How do people see how to live a good and meaningful life?

Sixth draft:
Through the ages people have had many different beliefs on how to live a good and meaningful life and many people consider themselves to be living these lives. Though the question arises what is a good and meaningful life? Often people’s perceptions on living a good and meaningful life are influenced by the things in our every day lives. But there are also those that do not follow the dominant messages and define what is meaningful to them by the marginal and prohibited stuff in our culture. Corporate culture causes us to be puppets controlled by the strings of dominant and marginal messages making us have little control over our ideas on how to live a good and meaningful life. This paper will go into how others and myself define what’s meaningful to us and if in fact our interpretations are indeed effected by our culture’s message on how to live a good and meaningful life.

Andy Snyder said “Sometimes the way we determine the meaning of something is based on the function it serves in our lives”. I find this very true in my interpretation on what’s good and meaningful in my life. My family and friends play a big role in my life. I spend half my time with my friends and the other half with my family. The most meaningful people in my life are my friends and family. They are with me throughout my life and will be there for me when I need help. As I grow older and my circle of friends may expand or shrink, I know that my family will always be there. And even when I’m away from my friends and family I can still chat with them over the phone or with instant messenger. My cats are also meaningful to me. They are a part of my family and have been with me since I was 5 years old.
The meaningful things in my life have to bring me happiness and have to have a good purpose. The meaningless things in my life are things that will not help me in the future and may hurt me. Though most of the time our lives are filled with both the meaningful and the non-meaningful things. And we accept the meaningless things because without having some meaningless stuff we couldn't appreciate all the meaningful things in life. To me material possessions are things that don’t make my life meaningful. Wealth is important and you see that in corporate messages yet those things are expendable. They are just face value. They don’t last like friends and family. I also believe that no one else can tell you what’s meaningful in your life. Only you can say what makes you happy. And maybe you think this is all wrong and that’s all right because they are my opinions and I may not have gotten them by myself but they still hold true for me.

When figuring out what other people think about what’s good and meaningful in their lives, we took to the streets outside our school and started to interview people. Most people let us interview them when we asked. They seemed interested in our project and they stopped and thought deeply about the questions we asked. When asked to rank themselves between 1-10 on how meaningful their lives are there were a couple of people that gave themselves 10’s. One man said “I hope I’m a 10, I haven’t done enough in life, want to get through everything before my life is meaningless”. We interviewed the school nurse and she said “ I would give myself a 10 because I am helping people in my line of work and I feel like I am making a difference”. One woman said, “I would give myself an 8, a 10 if I won the lottery”. The people that gave themselves a 10 seem to think that their lives are just bursting with importance and meaning. There are so many ways to define what’s meaningful and meaningless. It all depends on the person you ask. People’s answers differ but once you look at them as a whole you can see the small similarities. To show us we are not as much different from each other as we think. This may be because of the strings that corporate culture has attached to us to see things their way.
Jace said, “ We make our own lives meaningful”. But other people, when asked what makes their lives meaningful responded with a quick and strong answer, family and friends. One man said, “ Family is most meaningful because of everything we do together and support each other.” Seven out of eleven people gave almost the same response where family was the most meaningful to them. The same guy also said, “ That something is meaningful if it keeps you going from day to day.” Four out of eleven people agreed that the things that are meaningful in your life are the things that are important and make you happy and you care about. Two of the people also said that love made their lives meaningful. Family and friends are meaningful and so we then asked them what were the meaningless things in their lives. One lady said “ Catty people”. Catty people are people that like to judge others. Most of the answers were negative aspects on how our culture is represented. One man said, “ Shallow people have meaningless lives” while another man, said, “ Material objects like money are meaningless”. Someone else said human dramas. All these things add up to how most people live their lives cause its human nature to obsess over material objects and to judge other people. These people that have been described as having meaningless lives are usually people who think/ care about their own lives more then they do others and unfortunately they are a majority and probably view their lives very meaningful.

Corporate culture plays a big role on how people perceive how to live a good and meaningful life. All you have to do is walk out of your house and your “attacked” with corporate messages. There are all sorts of billboards, TV shows, magazines, books, commercials, movies, and the list goes on and on and each of those things are putting ideas in your head. There are the 3 categories in popular culture and they are corporate culture, folk culture and big subcultures. All of these things have either mainstream messages, marginal messages or prohibited messages. For example in vogue and people magazines they tell women to become beautiful by looking young and healthy. It’s also good to have the hottest fashion and the right accessories such as nice looking cars, purses, makeup ect. All of these things add up to having a good and meaningful life. All of this is saying possessing materialistic goods is what makes your life more meaningful.
There is also the message for young kids that teamwork and following your dreams lead to a good and meaningful life. In the movie High School Musical 3 it’s all about working as a team to overcome any obstacle. There is also the part where Troy Bolton the main character goes through a dilemma where he does not know if he should follow his fathers dream or his own. In the end Troy decides to follow his own dream and in doing so makes his life more meaningful. Then there is the corporate message where men are supposed to be dominant over the women and are supposed to be the protectors saving the damsel in distress. In Twilight Bella falls in love with a vampire named Edward. Edward is the protector and dominates in the relationship. Even James makes a comment saying how Edward was keeping Bella weak and he should have changed her to make them equal. Then there is the perception that girls will go for the bad guy. Bella falls into this category by forsaking all others for her love for Edward. She goes for the dangerous guy who at any moment could kill her. Jacob argues that Bella should fall in love with him because he is the safe choice and she would not have to change for him. With all the options she chooses Edward and later becomes a vampire.
Other then movies and books music videos are another way in which popular culture spreads its message on how to live a good and meaningful life. Good Life by Kanye West feat. T-Pain is one example. The song basically talks about how to live a good life. Kanye goes on and on about realism instead of just the dreams. He goes on to talk about how having money, fame and girls is achieving a good life. He talks about material objects instead of other values/ aspects of what makes up a good life. He says in his song "Havin' money's the everythin' that havin' it is". He also goes to talk about freedom as an aspect of the good life. "The good life, let's go on a livin' spree- Shit, they say the best things in life are free". The images in the music video are very creative. The people are in black and white while the other images are in color. Some of the images in the video that further explain what's needed to have a good life are cars, money, woman who are wearing very skimpy clothes and where the picture is focused on their butts. Even though money is something he mentions there is a part in the song where he says "Whether you broke or rich you gotta get biz". There are also like the whole parts where he's going throw your hands up kinda thing like if you agree go ahead and there are images of a bunch of hands being thrown up.
Another music video is Lip Gloss by Lil Mamma. In the video Lil Mamma tells her mom how she thinks no one will like her and so her mom gives her some lip-gloss. As soon as she puts it on she’s the most popular girl in school. Every one wants to be her friend. Henry made very interesting insights into the video. I would have never have thought/ caught how she says how no body even knows her but still like her regardless just because she has nice clothes. I had not caught the line where she says no one knows anything about her but they still like her. When you listen to the song you just pass over that and only hear how her lip-gloss is cool. Though the message was obvious how possessions make you have a good life. Andy’s comments made me notice how in the video during all of the attention she was getting; she was also in control and how everyone followed her. I agree that most people feel like material goods will get them far. Even Lil Mama's mom goes on to say how it was her all along and not the lip-gloss but Lil Mama doesn't listen cause she likes all the attention she's getting. Music videos are also another way to advertise things its not all about the music and words like with L'Oreal paying to put their product in the video, so when people watch it they would want the product.

Even with all of these messages flooding your head you will never hear that you should stop spending money. Spending money is a big part of our corporate culture. The industries are always coming out with newer and better things for people to buy. There are ads everywhere for people to see and think about how that would be nice to have. They feed our mind with consumer products and their own interpretations of how these things will make our life more meaningful.
Thanksgiving is supposed to be filled with being thankful for the things in your life that make it meaningful. It’s a day when families get together and spend time with each other over food saying how thankful they are for each other. This is the corporate message that most people follow. Thanksgiving is a day for celebration. Though little remember how we took the Indians food and later killed them all. They feed us and gave us shelter and we repay them by wiping them out and driving them off the lands. There is never any consideration or thought given for the terrible things that were done.
After Thanksgiving is Black Friday. A name given to the day for the many sales that goes on. The stores all have record-breaking deals where everyone can start their holiday shopping. People get up early in the morning and wait on long lines that seem to go on forever for a chance to get in the stores and buy things. During this years Black Friday a man was trampled when a "mob of frenzied people" came into a Wal-Mart. No one cared to help him but instead continued to trample him. 4 others were injured and many employees had to fight the mob to keep from being hurt. When they announced that they had to clear the store cause someone had died many complained about being on line forever and continued to shop. I am sad to hear how people have acted. It seems so many people care only about themselves and what things they can buy cheap then anything else. Though you cant fully blame them. Our culture and corporate media has a hand in this as well. People are so unaware of corporate cultures influence on then they tend to bypass the important stuff. I posed a question which asked has people's morals changed and if so what caused it and Sam K. answered that these people are desperately wanting happiness and so look for outside ways to achieve it. I think this is very interesting and very true. Many people now are relaying on material objects to close the gap in side of themselves. They think that money can buy them happiness and many people might agree with this but I for one do not. Money can only fill the gap for so long until there is a bigger need to get the newer and better stuff. You only keep moving on from thing to thing and only really having the illusion of filling the gap. Corporate media feeds people the desire to shop and fill those needs. Every message is about going out and buying things and countless people are so ready to give up their soul just to have a meaningful life portrayed in our cultures messages.

There are not just dominant messages that control how people see what a good and meaningful life is and how to live one. There are also marginal messages that people are not even aware of. These such messages still come from some of the same things as dominant messages such as movies and music. Some messages that can be considered marginal are that you have the right to be different and creative and that sometimes you need to go against the authorities figure. Fox Fire and Pump Up the Volume are two movies that support these messages. The kids in these movies go along with their lives and follow the system with out questioning it. In Fox Fire the science teacher is harassing the girl students and they are to afraid to say anything about and the other girls don’t believe that such a thing can be going on. Yet even the kids that know about it do nothing to prevent it. Then this new girl comes to school and she is very different from the image of a Normal student. She is dressed up like a boy and during class leaves through the window before class is over after she talked back to the teacher about pressuring a girl to dissect the frog. She stood up against authority and gained the respect of a couple of girls in the class. Then in the bathroom a girl is crying cause she has detention with the science teacher and she knows that he is going to be all over her. The other girls are there as well and just look at her with even trying to help. Then the new girl comes in and asks what’s wrong. After she gets the story she gets angry at the girls for not sticking up for themselves and these things shouldn’t be kept going. She convinces the girls to go and confront him and when they do they also get into a fight. Then when they tell the story to the principle, she doesn’t believe them saying that something like that would never happen and suspends the girls. The girls are ok with this because for the first time in their life they feel empowered. Marginal messages are more about feeling secure about yourself and confident in who you are and how it’s ok to be different and that different is a good thing. It’s also about going against authority and the system so that you don’t have to follow invisible sets of rules your whole life but live the way you want.

There are not only corporate cultures messages that sway how people define how to live a good and meaningful life. There is also folk culture, which ties strings to us, but unlike corporate cultures strings these are far more relaxed and in my opinion better for you. The messages that come from folk culture are with us essentially since birth. They are messages given to us by our parents, teachers, near by friends, most people we come into contact with when we are young. Then there are the stories that we grow up with, the nursery rhymes we hear and the shows we watched as kids.
Looking at various examples on how folk culture views how to live a good and meaningful life you can see many differences between its messages and how popular culture regards these massages. The video "Being a perfect girlfriend" talked about how the girl should be accommodating to all of his needs. But then that also goes for the video "being a perfect boyfriend". Both videos talk about disregarding your own feelings sometimes and pay more attention to the other person. For girls its to listen and seem interested when guys talk about sports and mechanics. Then for guys its to listen to her feelings and listen when she talks about her friends and they even give you responses when you do not know what to say like "what an interesting story" and "Oh sorry I was just thinking about how much I love you". Then for being the perfect girlfriend the video seems to me that we think and treat the guy like an animal or pet. Like in the video it says to feed him and massage his ego. The messages speak about being the perfect girlfriend or boyfriend. That being perfect is what makes your life more meaningful. Then there is the passage on how to be smart but not nerdy student. This talks about changing your look and perhaps trying to settle into a new crowd like the popular kids. In my opinion this seems a little like popular dominant message. That in order to have a good and meaningful life you must change who you are and be someone that is well liked by the community (try to get the image that everyone else has).
The piece I choose was "how to be irresistible to men". It gives you many tips including one that I thought was most interesting. It says "If you ever observe people at a party or any social gathering, you'll always see the majority of guys drawn to women with unique (but not intimidating) personalities." This is a first for me hearing that you should act like yourself or more or less be someone that does not fit into the usual personality of women. But then there is the tip to be healthy which means maintaining your weight and for most women weight is a sensitive issue and this article does not help lessen their worries about being fat or not skinny enough. Then their the key fact where you have to be confident which I think many women tend to forget. They go in and start thinking about all their flaws and not on the things that make them great women. The message here is to be attractive and impress a lot of men and then you will have a good and meaningful life. Even though the strings from folk culture are a little more weaker they are still there and they still make us puppets, which many people never see. They are to wrapped up in listening to all of these messages and filtering them to see which one best fits their life style.