Creating purpose and intensity in life

[coberst]

Creating purpose and intensity in life

I visited a cemetery once and remember this sentiment “She Lived Life with Intensity” engraved on a head stone. It has an appeal to most citizens but I suspect there would be many different interpretations for its meaning.

What does it mean to ‘live life with intensity’? I suspect most would judge that money is the key to such a life. I think that money is the key to comfort, which is not a key that would fit the lock on a ‘life lived with intensity’. I suspect that wealth is often the death of ‘life lived with intensity’.

I will have to recognize at least one exception to this and that is George Soros. George Soros is both rags to riches--fantastic riches in a domain of finance that he alone began--and an individual with a highly developed intellectual life. I read a book about him and also one by him and I find him a model of one who has lived life with intensity.

I think that developing an intellectual life through a self-actualizing self-learning process is the means to a ‘life lived with intensity’. I am convinced that Soros philosopher/tycoon followed that process.

What does this cryptic message “She Lived Life with Intensity” mean to you?

[MidGe]

coberst,

I am amazed that you think you need to do "something" to live life with intensity. If you don't think so, then your post is misleading.

As far as I am concerned, knowing that I can end it anytime I'd like to, is what allows me to withstand the intensity of life!

Sorry, life is too intense for me to even have time to contemplate a purpose!

[tame_deuces]

To me 'intensity in life' would mean going for what you want - and being honest about it and avoid being pretentious or a cliche. And I think you need to really care about it and not be afraid to show it either. Having some temper is a must also.

I think intensity comes in both a good and a bad version, and maybe sometimes people cross the boundaries to obsession/addiction.

[Splendour]

to ‘live life with intensity’ is a very general term that just means to live with increased energy or passion. A person could live life with intensity through sports, through personal relationships, through commitment to his ideas, etc. There are probably thousands of ways to live life with intensity, but what you are actually applying this to sounds like a specific type of person: an autodidact. John Kanzius the guy who recently managed to set water on fire while he was doing research for cancer curing inventions is an autodidact.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Autodidacticism

[MidGe]

[ QUOTE ]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Autodidacticism

[/ QUOTE ]


from the above:

Jean Paul Sartre's Nausea depicts an autodidact who is a self-deluding dilettante.

Dictionary definition: [dilettante]: a person who takes up an art, activity, or subject merely for amusement, esp. in a desultory or superficial way; dabbler.

What are you trying to say Splendour?

[Splendour]

Actually MidGe I was just struck by the picture Coberst painted which made me think of Kanzius. If I'm saying anything its: Autodidacticism (also autodidactism) is self-education or self-directed learning. An autodidact, also known as an automath, is a mostly self-taught person.

Now the dilettante that Sartre mentions is probably the ineffective autodidact. I wasn't mentioning him. I posted the link so people can see more about autodidacts. But now that you mention the dilettante I guess it just shows the spectrum of effectual and ineffectual autodidacts. I've never read Sartre's work Nausea.

I do find Twain's quote humorous though:
"I have never let my schooling interfere with my education".

I guess we're all responsible for our own education.

[Alex-db]

I think its a mistake to assume the gravestone message had depth.

She was probably terribly disorganised and always rushing about, and that was the best thing they could think of to say about her.

There have been a few posts about religion that confuse a vague definition with philosophical depth, I wouldn't worry about it.

[coberst]

[ QUOTE ]
Actually MidGe I was just struck by the picture Coberst painted which made me think of Kanzius. If I'm saying anything its: Autodidacticism (also autodidactism) is self-education or self-directed learning. An autodidact, also known as an automath, is a mostly self-taught person.

Now the dilettante that Sartre mentions is probably the ineffective autodidact. I wasn't mentioning him. I posted the link so people can see more about autodidacts. But now that you mention the dilettante I guess it just shows the spectrum of effectual and ineffectual autodidacts. I've never read Sartre's work Nausea.

I do find Twain's quote humorous though:
"I have never let my schooling interfere with my education".

I guess we're all responsible for our own education.

[/ QUOTE ]

A dilettante just dabbles at this and that never doing anything with intensity. Intensity is living life with some degree of disinterested passion. Disinterested passion is gusto with small regard to self aggrandizement.

[Splendour]

"disinterested passion"-there's no such thing. This is an oxymoron.

[hitch1978]

Ever seen the film 'Trainspotting'? They lived life with intensity.

Quite possible she was a heroin addict IMO.

[Splendour]

No I never heard of that film.

[coberst]

A dilettante just dabbles at this and that never doing anything with intensity. Intensity is living life with some degree of disinterested passion. Disinterested passion is gusto with small regard to self aggrandizement. A person who has developed their own intellectual sophistication lives a life of passion and depth that few others can even recognize. Carl Sagan said “Understanding is a kind of ecstasy.” Carl knew what living with intensity is all about. It is about billions and billions while others live with thousands and thousands.

This quotation of Carl Rogers might illuminate my meaning of disinterested passion and disinterested knowledge.

“I want to talk about learning. But not the lifeless, sterile, futile, quickly forgotten stuff that is crammed in to the mind of the poor helpless individual tied into his seat by ironclad bonds of conformity! I am talking about LEARNING - the insatiable curiosity that drives the adolescent boy to absorb everything he can see or hear or read about gasoline engines in order to improve the efficiency and speed of his 'cruiser'. I am talking about the student who says, "I am discovering, drawing in from the outside, and making that which is drawn in a real part of me." I am talking about any learning in which the experience of the learner progresses along this line: "No, no, that's not what I want"; "Wait! This is closer to what I am interested in, what I need"; "Ah, here it is! Now I'm grasping and comprehending what I need and what I want to know!"

[BigBuffet]

Soros escaped certain death from the nazis. Therefore, no failure in business would create the same consequences as being captured by the germans.

In that regard, it's was easy for him to live with intensity.

To live with intensity, you have to have a goal. Even a simple one, as long as it matters to you. Then you have to go for it with no regard for failure.

[pokervintage]

[ QUOTE ]
What does it mean to ‘live life with intensity’?

[/ QUOTE ]

The best example of this that I can think of is the movie "Black Hawk Down". whooof...intense.

pokervintage