What if one day you were diagnosed with a brain tumor and you're told that if you undergo the surgery you may lose your language ability, but if you don't undergo the surgery you would die? The deeper question in this case is: what is the value of life, what is the purpose of life, and what kind of life is worth living?
And then there are autistic people who were never born with linguistic ability. Nonverbal. So then the deeper question becomes, what is the value of their existence, what is the value of their life, what is the purpose of their life? While the rest of us are leading a fairly normal life, these people are struggling just to exist in our world. So does that mean that not having linguistic ability means your life is not worth living?
I think at this point it is clear that the topic of this post is about value and purpose of life. This is an important question because it relates to our identity, our societal position, and the roles we choose for ourselves in life, which by extension means the blueprint of our life.
Consider another scenario: one person has a beautiful house, a wonderful family, a successful career, etc., and yet is feeling lost and unhappy with life; while another person who has no family, no relationship, no job, no home, does absolutely nothing except laying in bed overcome by some illness and yet is thrilled to be able to live another day. So in this case, what is the purpose of life, the value of existence?
We were taught from a young age that we were supposed to accomplish something, to make something of ourselves, as if that is the purpose and value of our existence. Yet, there are people who do absolutely nothing, accomplish absolutely nothing in life, but are completely happy with their lives.
What I can understand from all these contexts is that, the value of our lives has nothing to do with societal values. Instead, the purpose and value depends on the CONTEXT not CONTENT of our lives.