Is the purpose of life to be happy?
When I’m unhappy, I feel like I’m doing life wrong. I’d rather be happy. But is happiness the point of life, or is there more to it? If I pursue happiness, mine first then for those around me, is that selfish? But if there’s a bigger purpose, then what about people with Alzheimer’s or dementia who can’t recall recent experiences or make plans?
There is no purpose in life. Like others have said, the fact that we're all here and life exists at all is entirely an incredible accident. As that's the case, how could we have any inherent purpose?
The endless pursuit of a purpose can actually make you more unhappy.
I'm a big fan of positive nihilism. Everything has occurred by random chance and there are no inherent truths or any purpose to anything. Nothing we do actually matters in the grand scheme of the universe. So, since nothing matters, I am free to exhert my free will and give value to what I choose.
I want to live a life where my perspective is, on the whole, a positive, happy one, and I want to create as many opportunities for others to do the same as possible. I do not want to tolerate those that use their freedom to steal the freedom of others or who seek pleasure at the pain and cost of others. I want to utilize my freedom to seek pleasure and joy and bring pleasure and joy to others without causing pain and suffer.
Nothing matters, so choose the life you want. There is no right or wrong way to live.
Wow you have just summed up my outlook on life perfectly, thank you
This seems eminently reasonable. But why do you choose joy over suffering? Clearly you value one over the other and expect others to feel the same. If we all agree, doesn’t that make it right (for us)? And why do we plant trees that we’ll never get to sit under?
I don't expect others to feel the same. I have chosen to give value to one over the other simply because I would prefer a world where we collaborate towards collective happiness, joy, and pleasure. I suspect many others believe that working towards the prosperity of the collective will hamper their ability to find personal prosperity, and I simply think they are wrong. I think such a case boils down to chasing momentary pleasure over long-lasting pleasure, because that is my experience with such people.
In a way I believe in tangible karma; those who work to bring pleasure to those around them are occasionally taken advantage of, but more often are given pleasure in turn. Likewise, I've never met a self-centered asshole who isn't consistantly overcome with unhappiness, while almost universally blaming that unhappiness on external factors.
I plant trees I will never get to sit under because I appreciate those before me who did the same. Again, that is no more than what I have chosen to give value to.
But this is a bit of a digression. The reality is these are the wisdoms of my experiences, and I wager there's no universal truths in them. Nothing matters, so I look to these experiences and see that a co-operative, collaborative life looks more pleasurable. So I strive towards one, encourage others to do the same, and refuse to tolerate those that would actively work to steal happiness from others. Yes, I am aware that the inverse is equally true - why is it wrong to steal happiness from others if nothing matters - but this perspective is simply not the one I have chosen to place value on. Arbitrary? Sure. It still represents the best way I've found to enjoy life.
I don’t think there’s a purpose, really; to put purpose or duty to a sense of joy is to try to quantify it, to package it - and since everyone is different, and perceives things differently, then that means joy takes just as many different forms and can’t be packaged so neatly.
I think life in every sense is more chaotic than that, and that randomization of cells or events or emotions can’t and shouldn’t be whittled down into some universal experience or explanation. Making something your “purpose” immediately brings with it a certain expectation - it almost makes it sound as if you’re trying to be happy out of duty, which seems…weird.
I don’t think you’re failing at life if you’re unhappy. Everyone has low or weak points, and that inevitably changes in some form of another. That’s one of the universals, a product of events and living situations and hormonal/genetic makeup. Sometimes people can have all their needs cater to and still your brain will fuck you over.
So I’d ask yourself why you’re looking for a purpose in the first place. It makes sense if there’s some goal you want to attain; and if that goal is happiness, it’d be best to think about some actions you could do to obtain it. If you’re not looking for that goal and just asking why people seem to pursue happiness, then the best answer I can give you is: why not? Suffering feels bad and I don’t wanna feel bad.
This sounds a lot like absurdism, especially the "nothing matters so I can do whatever I want".
There's one massive quality that makes positive Nihilism different from Absurdism. Absurdism states that trying to create meaning in a chaotic universe puts you at odds with it. Therefore, doing so creates unhappiness. Optimistic Nihilism, as the common thought I was trying to convey but incorrectly labelled is called, believes that without inherent meaning in our chaotic universe, we are free to create whatever meaning we desire.
Both believe the universe is inherently chaotic and meaingless. Only one believes that you can successfully create meaning.
Hmm, I've never heard the part where going against the universe creates unhappiness. Maybe I should read a bit more in depth. Thanks for the explanation.
There is no objective purpose to life. Some funny long molecules mashed into eachother a few billion years ago. Scientifically there is no evidence of cosmic purpose to anything.
It's your life. You get to decide what to do with it.
There are some goals which are generally considered to be nobel. Make the world a better place, for example... but that's a far cry from an absolute definition of purpose.
I'd refrain from thinking about a purpose and instead think of your values. Then, if you want, establish goals that align with your values.
Being happy could be a goal for you , but that's not the same as a purpose.
Up to you
This seems very simple, but I think it holds a lot of truth. Sometimes I’d rather walk in the rain listening to sad songs. And that’s okay.
I think it really is your choice what you value in life. I think it's important to acknowledge that we only have a limited time here and none of us know how much, so make sure you decide what's important to you and act on that to the best of your ability.
It's also fine to change the things you value over time too. Maybe you don't value your own happiness much now, but that could change later and that's alright. I think happiness is important though because it has a compounding effect on many areas of your life, so it's ok to be sad but if it's impacting your life a lot or over a long period of time it could be worth doing something about it.
Or not, it's up to you.
Life IS the purpose. If you're alive, you're already fulfilling your purpose whether you are aware of it or not.
There's no purpose. Do whatever you will do. There was never another option.
Hey, it could be worse. There's no failing per se and this is neutral (rather than hostile) towards whatever personal goal you make up.
Okay. Life has no purpose. And free will is an illusion. Are we just living out a simulation?
Maybe, does it matter? As a property of the universe it has neither predictive power nor falsifiability.
If it is, I think it's fair to say it's not a human-centric simulation. I suppose it could be life-centric or intelligence-centric (Fermi paradox explanation?), but it could just as easily be an investigation into conformal field theories, and the creators don't even realise there's an equivalent gravitational weak field system present yet.
I think it's also worth asking how you define "simulation". It's possible to have a system who's state can be read two different ways but in which it's not clear which of the two is more "real". The holographic theory I touched on there is a great example.
It probably matters to people who are looking for an external source of meaning, and doesn’t matter to people who are creating an internal source of meaning. In that way, it’s maybe a useful clue to what type of meaning is more valid.
In the scenario you gave, how would you judge whether a life was well lived? How would you go about living a good life? What would you do or become to be an effective human being?
You mean in the no-free-will purposeless-universe scenario? I think there's no right or wrong answer, really. Every human being (and animal, and plant, and rock) are simply what they are. You have to add somewhat arbitrary personal criteria to get a meaningful answer.
Personally, I think being kind and strong is very important. That's not very original, but I guess the interesting thing I have to say about it is that 99% of the population earnestly tries to do that, and the reason people suck is basically down to a version of Hanlon's razor. To be an effective human being, don't lie to yourself.
We all lie to ourselves. But I admire people who try to lie to themselves less, who try to be honest with themselves and face reality.
The purpose of life is to procreate to ensure your species survival
If only life were that interesting. Sadly, we’re just insignificant specs of stardust living meaningless, pointless lives for a finite amount of years and then disappear from existence.
The only objective purpose in life is to spread your genes. You share that same purpose with every other living thing.
Other than that, it's up to you. My purpose in life is to keep my girlfriend happy and destroy as many jobs as I can. My career in industrial automation is the key to both.
Not even that. It's not like you've failed at life if you don't have kids. You just haven't spread your genetic information. Saying that its your purpose to spread them implies it's the genes purpose to be spread. Genes simply are, they don't have a purpose just like you don't; evolution has just given organisms behaviors and mechanisms that make it very likely that they will be regardless of that lack of purpose.
That's a valid way of looking at it, too.
Realistically, the concept of "purpose" doesn't exist in the universe outside of our imagination any more than justice, beauty, or morality. Things just are what they are and follow the laws of physics.
If we're making it all up as we go along, there aren't any wrong answers. I claim the purpose of living things is to reproduce, but it's true that living things reproduce because that's what living things do (otherwise we'd have run out of them by now). Kind of a chicken/egg thing there.
Just my luck, the only objective purpose in life doesn't work as a gay guy. I'm going to try the destroying jobs thing instead.
You can still pass on your memes!
If society is an organism, you're a somatic cell rather than a germ cell. You're an important part of multicellular life!
It's fun! And it pays well. Get your engineering or comp sci degree and give me a call.
That's not my purpose; it's my genes' purpose.
(Similarly, any one of my somatic cells could "decide" to "pursue the goal" of spreading its own genes instead of cooperating with the other tissues and organs around it. We call that "cancer".)
I personally think the purpose of life is to reproduce. Everything we are is just because it made us better at surviving and multiplying. We are merely animals.
I dont think we need to have kids just because that's what we exist for. We're intelligent enough to go against our basic instincts if we wish. In that optic, we all need to find our own purpose!
To say the purpose of life is to reproduce is like saying the purpose of a raindrop is to keep falling down. We should not confuse purpose with cause! Natural selection for self-replication is how we ended up here, but, as you said, we have free will to choose where we go next.
We yearn for answers to why we're here, there's a reason religion has been such a huge part of there human consciousness for so long, our brains are hard wired to find reasons for everything.
Since there is no known objective answer to this question, I'll answer it subjectively, recognizing that my life experiences have tainted my views.
Life has no purpose. People who do immense "evil" will not be punished. People who do immense "good" will not be rewarded.
Your existence is a beautiful, flighty phenomenon. You are a heap of octillions of atoms that somehow gained self awareness. Your happiness is merely a chemical exchange in your skull meat, it's fine to strive for happiness but it's fleeting.
I personally strive for serenity, accepting reality for what it is and making peace with it. Nothing matters, we're all going to lose the gift of consciousness through inevitable death, and that's okay.
I’m meat with electricity in it, and somehow I know this. I’m using my finger meats to send your meat a message it can absorb and which will cause your meat to react in a certain way.
What. The. Fuck.
Sentient meat. Here's the short story for anyone who hasn't read it yet
Amazing. Thank you
Hello, meat. How's it going?
The purpose of human life is to continue the species. Everything else is a detail.
Many people look for meaning, which varies wildly from person to person. I don't consider it wise to try to find One True Meaning, but instead to connect with what you consider meaningful.
Reee teleological language in biology.
There is no purpose to life. It’s all arbitrary. Life is whatever you make it to be.
Unless you’re physically incapable just about everything in life is a choice, including happiness and the pursuit of it.
Our biggest hurdle is our own mind.
There is no objective, defined purpose to life. People assign meaning and purpose to their life. Some people's purpose is to live in the way that their religion asks them to, some want a legacy so their purpose is to leave their mark on the world, some people live to help others, some live to be happy, some live to experience the world, some live until they die and that's it.
I'm no life coach, and I don't know you. I can't know if you're selfish or not, and I don't think there's a bigger purpose. If you want the 2 cents of some random guy on the internet, try to live in whatever way brings you the fewest regrets. Everything can be taken to an extreme (even happiness), and there's a tradeoff to everything.
I've always felt that life's purpose should be pursuit of knowledge and self expression in roughly equal proportions. So 50% science, 50% art. That's just what feels right in my brain, I guess.
I think most brains are just going to have their own idea of what life's purpose should be and most of them will be more or less fine. A majority will have said purposes stifled by the limitations of society and biology, though
I like this answer. I still wonder if there’s more. Is knowledge better if it serves a purpose, like improving your art? Should art serve a purpose? Is beautiful enough, or should it be useful?
In my opinion knowledge that serves a purpose (improved art, medical science, applied engineering, take your pick) is better than "trivial" knowledge, but even trivia has purpose (it can entertain and inspire) and sometimes converts from trivia to "useful" knowledge when combined with new science and tech. A good example is pure math, here's a stackechange thread about mathematics areas that were found to have applications well after their discovery, by mostly mathematicians doing math for the sake of math.
If you mean its physical form has a function other than to be perceived by humans for entertainment and inspiration, then sure, why not? But maybe not always. :) Also of note, not all art is necessarily beautiful. I would say a fair bit of "useful" or otherwise multipurpose art is quite ugly. Shock films, muckraking journalism, and hostile architecture come to mind as examples.
A very philosophical question, so I'm going to ramble a bit:
I think there cannot be an objective purpose to anything, because any purpose can only go so far. E g. if the purpose of life is to be happy, then what is the purpose of being happy? And what is the purpose of that purpose, and so on? It never ends, there will never be a final answer giving everything before it objective purpose, because that is not how purpose works.
Purpose is a human concept, designed to structure our lives and to help us come up with sub-tasks for bigger goals. And it only really works if we fill in the final goal by saying "because I want that, for whatever reason". For many someone else fills in that goal and we just follow it, maybe feeling a little empty inside.
So I think the real question is, how do you find that final answer, and the only thing I can think of is: Whatever feels right to you. And right doesn't have to be happy, right means true to yourself imo. If you had a nice day then it might mean happy, but if you had a shitty day then it might mean seeking comfort or some distraction.
The one thing that can make this very difficult is having expectations about what you should be or feel, and those expectations not matching up with your subjective reality. We all have them, from our upbringing, our peers and experiences, and they can often be very subtle and subconscious. But they are only useful if they help you find your true self imo, otherwise they can be very misleading and painful.
I really like what you said here. Being happy is fine and it’s enough a lot of the time. There can be other ways to find meaning in life, and those will always be subjective and personal. Many people will try to tell you how you should love your life, but it will only be meaningful if it aligns with your own sense of self.
Personally, I’m allergic to the word “should”. My reaction is: “don’t impose your subjective reality on me.” But someone I respect and admire said that there would be more to life than happiness and that’s part of where my question came from. I think there can be more to life than happiness, but I’m not falling short if I’m finding happiness for myself and my family and my friends; that can be enough, because I decided it’s enough.
Thank you for your answer.
There's not a single "42" comment here... I am disappointed
life is just life. It's not the universe and everything
The purpose of life (imo) is to discover humanity in yourself and what "the best human" means to you. People get their ideas on "the best human" from many inspired examples. The Buddha, Mohammed the Prophet, Jesus of Nazareth, Julius Caesar, or Jimmy Buffet. Some people need no such idols and can form their own understanding of what it means to be human, but all of these scale.
Your humanity plays into the identity of your family, plays into the identity of your city/town, plays into the identity of your region, plays into the identity of your nation, and at the top is the true meaning of life: the culmination of every dream and desire, the moral fabric of our species, and the embodiment of the only such entity in existence to our knowledge. The purpose of life is to find that, reconcile with it, and use the wisdom you gain in doing so to help shape our species into a happy, healthy, and mature civilization, or die trying.
I urge you to look into Buddhism. Not as a religion to do ritualistic shit but as a philosophy, as Buddha intended. The only purpose of Buddhism is to address what you're feeling right now.
Also check this video out. https://youtu.be/pBnH99Mqop4?si=rFGRX_sd9bibUF3f
You might be surprised to hear that I've explored Buddhism somewhat, and I think it has helped. I went from worrying that I'm not good enough and I'm not achieving enough, to just accepting who and what I am. I feel that's been positive. The video you linked sums it up nicely. I enjoy the book Who ordered this truckload of dung? : inspiring stories for welcoming life's difficulties by Ajahn Brahm (https://archive.org/details/whoorderedthistr0000ajah).
Here is an alternative Piped link(s):
https://piped.video/pBnH99Mqop4?si=rFGRX_sd9bibUF3f
Piped is a privacy-respecting open-source alternative frontend to YouTube.
I'm open-source; check me out at GitHub.
The purpose of life is what you make it.
Society in my area says the purpose of life is to get a job, get married, and have some kids. All of these are optional but each one increases your perceived value to the government and to individual people. Some people work their entire lives conforming to societies expectations for them and still live what they would describe as unfulfilling lives.
Instead, or in addition to, I would suggest you focus on creating your own purpose. I would describe a purpose as a overarching objective for your life. I'll list some purposes that you could adopt.
These are a small sampling of purposes people adopt and you need not limit yourself to one. However be mindful that your attention is limited and each purpose can take a considerable amount of time. With that in mind try to pick goals and activities that help you achieve your purpose(s).
In pursuing your purpose, you will find moments of happiness. Embrace them. You will also find moments of frustration and anger. Understand why you feel this way and learn to embrace them as well. Understand when your emotions are clouding your judgement and learn to resist it when necessary.
Happy travels.
LOL no. Happiness is an emotion, just like anger or sadness.
As for the purpose of life, there isn't one. Or if you're a philosophical nihilist, there isn't an inherent meaning to life, so it's up to each individual to come up with their own.
IMO try not to overthink it. Death still comes one to a customer so you might as well enjoy yourself while making the world a better (or at least not worse) place if you can.
Maybe I worded the question badly. Is happiness an indication that the world is a better place because I’m here? I think so, and I think that’s enough. Do you agree?
Because of tripping on shrooms, I had a long think about the meaning of life. The following is from a comment I posted in another thread about the meaning of life:
I understood that "the meaning of life" was less about me or my species or even my entire planet and more about the universe, which I would describe as not just humbling, but an epiphany of ego death on a scale I'd never considered. I was searching for the meaning of life, and was initially disappointed to not find one, and then understood that the meaning isn't for me or us. We are merely a tool; a function.
Life is something that happened because it was possible, and it's been allowed to continue because it's expediting the natural process of masses and energies. All life absorbs matter and energy, breaking them down faster than they otherwise would. We're achieving entropy. Humans are especially good at this, burning material for heat, moving quickly over long distance, dreaming of escaping to other worlds to burn material elsewhere. With interstellar travel, we could be an entropic plague. The heat death of the universe gets a little closer every time we breathe or eat or drive our silly cars or fuck. Everything we do is fulfilling our purpose, so there's really no wrong way to live, and I find an awful lot of comfort in that.
The new Zelda game is fun, and playing it is my meaning of life this week.
The meaning of life is a blank page. Good luck filling it out!
I'd first ask you to define happiness.
Temporary pleasures will always be fleeting, unreliable, and fraught with danger. Drugs and alcohol feel great in the moment, for example. So does eating junk food and watching TV. But we all know the problems with these things.
Is happiness the pleasure brought by fulfilling hobbies? That's probably a little more productive, but also will never be continuous. And often, if you try to make that your entire life, it loses its joy. The recreation is often the joyful part.
Personally for me, my interactions with patients and being able to use my intellect to help people medically is so deeply satisfying that I'm motivated to go to work despite there being so many things to hate about my job. So that's an interesting wrinkle on the idea of happiness.
I'm not really trying to get at an answer here. We just had a whole meditation retreat at my church about this exact topic: What is the purpose of life? But maybe some ideas to help you clarify your own thoughts about the subject.
The church I was raised in also makes a distinction between real happiness and temporary pleasure. I reject that idea. You’re right that drugs and alcohol can have negative side-effects or long-term effects. TV doesn’t, it’s just wasted time. But that makes me think that you’re saying: no, happiness isn’t the point, being productive is more important.
Are you willing to share: what’s your purpose?
Oh definitely and 1000% would never say that productivity is the purpose of life. That perspective is so disgusting, in my opinion. The interactions I have with my patients that bring such satisfaction are the exact opposite of "productive" and frequently put me at odds with the goals of the corporation I have no choice but to work for.
Probably, for me, I'd say my purpose is to lift up people around me. To help them find the ways they are strong and support them through the ways they are weak. Sometimes the only thing I can really do to help someone in the moment is make them laugh, so I try to do that. Sometimes I just sit with them while they cry. Being a nurse just happens to be a profession where I can do this and also receive a paycheck, so it works for me.
I like to picture the world as a scale of good things and bad things. I can't fix all the bad things, but I can add weight to the side of the good things every day. Put one more thing on the good side of the scale and tilt the world in that direction however minutely. I won't tip the whole scale by myself, but my efforts combined with all the other people in the world doing good things that I don't even know about certainly will, even if I personally don't get to witness that tilting.
And that last paragraph is pretty key, in my opinion. Imagination is a fundamental ability of human beings and what we believe about ourselves and the world affects us more than anything external to ourselves. And the way we imagine ourselves and the world is always inherently within our control. So I think part of "what we do" in life is to create meaning.
The purpose of each person's life is for them to define.
It's not something that is assigned to you, and it doesn't have to be the same as anyone else's purpose.
And it can change over time as your experiences and circumstances mold the person you are.
I think it kind of depends on how you define 'happy'. I do believe that if life has any point, it is to be happy. It's definitely harder than it sounds, and the path is usually long and differs from person to person.
I have spent a long time doing things I thought would make me happy. Often they did, in the short term, but not in the long term. Sometimes what makes me happy changes!
You can also intentionally change what makes you happy. Try new things, develop new habits. Maybe it's exercise, maybe it's feeding hungry people or political organizing. Maybe it's a hobby group.
It's your life, do what you want with it.
This is quite the existential question! Of course, there’s really no “right” or “wrong” answer, and there are so many different ideas on what the meaning of life is.
My opinion? There isn’t one. The fact we exist at all is a wildly random event, and the fact we are conscious of it even more so. Life is meaningless, so we create our own meaning. For me, the meaning of life is to strive for happiness (not BE happy, we can’t be happy 100% of the time), bring happiness to those around me, and leave the world better than I came into it. I don’t give a shit about legacy, since I won’t be around to enjoy it. The only legacy I care about is that I made life better for the people I love.
Treat others with kindness, be mindful of the world you live in, and do more of what makes you happy.
I don’t disagree, but I’d like to explore a little further. If you were the last person on earth, I’d everyone else died of old age and you are the last, would you still want to leave the earth better than you found it? Would you take comfort in or be indifferent to the happiness you brought to the people you love? Are your ideas about good and better based on the experiences of other people, or do they exist objectively?
I’d everyone else died of old age and you are the last, would you still want to leave the earth better than you found it?Yes. Humans are not the only thing existing on this planet, and I find it rather arrogant to treat it this way. If I’m alone staring down the heat death of our universe? Well it doesn’t quite matter anymore.
Would you take comfort in or be indifferent to the happiness you broughtAbsolutely. This is probably more nurture vs nature though. I’m very much an atheist but was raised in a strong Christian household. I’ve shunned the religious aspect, but “Love your neighbor as yourself” is pretty much ingrained in my DNA at this point. I find happiness in bringing it to others.
As for ideas of good and better, of course they are my own opinions and based on experiences of others. There is no objective “good” and “better”, because there is no objectively true meaning to life. For me personally, doing what makes me happy would include eating good food, drinking good whiskey and listening to punk rock. Those are not objectively good, but they are good to me. I will share them with likeminded people, and I will find other ways to better my neighbors’ lives.
Purpose is merely a human construct. Please don't take this post too seriously. 🫠
Human constructs are of monumental importance in many cases. Some of us are dedicated to fighting the construct of authoritarianism, for example, while others are dedicated to being authoritarian. Both provide meaning and purpose and can drive and direct the lives of whole nations to some extent.
Don't underestimate the power of human constructs. They're incredibly important to us.
Well obviously. We are humans afterall. 😅
My purpose in life is to be happy. My primary challenge in life is to find the things in life that make me happy and try to find ways that those things can make other people happy.
That's a pretty high bar. In fact exaggerated focus on "am I happy" can sort of fuck you up. Focusing on what you appreciate is supposed to be better and make you happier. The cliché is "the meaning of life is to give life meaning" which is disgustingly Hallmark, but still has a fair point. Just do whatever - a good idea is to not get too existential if you can avoid it.
Toxic positivity is a real thing.
Part of the inspiration for this post was: I am a grown up and I can do whatever I want with the next hour. What will I do? What does that say about me? What should I do with my life? What kind of person does that make me? Am I shallow for just wanting to experience as many new things as possible? I don't think so, I think that's just my genetics expression themselves. But that raises questions about free will, and I'm not willing to ponder that this morning. I'd rather spend the next hour doing something fun.
If you're not already, go do something fun!
I’m going out to lunch with friends. Tomorrow, I’ll go springboard diving. Not because it matters, just because I enjoy it.
Personally the point to life for me is to find something I love and add to that space. I love music, so my purpose in life is to make music, be that playing live or mixing and mastering or composing songs or recording stuff. It's something I dream about, even though I already do some of these things.
But I'm just one guy. My personal subcribed to philosophy is absurdism. Nothing has meaning unless I give it meaning, so fuck you Im going to eat a pineapple with chopsticks.
The point to life is whatever you want it to be. If you need help finding that I would try tap into what you would love to create or what you would like to achieve.
Yes!
I’ll take happiness over suffering any day.
The only right answer lol
As a hedonist my answer is yes. Life doesn't have an actual point. It wasn't "made" on purpose but because it got the chance. What you make of it is your decision but since we have a brain that rewards us and a nociception that punishes us depending on how we use our life I suggest you choose your own purpose. Mine is to be happy. Even when I'm altruistic I'm secretly egoistic because I feel better when my environment feels good too.
Maybe flip it around? The point of unhappiness (or dissatisfaction) is to get the organism to change up what it's doing; to locate new goals and pursue them. That can mean engaging with others in different ways than you did before.
If you're satisfied, you mostly stick with what you're doing already. (Which might include seeking novelty as well.) If you're unsatisfied, you may be ready to ditch your current situation for a new one as soon as one comes up.
Dementia in elders is really freakin' sad. But there's a lot of difference in people's experience of it. I happen to know two people in their 70s suffering dementia, who have very different levels of unhappiness. (They also live in rather different situations, although both are in relatively rural settings. Both live with a spouse and with supportive neighbors.)
One is largely satisfied and comfortable; the other is often pissed off and frustrated. This seems to have a lot to do with what their attitudes and social interactions were like before the dementia set in.
Thank you for your comments about dementia. It scares me, but I was wondering if happiness is worthwhile, even if the person that I spark happiness in won’t ever remember it. I think of both elderly people and small children, because my kids no longer remember some of our early vacations, which are some of my happiest memories. And I conclude that making people happy is valuable in itself and never wasted, even if they will forget. Maybe because that’s how I conceive of my own personality or being: I make people feel good and that makes me who I am. But maybe that says more about me or my society than about life in general.
Happiness is fleeting. You should seek contentment over happiness.
Not all life can have meaning or greater purpose, that happens in fiction mostly anyway.
Find things that make you comfortable, content and feel safe, and fill your life with them. It's ok to just be.
But isn’t our life really just the story we tell ourselves about ourselves? I guess I’m trying to create a narrative arc, and your comment says to me: enjoy the exposition and character development; it’s enough.
Yeah but just like lives, not all stories are good. When you can't change fundamental building blocks of your own story to create a pleasing narrative for yourself, all you can really do is exist in what there is. Most people exist like this.
Fighting your objective reality for an unobtainable greater meaning, will cause mental illness if you keep doing it. Come to terms with the real you as opposed to the ideal you, and make what you have for your life as nice for yourself as you can, while you can.
Save your desires for manifest destiny for your OC's and write some stories about them or illustrate them or something.
The only purpose to life is to live it. Beyond that, you have to find the meaning that suits you for yourself.
no the purpose of life is to exist
Consider reading "Existentialism is a Humanism"
No. Happiness is nice, when you have it, but you have to create meaning in life.
And purpose? You can have a purpose but Life in general does not.
Okay, this is an interesting idea. I said purpose, but you said meaning. Aren’t those the same? Imagine I’m pursuing something pointless, like hedonistic pleasure. Why isn’t that meaningful? How can I determine if my actions are meaningful?
Determine is an ambiguous word, here, so I'm going to break it into two parts:
You might discover that your actions are meaningful to others. Hedonic pleasure probably won't be, but everyone is into something.
You decide if something is meaningful to yourself.
Something doesn't have to have a purpose to b meaningful; and something doesn't have to be meaningful to have a purpose, or at least, not meaningful outside of that purpose. I can appreciate the buffing leaves on a tree in spring without needing those specific leaves o that tree for anything. I have several wooden spoons that serve me well in the kitchen but if they disappeared tomorrow I wouldn't notice or care.
To be clear: Meaning is internal, but purpose is some sort of external function, utility, or goal.
The purpose of life is to not die.
Technically the truth.
No.
Del: sorry, I had a brain fart
Everyone has to figure out their own purpose
For me, the purpose is to experience life. The good, the bad, everything.
As an aside, happiness is a carrot / stick game. Evolution has ensured that its unobtainable for any length of time.
You're better off seeking contentment.
The purpose of human life is to submit ourselves to the Idea.
There is no inherent purpose.
The purpose of life, is understanding.
Elemental bits of unconscious soul-awareness want to have their own experiencings, so they get caught in conceptions/lives, and have, at first, unconscious experiencings ( like a mass-of-bacteria or something ), and eventually that particular soul/atman evolves until it accidentally coincides with a human-category-life, and then, suddenly, it has self-determination/free-will/significant-karma, so now it becomes a pinball in the Universe-game...
Being fired around by the meanings it emitted into Universe, it tries applying unconsciousness-answers, and they just make things worse...
Eventually, it has reabsorbed sooo many meanings, that it becomes understanding/wise, and it realizes that this birth/striving/sickness/death cycle seems deranged, and desiring this endless cyclical-process is deranged, so it begins earning the yogas of mind, meaning, will, intent, etc, and then earns its ability to lift itself from the whole-process, up into aware-nonengaging, which is called "Blissful Clear Light" awareness, and it can simply dissolve into OceanOfAllAwakeSouls, seeing an endless-stream of Universes go by, every one crammed with unconscious & semi-conscious souls/atmans, who haven't yet earned their dissolving-into-the-ocean-of-AWARENESS that religious-types call "God", and .. all souls Realize.
Endless stream of countless souls, each getting its own cycle-of-lives, reaping what it sowed, no matter how many "lives" ago the sowing-of-that-meaning was...
the processing is perfectly efficient.
The Christian bible's "Jacob's Ladder" was a depiction of souls climbing "down" into matter & "up" from unconsciousness...
The Christian bible's "Prodigal Son" parable was about an individual soul/atman doing its down/up process: when it got fed-up with the false-answers, it turned within ( remember the root-guru of Christianity told them "The Kingdom of God is Within", telling them to be meditating ), and "climbing the inner-mountain", to use a buddhist phrase...
The Abrahamic religions use baptism to symbolize a soul immersing itself in unconsciousness & matter, then coming up/out of its unconsciousness...
The thing is, souls who haven't experienced anything, want to experience their meanings, and have their understandings, but they can't believe that "suffering" or "harm" etc are "real", so they dive-in, and try holding to symbols, which, of course, doesn't work...
Again, the Christian bible has an excellent symbol representing the truth:
in Revelations, John is given the Book Of Truth to eat, and he eats it, and it is syrupy-sweet in his face, but bitter in his belly, exactly as Truth itself is:
Symbolic-"truth" is naive/sweet, but real Truth is bitter, hard-earned, good aversion-therapy.
So, what to do, then?
Face into karma, face into one's evolution, as human-category-lives are extraordinarily-rare in Universe, so make maximal use of what glorious opportunity you've got.
Mom brought me up Catholic, but I experienced some memories that didn't even fit human-category-life, and, years-later, discovered they were soul-memories of other kinds of lives, which blew-up all the Abrahamic-religions, for me.
Want to get a hornet/wasp/bee out of your home?
Their sentience loves swimming ( it feels like swimming: sentience feels wet, in that kind of life ) into luminance & openness, so, simply darken/block all the ways you don't want 'em going, and light up where you do want them going, and make certain that no scent is overriding their free-will, and they should leave your home.
That method doesn't work with other families of insects, btw, so the experience-induced-understanding I gained from that soul-memory doesn't work for representing any other kind of 'em.
Buddha Gautama Shakyamuni was right about fish being really mentally-limited: if you want your soul's next life to be something other than human, go for the hive-insects, as they have awesome amounts of awareness for such teensy brains.
We only exist as temporary "clothes" that the souls underlying our lives are "wearing".
Learning/understanding is the whole point of everything.
The desire-for-experiencing of souls is what drives evolution: when that energy expires, the population/culture/civilization/species collapses.
It's simple, and "our kind" isn't the center of the Universe, as the various Abrahamic religions all insist we are ( in spite of evidence ).
shrug
Facing into karma, gently but relentlessly pushing oneself to evolve, to see just how competent/complete one can become, to experience as much meaning as one can, within one's meagre years, you know?
Evolution, internalized.
Among our kind there are 3 dimensions/layers/substances of mind:
Huston Smith's brilliant & profound book "World Religions" gave much of this, in its Hindu & Buddhist chapters, btw, in case you want some source who is established.
( :
Tldr: Idk didn't read it
It's not worth it. Just smile politely at the rambling person and move on to the next comment.
Lmao true