Lifthrasir - The Meaning Of Life

Years ago I started studying the great works of mankind, the tao te ching, Bhagavad Gita, Plato, Aristotle, Schopenhauer, Nietzsche, and on and on. I had the time and the resources to entwine myself in these old tomes. When you take a journey within these concepts and writings and apply and contemplate the meanings that are being debated, they are profound to ones self and who you become. You can not read these works and digest these subjects and not become more.

Now I am not one to quote philosophers, you will not find in this discussion quotes from Socrates or Plato, of meanings found in caves or journeys through wildernesses. That is just not my style or way. What you will find is a concept for the understanding of what it means to live. I am a follower of asatru or heathenry, so my worldview is centered around the mythos from the Edda's and ancient europe. This does not make this concept ethnocentric, as if you apply the concept I present here to most cultures you will find a similar strand I believe. I of course am of European stock and its mythos strume inside of me.

The main concept I gained from all of these works was that life itself is hard and we struggle within it. We fight to become and live. We humans at our best of times are struggling against time to live. To be is to live, and to live is to overcome, to struggle against nature to hammer out a living, against another tribe to have more land, a competing company to gain dominance, our even ourselves to get in shape or excell at a task or objective. I came to this realization early on in my readings, as you read story after story of a god or hero going through trials or ordeals to become something more, slaying the monster or overcoming the catastrophe to gain his prize.

We all know that life is not handed to many. Even today it is the stories of the determined individuals who we make movies about. So, how does struggling for life make a meaning for life? A meaning for life is purportedly a instructional manual on what one needs to do to live a fulfilling life, correct? Sorta like the ten commandments of Moses, and if you follow those ten commandants you will live a life full of amazement and fulfillment. I am not of the tribe of Abraham, so I do not live by those principals, not saying they are not good principals to live up to, I have no problem with them, but the meaning of life is not ten does and do not's carved into stone. Yea, you know nothing is never that simple.

The meaning of life is to long for life. To strive and struggle against, nature, man, society, biology and time. To become more and live longer. Nature understands this on its basic level, and uses evolution to struggle and adapt, ever changing to become stronger and propagate itself.

Lifthrasir - Longing for Life

Most have heard of the tale of Ragnarok, or twilight of the gods, it is a Germanic concept that is similar to the Abrahamic doomsday scenario of Armageddon. There is many differences between these two concepts as they belong to two different cultures of people, but the principal is that eventually everything will collapse and die. In the Ragnarok tale, after all the battles and earth destructions there is a small side note, that though everything dies there is still the seeds for regrowth in two beings names Lif and Lifthrasir.

Lif literally means Life, and Lifthrasir means Longing for Life. These two beings are the seeds that are hidden away in the destruction to eventually bring forth all life. Looking at this outside all the metaphysics, in Lif you have the seeds of life, a beating heart, complex cells, matter. But it is Lifthrasir that you have meaning. It is the Longing for Life, the struggle that binds the matter, that makes the cells reproduce, that makes the heart love.

Yes, I cloak my meaning of life in cultural trappings, but that is my style and what makes me me. I could of just said that the meaning of life is to struggle and live. I am who I am, and apart of that is a heathen of the ancient ways, a follower of Asatru and the beliefs of ancient Europe. Does this system work for me. Very well. Most who look for a meaning of life are looking for a understanding , a fullness, a sense of wholeness. I have personally applied this concept to my life for over twenty years and a sense of wholeness has never left me.

Lifthrasir is not a number of commandments one must follow, it is not a code, it is a understanding. Lifthrasir is lif, to long for life is the have life.