As much as I find the concept of having "opinions" or "beliefs" utterly useless,

even more so those without any foundation of Truth,

I do value that of having a central "philosophy" or "theme" or "value" for living,

given they have been self-actualized and thus have been time-tested

over years if not decades.

I have used quotes in the words above because I do not mean to stress the intellectual meaning of those words.

In fact, and as a side note on my writing, I urge you to not attempt to find any "meaning",

for then you will be "missing the point".

~~~

Man's life spans many phases as he goes from being a newborn to being elderly.

Each phase is marked by a new realization, either in hindsight, about the life he has been living,

or in foresight, about the one he wants to live. Or both.

In each of these phases, he plays a role or a few.

Some roles, of course, span multiple phases.

When playing a role, he is a beginner at first,

learning the ropes, "failing" again and again, "succeeding" here and there.

While the mournings of the "failures" and the excitement of the "successes" keep him hooked to a role,

the cumulative learnings from the "hits" and the "misses" allow him to be able to fully grow into it.

Finally, if and when he "gets it", he is able to "thrive".

Which basically has him "succeeding" more often and "failing" fewer times, if at all.

~~~

Now consider two men in their advanced years,

who from the outside, seem to have lived the exact same life from start to finish.

That is, they went through similar phases, played roughly the similar roles,

and even had a more or less equivalent number of "successes" and "failures".

And now, as they both stand at the brink of arriving at "The day",

they are both, individually, asked some questions

Questions like ...

"Were you able to live a good life?

"Are you satisfied with the way you lived?"

"Did you attain all that you wanted to attain?"

"Did you experience all that you wanted to experience?"

"Looking back at your life, would you have done things differently?"

~~~

When one listens to these two men answer such questions,

and observe their manner and facial expressions,

as they utter the variants of "yes" or "no" or "good" or "bad" or "few" or "lot" or the like,

they notice that though similar have been from the outside, their lives and the events in them,

their own, personal experiences of the times or that which they recall have been vastly different.

One of them appears to be always running out of words to mask all the pain, suffering and struggle that most of his life has been,

while the other does not even exhibit as much of a speck of such tones in his answers.

One of them has a sense of calm and wholeness as if his facial expressions say it all and he needs to speak not a word,

while the other seems to be turmoiled inside and constantly choosing what to say and what to say not.

~~~

So why fill out most of a post that is titled "What is the point of living", by such a comparative narration?

Why not, just "give you the answer"?

Why not just have multiple paragraphs, one beginning with "The point of living is ... " and then others backing them up?

Because you see, the answer to such questions, cannot just be given.

For no single answer exists to such questions.

The reader or the listener must be allowed to arrive at their own answer.

~~~

The one difference between the two men, that resulted in their otherwise semblant

lives making them feel the way they did, either during or at the end,

was that one of them had arrived at a few such answers.

One of them had found and time-tested their own philosophy of living.

After all, when one is able to viscerally know the answer to questions like "What is the point of living?",

they have, necessarily "cracked the life code" and found the "secret key".

(Yes, very much like Neo seeing the code of the Matrix.)

When such wisdom reaches one's bloodstream, life becomes a game, as they become life themselves.

All the phases and the roles are seen for what they are,

and the ability to breeze through times calling for "hardship" or "tough decisions"

or those requiring "finetuned judgment" is automatically realized.

Thank you.