Of having a decent life with dignity…
Words used by allies and foes alike, as needed!
Words that have become rustier than our souls,
Yet their fake glitter continues to deceive millions upon billions
Of people believing faithfully in them
Or working hard to access their imagined benefits...
As years go by,
We learn late in the game
That all the meanings we ascribed to such words
Are in fact killing us
Raping us
In the homeland
On the border
And in exile!
As the game continues,
At a late hour,
We discover that
Our worries and sleepless nights
In hopes of a bearable world
Have all been wasted in vain…
What is happening today
Has happened throughout history…
And the game shall continue
Until we reexamine this lexicon
Until we destroy it
And rewrite all its pages
To erase all the monsters its words
Within all of us…

(February 6, 2015)”
― Louis Yako, أنا زهرة برية [I am a Wildflower]

“There is no place in the universe as inviting as home and the comfortable relationships there.”
― Brian Herbert

“Death's Embrace - A Soliloquy by Stewart Stafford

In sincere tongue, declare with heart:
Art thou but a mimic, shadow of the art,
Or standest thou bold, architect of the new,
Crafting the morrow in thy vision true?

Unburden me from this oppressive weight,
I cannot bear this overwhelming force.
Despair hath found its pinnacle in me,
And I must peer into realms unknown,
If cherished sight fails me at mine end,
I shall renounce all chimeras of the light.

But fall not tamely from Life’s precipice,
Death presses hard on thy frail fingers,
Hold on, cry, resist thy certain ruin!
Trouble's court, may yet bestow thee favour.
Dreams are but fancies giv’n swift wings,
That soar beyond the bounds of reason;
In minds that dare to fly unshackled,
The dreamer becometh the vision.

Love is both a journey and destination:
Long and painful upon the path,
Unsought, yet blissful when it is found.
From dust conjur’d — to stars, we’re turned.
Beware the self-righteous man,
Whose pride does unseat the very world
Before he sees his error.

Piteous wounds of thine own hand,
'Tis easy to judge from afar
Without walking with aching bones.
If there be cause that yet remaineth here,
It showeth their harshness and injustice
To themselves and their loving others.
Mourn their release with mercy and thanks
Transient whispers guide along chance’s way.

Weep not for those who have found Death’s embrace,
They lament for us who tarry on old shores.
Death but ushers a veiled dawn, not life's twilight,
A metamorphosis of guise, not of the spirit's light.
Though we must part for now, we shall be one again.
For love’s wrought by flesh, yet holds not its chain.

Time-worn age stoops; penitents depart.
Pawned as one in vigilant trance
But what a folly 'tis to mark the signs of our undoing;
Memory's comet trails bequeathed to loved ones left,
Contagion's rehearsal on the ephemeral stage.
With luck, a stand-in may go on in thy stead.
Ere thy final bow becomes unavoidable.

With tyrant Death prowling public ways,
I turn from mankind hence to seek delight.
A chamber ceiling seen upon morn's wake,
I say: “The sun does rise? Let's haste away!”
Upon waking, a stone tomb's ashen lid,
I would perchance say: “Alas!..mine eyes do grow heavy.”

A life well-liv’d is not weigh’d by earthly goods
Or the number of mourners at the grave.
Numerous, deep laugh lines tell the tale,
On the face of the person lying still in the crypt,
Reveals threescore years and twelve’s true worth.
Death is not the villain of the piece;
It is the next phase of life, in strange attire.
I accept my fate with grace and courage.
For I have liv’d and lov’d and dream’d enough.

© Stewart Stafford, 2024. All rights reserved.”
― Stewart Stafford

“I thank Alan Watts for my awakening which occurred on 29 October 2024 at around 8 pm. But I had to no-fap, no booze, no drugs for 114 days to understand his crucial lecture. One of his remarkable recordings of the 1970s reached me in 2024. I had heard that lecture many times before but had dismissed it, or never got it. But I think I should continue his discussion by pointing out that this knowledge can be used for good, and bad. Daoism, Buddhism, Hinduism, the hermetic teachings, the kabbalah are all explained in one moment when you awaken totally, but that knowledge will naturally also be used by darkness. Without the darkness there is no light. And without the light there is no darkness. But the darkness is way ahead of the light. And the lightness needs to wake up, and soon. Because the darkness wants to change everything by changing the rules, of the game we all play and are a part of.”
― Jack Freestone

“We are all just playing some stupid role in a stupid movie that we all wrote.”
― Jack Freestone