Humanity

The man who regards his own life and that of his fellow creatures as

meaningless is not merely unhappy but hardly fit for life.

-Albert Einstein.

Quotes are often dangerous things to base a lot of thought around

since, after all, they must be relatively short and concise, and in the

process, may not necessarily mean the same thing when taken out of context

that they did in context. However, occasionally, a writer will write a

phrase and they will seem to know very well that it will be quoted.

That is what Einstein's quote seems to be like. Without espousing any

one particular doctrine or another, Einstein wholeheartedly rejected

one particular idea, that being the idea that life could be without any

particular meaning. Which, logically, leaves us, the reader, with the

daunting question of "what is the meaning of life, if there so

certainly must be one?"

The fact of the matter is, Einstein was probably not certain of that

himself. A man like himself, who had seen so much and been able to

fathom such intense ideas, had probably gone beyond the point of trying to

simplify the universe to the level where what works for one person

could work for everyone else. Perhaps, then, what the quote is really

suggesting is that, to meet Einstein's criteria for life, one must find

their own path, their own individual passion which gives them a reason

to be on this earth.

This seems to make sense. How could a human life, or the lives of

many more intelligent animals, for that matter, possibly be lived to their

full potential