A drop in the bucket

People can figure out if life has value or not if their own life has value. Which means that we should be happy and should be continuously looking forward to something, such as completing a bucket list. When there is something to complete in life that we want to either possess or experience, we realize that our lives have value.  A bucket list is a great example of knowing weather your life has value or not; it a list where a person writes all the things he or she would like to do before they die. An example is my own bucket list, here are a couple of my own things I would like to possess or experience before I die: Learn Romanian, Learn to Tango, Own  a Volkswagen hippie van, Travel to New Zealand for a month, and Go windsurfing on the coasts of Southern Spain. Each of these ideas has a significant meaning to me which is why I would want to complete them before i die.
 Romanian, I personally think it is an overlooked language and not many people think of it, not even the country. I remember I was working and a family came in, they had a hard accent that I couldn't pin on it so I asked where they were from, they said Romania. And since then I have wanted to learn Romanian (and in fact have learned some). For the Tango, I have wanted to learn it ever since my sophomore year when I had to present with my friend Penelope, and one of the dances we presented were the "Tango". I loved the music so much and got reminded of it while searching for it (like movies such as "Take the Lead" with Antonio Banderas). The reason for the hippie van is because of how colorful they are. Not only on the outside with all the paintings they can have, but also what is on the inside. Sometimes you can have couches, rugs, disco balls! And it can carry so many people, whenever I see one I get very jealous of the people who have them because now it's rare to find that van. New Zealand would be fun to travel too because of the different climates there. The way it's an island in  the ocean, more isolated, it's very green though near the deserts of Australia, and I find it very exotic. Lastly, I have dreamed this past year to travel to the coasts of Spain to go windsurfing. This is because I have a story that I imagine and in that one, a character I have made goes to Spain on a mission and to cover it, he is a windsurfer; during which I visit and go windsurfing. Hence why windsurfing on the southern coast of Spain if one of my dreams I will pursue and experience before I die. Each of these have their own significance, but not to humanity. These are my own experiences that I want to pursue.  If someone says their own bucket list, I do not think it would effect humanity, though maybe a small percentage who shares the same dreams but not much. The only other way that it would effect humanity is if there was "save the world" which would include humanity, which most of mine are (truthfully) selfish. So, what is the meaning and purpose of my life? It's to fulfill those desires as well as others. Overall though, the meaning of life is to find out what you are truly after, and the purpose of it is to fulfill those needs. 

Pessimists, Optimists, and Opportunists

Utnapishtim replies to Gilgamesh's painful search for immortality with simplicity: "There is no permanence" (106). What this quote is saying for humanity is that we, or anything in fact, cannot live forever or will eventually change so much that . Our world today illustrates the notion of impermanence in more ways than one. Graveyards for example; they are there not only to show what some people think as respect for the dead, but to show us that we will die at some point and there is already location (unless you decide to burn yourself) set up for you. Another way is through language and culture. Over the last centuries cultures and languages have been lost due to time and the technology we have made. An example is cuneiform, it is lost, though it has been the basis for many languages today such as arabic, greek, and in the past latin...etc. Though, latin is now considered dead language because no one speaks it as a national language. 
People wake up every morning to new things that can either change their breakfast or lifestyle. I believe that in the past, people didn't think much about moving forward in technology because they just wanted to get through their day as the way it was. Egyptians for example were always using bronze and liked it until the Hyksos took over and showed them iron. And if it weren't for them, I can say that the Egyptians would not have found iron for another dynasty or two because they had such a good lifestyle (granted that their location was next to the nile giving them an advantage over other nations). But in todays modern world, the only thing we look forward to is technology. Medical technology, Cinema technology, Military technology; people want to make things easier so they can relax or in other words, be lazy. The people look forward to it because they know what is coming before it actually hits and they can be prepared for it with either a smile, or giant posters saying "Strike!". 
It is said by many people that we are going to die in 2012 because the mayan calendar ends and the planets will align perfectly (makes me think that someone ripped off Hercules...), but a new study shows that we will die in 3.7 billion years. Happily, I will [hopefully] not be alive then. But when people know when their death is or hear about it or see it, they can either think two things, life is meaningless, or it does have some meaning. For the people who think it is meaningless they have a right to think so because we will eventually all die in the end - this is known as the pessimistic view of everything. But for the people who think there is meaning even with death guaranteed on our plates, they would be considered opportunists and/or optimists. To them, it gives life more meaning because in our "small little world" we have so much we can do. Accomplishment is the key word, even to the pessimists. At the end of the day we all feel accomplished that we have either finished this assignment or walked to the car, even subconsciously or to the point that we don't acknowledge it till days or years. later. This is the meaning of life for all people. 

As mortal beings, we create a sense of order by our justice and law system. 

People who defy it are called rebels but to me, they are considered "rare" compared to the people who follow the justice system/law. As it started back with Hammurabi's law and people eventually changed it with time but kept in mind that we all have a code to follow. Do right, and don't do anything against the law, despite weather you think it is right or wrong. To create a sense of eternal life, we today have advanced much in technology but it also, like the law, it started all the way back to Egyptian times. They started it with mummifying, though it was only for the pharaohs, they believed that once they were buried with their things and encased in gold, they would move on though with the promise of eternal life. And today we have created wrinkle creams and surgeries to make is so that we can "reverse back time" on how we look; creating an illusion that we can live forever, when we can't. Fame also has a big effect because they promote it with their looks and making themselves look younger which make people want everlasting life more. 

Though, as Utnapishtim said, "There is no permanence" (106) nothing can stay forever, it eventually changes or gets forgotten completely.