Homework #30 History

What are the sources of this sense of meaninglessness but also of the need for a sense of meaning?


This meaningless to me is something that started not all too long ago. I think the rise of film and movies was the main reason for people having this hole and sense of meaninglessness. The majority of movies involve someone or something carrying out a heroic act. Time after time we constantly watch movies with a different heroic act. Usually, the main character is caught in a struggle or is faced with a major problem and finds a way to over come it and ends up extremely happy. Of course not every single movie or even story involves this but most do because in order to follow a plot with climax there must be a issue or problem. There is nothing wrong with these movies at all but in my opinion they are one of the major reasons we constantly feel empty and have not lived an exciting life. We continuously see images of people overcoming these huge unrealistic battles in life. In turn we people are brainwashed to believe that the smaller battles and achievements that we overcome in our lives are less meaningful. We immediately compare our battles to another battle we have once seen on a television set and most of the time we will fall short in comparison to that event in the movie making us feel less then we are. Old people wishing they were young again are often those who had a meaningless life when they were of a younger age.
More often than not people use a partner to fill or mask this whole of emptiness we have. I would'nt say it is a distraction from the emptiness but it provides a way to prevent the feeling of emptiness. For one, you are likely to reproduce and that is a feeling of pride and honor, and a partner keeps you busy and almost in a sense of denial from this hole. After my parents divorced each other they quickly moved on to find other partners just to mask this feeling. Part of it could be competition between them but in our society we are made to believe the thought of growing old alone and not reproducing is depressing and wrong. We want someone to hold on to and be with to make us feel good. Friends have this affect of masking up being lonely but usually its affect seems to feel more short term.