Meaning of Life

Last night i was chatting with an old friend of mine on the msn. Then suddenly he popped up the question "what do u think is the meaning of life?" He is into Buddhism teachings when we were back in uni, while im more or less an atheist. He has been wondering what is the real meaning of life for some time now. According to Buddhism, life itself is suffering. And in order to break this cycle, we should do more good and up our karma so that we achieve the state of Nirvana, in which we do not need to be reborn to undergo another life cycle of suffering. Or something like that...correct me if im wrong :P

I want to believe that life is beyond mere routines of working and sleeping. He says, we as human being has average life span of 80 to 90 years (provided ur healthy la), but our life cycle is pretty much predictable. I guess what he means is we are doing exactly what OTHERS SEEM to be doing, whether its the right thing or not is another matter. The life cycle we were talking about is "born-study/graduate-work-married-parenting-die". Well of cos there are some variations eg some of us chose to remain single all his/her life...

We all live in a capitalist and materialistic world, fortunately or unfortunately. Since we were born into this world, we are already bonded to the society norm. Society norm of "born-study/graduate-work-married-parenting-die". We want to be conforming to the norm because we actually have the tendency to be just ORDINARY. We dont want to be stigmatized to be someone abnormal...Its certainly not an easy task to overrule old thinkings or traditions, eventhough they might be wrong. But how many of us actually have the courage to be the one perceived "extraordinary/abnormal"?

He says, we should learn to free ourselves from suffering. Which basically means to have a happy life. When everyone live in this capitalism society, kindness is rare and thus less happiness. Everyone is chasing paper qualifications, higher ranks in jobs, higher status in society, higher level in condo and maybe even a grander place of burial after we die LOL. But what about higher level of happiness?

Then he urged me to "live the actual moment, dont think too much of the past nor the future"....something i have been trying to do for the past half a year actually. And its true that i really feel more liberating when i dont have these different thoughts about the past and future boggling my mind.

"Maybe the very last moment of my life, will it be hurt?" This is his deepest fear in life, the fear of death, which is why he thinks religion is important to him. I was never a philosophical kinda guy. I replied him: "I haven't give much thought about death though. I'm worry more about how i live, rather than how i die.." LOL

But seriously though, i think its true because how u live your life would definitely have some bearing on how u end up later, no?

That was pretty much our short little ranting lolz. Today is my 2nd day of MC actually. Been having fever and generalized joint pain and headache since 2 days ago. Gotten treatment in hospital. Most probably some viral fever or chikugunya fever. The joint pain was pretty bad initially but now much more bearable after taking some stronger painkiller. Why need MC leh? Because im supposed to be working this Raya holiday...Yeah..Life itself is definitely suffering!!......Time to rest more ^^