This is the one life we have
It is precious. The meaning of life is to live it – to seek happiness and fulfilment in the here and now, not wait for it to come in an imaginary hereafter.
‘The happy life is to an extraordinary extent the same as the good life.’
No one recipe for a good life
Human beings are all individuals, and different things make us happy. Exercising curiosity, connecting with others, pursuing different experiences, and improving the lives of others.
This represents the thinking of many humanists.
‘The purpose of life is to live it, to taste experience to the utmost, to reach out eagerly and without fear for newer and richer experience.’
Our connections with others
Human beings are all individuals, and different things make us happy. From the humanist’s point of view, there is no single recipe for a good life.
Humanists like James Hemming, Eleanor Roosevelt, and Bertrand Russell have all written of happiness as being in the pursuit of diverse experiences, the exercise of our curiosity, the appreciation of beauty, and the creation of meaningful connections with others.
‘One’s life has value so long as one attributes value to the life of others, by means of love, friendship, indignation, and compassion.’
Making yourself and others happy
Humanists today place compassion and connection at the heart of living well, alongside activities which enrich and enhance our capacity to experience them.
Like so many humanist values, these ideas about living well are as old as humankind.
Over two thousand years ago, the Epicureans set happiness as the ultimate goal of life, rejecting the role of gods in bringing this about.
They lived communally, sharing responsibilities and rewards, believing that genuine fulfilment came from friendship, simplicity, and harmony with the natural world.
‘Pleasure is our first and kindred good.
It is the starting point of every choice and of every aversion, and to it we always come back, inasmuch as we make feeling the rule by which to judge of every good thing.’
Valuing creativity
Curiosity, creativity, and connection are all essential to the experience of being human.
Humanists value the arts in all their forms for their capacity to spark joy, widen our perspectives, and enlarge our humanity.
The arts remind us of the richness of human experience, and the extent of what we have in common with each other.
‘My horizon on humanity is enlarged by reading the writers of poems, seeing a painting, listening to some music, some opera, which has nothing at all to do with a volatile human condition or struggle or whatever. It enriches me as a human being.’
