The Meaning of Life?

Responses 1, 2, 3: Which Will You Choose?

In lieu of my second life birth as Alyosha Runner, a first bloody nose while playing ultimate frisbee, and finishing up my master’s thesis, I’ve been contemplating the meaning of life.  I doubt that I could have actually found THE meaning, but here’s an option.  You will certainly understand a LOT about me if you understand this:

Not-secret Formula to Living Life:
(notes (or disclaimers?): S/P=situation/problem, no complete solution is possible, suffering will almost surely be involved)
1. Search to find complex and worthwhile S/P (finding a complex one is easy, worthwhile is much more difficult-God, Others and Bayesian Statistics are recommended).
2. Search to find prior information about S/P (vocab, math, previous work).
3. Find others interested in understanding S/P; form a team if possible.
4. Get access to or develop sensing and analysis techniques to get basic facts about S/P.
5. Learn by exploring S/P (Use a basic (almost real-life, may be computational) or complex (real-life) example).
6. Learn by recognizing patterns in S/P as it occurs in real life.
7. Synthesize all analysis techniques into design methodology which accounts for uncertainty.
8. Design.
9. Produce design (ie: Live!).
10. Automate entire process and redo.
11. Share entire process with others (preferably done concurrently).
12. Repeat for new S/P
The point emerges:
The meaning of life=Shared Iterative Exploration.

A Note for Those in Other Fields or Potential Engineers:
I’m an engineer and likely to remain one, but there’s no need to be an engineer to live by this process. The job of an engineer just lets one do this for their livelihood with others who desire to also!

A Resultant Note for Managers:
Pigeonholes will be systematically and categorically rejected.  Try as you might, I will not become a stick-brain to simply create cogs.  Nor will I treat others as if they are simple parts of a machine except when my self-centeredness prevails.  I often do not go through this process systematically due to the fact that I am human.  Spontaneity is required to catch wind gusts. This is one reason why step 10 is so necessary.

Is running away really necessary?

A Note to Hedonists, Realists and Skeptics:
Insightful readers might note a similarity to the conclusion of “Into the Wild” (happiness is only real when shared).  I make no claims about happiness or reality being involved; some have said that death and taxes are the only guarantees and, for me, they are probably right; we’ll see for any children I have.  I do have a sneaking suspicion that Solomon was right in Ecclesiastes: the meaning is not given by the resulting product.  None-the-less, please refuse to give up you hopes and dreams; on the contrary, enlarge them and share them!

A Note to You
I stand on many the shoulders of many others and hope to let others stand on mine.  I urge you readers to consider who you’re sharing life with and if you’re using your freedom to explore.  If you aren’t, I might argue you’re dead already. Go live; you can do it!