Our bodies eventually die. The biological vehicle that carries each of us will perish and decay in a due time. No body is immortal. I am not very happy about it, but it's a fact, however cold it may seem.
In contrast, ideas can live longer than a person. Teachings by Jesus or Buddha. Philosophies by the ancient Greek or Chinese. Feminism, Patriotism and political right or left. Causes that are worth supporting. Even scientific discoveries. They are all ideas to a mind. Nietzsche is dead, but his ideas still live inside his books, and among minds of people who learned them.
Ideas can be immortal. They can just switch the host like a virus, and live on.
Here, I do not intend to discuss in depth about the purpose of life. It's personal, and it is different for everyone. To the least, it seems most people are aiming at leaving a dent in this world as a proof of his/her life. Let's call the "dent" as his/her purpose of life.
Intentionally or not, each of us has a favorite strategy to "leave a dent". What each of us is "doing" is the favorite strategy. What each of us is doing reflects who we are.
According to a book "Just your type", an MBTI-based relationship guidebook by Tieger and Barron-Tieger, people can be roughly categorized in four categories;
(1) Experiencers/Doers
(2) Traditionalists
(3) Idealists
(4) Conceptualizers
Which one do you (mostly) belong? There can be crossover categories, but you would have your favorite(s), where you (mostly) belong.
And, do you see each category has different stance with the "ideas"?
Doers have more focus on physical, body's aspects than on ideas.
Traditionalists honor and follow existing and established ideas. They submit to the idea of their choice and act to preserve the idea in this world.
Idealists see this existing world as a lacking place for an idea, and try to make the idea real, or spread wider.
Conceptualizers focus on creating ideas.
It may be helpful to know which category you belong and who you are. According to the book authors, it is helpful for your relationship. Hmm, I should have known.
I'll finish this entry with an example of myself. I am a scientist, and have a few ideas that may have an impact on public health by reducing cancer deaths. I am testing the ideas. If the ideas fly, the ideas and the impact may outlive me. When I act as a scientist, I am a conceptualizer (and idealist).
Yet, all scientists know ideas are cheap. For scientists, only ideas that are backed up by results and stand as "real" count. Scientists learned the cheapness of ideas in a hard way in the lab or in the field, where many of their hypotheses (ideas) go unsupported by their own experiments. In the process of science, there is an inherent BS elimination mechanism.
This difference in the stance of handling ideas may be a source for the occasional discordance between religious people (usually traditionalists) and scientists (mostly conceptualizers). Traditionalists don't take their core ideas as cheap. The ideas are off-limits (even infallible) and not a subject of testing, doubting, revising or switching. Scientists do test, doubt, revise and switch ideas.
PS
Comedian/thinker/commentator Bill Maher made a documentary-movie "Religulous" in 2008. No amount of his efforts, eye-rolling and mocking and facts-presentation, is unlikely to sway solidly-"religulous" midwest bikers, unfortunately. It's who they are. Some minds provide particularly good hosts to certain ideas. The combination results in very different people.
The movie was entertaining to me. The differences between Bill Maher and the "religulous" people are deeply character-based. You can see the movie as a comedy or tragedy, depending on how you see it.
