What is your life's purpose?
- Thread starter Neurotic Void Melody
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I'm just throwing up some text to avoid a low content warning because my life's purpose consists of only two words:
Bring joy.
Bring joy.
As a master's student in philosophy myself, I feel compelled to respond to this. Your friend only gave you at best half of the story (or depending on your perspective, didn't really answer your true question). It's one thing to say that there is no 'objective' purpose (i.e. innate purposiveness to the fabric of the universe that holds regardless of human opinion) and quite another to say that it's impossible to talk about human lives having meaning and goals that encompass our entire existence, even if we have to create that meaning/set those goals for ourselves. Most people who raise this question might be wondering about the former, but at the end of the day, they really are concerned concretely with how they should understand their existence, and how they should therefore live their lives.MinionJoe said:
I'm pretty sure nobody buys that, including you.FPLOON said:
My life's purpose is to get myself a great big stack of cash, a giant, Scrooge McDuck style fortune so vast that the vaults of banks are litterally full of my wealth.
My purpose in life has multiple values involved.
1: Perfect time travel - So far, I'm doing a hell of a job on this one. I've managed to perfect the forward motion through time at a stunning rate of 1 sec/sec. Unfortunately, I have yet to figure out the reversal of the process.
2: Deal with the stupid - There are times when you just want to slap the person next to you because they claim that Justin Beiber is 'great' and complain when threatened with Led Zeppelin. It is my job, my mission, my purpose in life to find these people, and people like this, and make sure they do not reproduce.
1: Perfect time travel - So far, I'm doing a hell of a job on this one. I've managed to perfect the forward motion through time at a stunning rate of 1 sec/sec. Unfortunately, I have yet to figure out the reversal of the process.
2: Deal with the stupid - There are times when you just want to slap the person next to you because they claim that Justin Beiber is 'great' and complain when threatened with Led Zeppelin. It is my job, my mission, my purpose in life to find these people, and people like this, and make sure they do not reproduce.
Me? I'd like to entertain in some capacity (hopefully through film or games). If I can brighten people's lives with the things I create, I'll die happy.
Good work on that first point there, without your experimentation, i think things would have been a little more difficult for us all to...well...do anything really. But you have created bad as well as good. It had better be worth itEstranged180 said:
And stupid ppl, oh i always wonder that if i keep putting up with those types, i will still be let into any 'heaven' after death even without any belief in it. Are you listening up there/down there, god/gods?? Gotta play it safe you see
It's not just beiber either...it's also 1 erection, JLS, the wanted...ok i'm starting to feel a little queasy now, but you get the point. Ppl just seem to like what they're told to like in mainstream media
A wild Friedrich Nietzsche appears
Human individuals, for the most part don't have an objective purpose beyond the advancement of the human race for the next generation. You can talk about love, feelings, happiness, but in the end all of that is fleeting, and one day you are going to die. The one thing that endures is the human race as a whole... in theory. We of course poses the power to destroy ourselves. Thus it is the duty of humanity to destroy threats to humanity, including other humans whose definition of humanity threatens our own. This is where all conflict, all innovation, our feelings of empathy, love, hate and apathy come from; the desire to survive, to add to the collective and to drive forward our race. We are a people at our best in conflict, which is why the rules of charity and good will will never be shared by everyone, and there will never be peace.
This is why there are so many of you, looking at this thinking of nothing more than games, anime and lethargy, without a job, a girlfriend. It doesn't matter, either one day you will do something to contribute, or you will not and someone will pick up your slack. Or we will fail and the universe will continue until energy hits maximum entropy and everything stops.
Regardless our sole purpose in life is our duty to those who come after us. The details differ from person to person; you may be simply a statistic, a cautionary tale, a agent of chaos, a force for order, an intellectual, a saint, a martyr, an engineer, a scientist, a teacher, a salesman, a drug dealer. It doesn't matter. Simply by reading this your thoughts are being influenced in support of my argument or against it, in either event your understanding of yourself is greater than what it was moments ago.
The words of this man, "God is dead" are inaccurate. As an idea he is still very much alive. What should have been said was "God needs to die". It is not the role of an absentee father figure to lay down laws that we must live by anymore, and hiding behind the words of such is an act for the weak, or those with no faith in humanity.
As for me? Currently my purpose is to decide between a GSXR 1000 and a ZX10r and save up enough money to purchase one.
Human individuals, for the most part don't have an objective purpose beyond the advancement of the human race for the next generation. You can talk about love, feelings, happiness, but in the end all of that is fleeting, and one day you are going to die. The one thing that endures is the human race as a whole... in theory. We of course poses the power to destroy ourselves. Thus it is the duty of humanity to destroy threats to humanity, including other humans whose definition of humanity threatens our own. This is where all conflict, all innovation, our feelings of empathy, love, hate and apathy come from; the desire to survive, to add to the collective and to drive forward our race. We are a people at our best in conflict, which is why the rules of charity and good will will never be shared by everyone, and there will never be peace.
This is why there are so many of you, looking at this thinking of nothing more than games, anime and lethargy, without a job, a girlfriend. It doesn't matter, either one day you will do something to contribute, or you will not and someone will pick up your slack. Or we will fail and the universe will continue until energy hits maximum entropy and everything stops.
Regardless our sole purpose in life is our duty to those who come after us. The details differ from person to person; you may be simply a statistic, a cautionary tale, a agent of chaos, a force for order, an intellectual, a saint, a martyr, an engineer, a scientist, a teacher, a salesman, a drug dealer. It doesn't matter. Simply by reading this your thoughts are being influenced in support of my argument or against it, in either event your understanding of yourself is greater than what it was moments ago.
The words of this man, "God is dead" are inaccurate. As an idea he is still very much alive. What should have been said was "God needs to die". It is not the role of an absentee father figure to lay down laws that we must live by anymore, and hiding behind the words of such is an act for the weak, or those with no faith in humanity.
As for me? Currently my purpose is to decide between a GSXR 1000 and a ZX10r and save up enough money to purchase one.
To be happy? However, I don't know what makes me happy. So finding that out is a quest in itself.
Why do I/we exist? No particular reason that I can discern other than random flukes of probability.
What is my chosen purpose? To use my hands and my mind to advance the human race on the whole by any means available. My skills are such that I've chosen to do this via a career as an engineer.
The fact that I get to play with stuff like the real life version of that Lego mech Alcom1 posted might also have had something to do with the decision.
What is my chosen purpose? To use my hands and my mind to advance the human race on the whole by any means available. My skills are such that I've chosen to do this via a career as an engineer.
The fact that I get to play with stuff like the real life version of that Lego mech Alcom1 posted might also have had something to do with the decision.
I exist because of a series of random events which lead up to my creation. The rest is entirely up to me.
What I want to do is be happy and successful, surround myself with people who I can make happy and who make me happy, and live as long as I can in that state as possible. I'm not intelligent enough or important enough to affect the rest of the world, so I'll be quite happy being the centre of my own little happy world, populated by the people I love.
What I want to do is be happy and successful, surround myself with people who I can make happy and who make me happy, and live as long as I can in that state as possible. I'm not intelligent enough or important enough to affect the rest of the world, so I'll be quite happy being the centre of my own little happy world, populated by the people I love.
To lay on your deathbed and have as few regrets as possible. If I need to do something I should, and the very last thing that should stop me is me.
I could have made a joke but everyone else already did that.
I could have made a joke but everyone else already did that.
To be happy and have fun.
About 10 years ago it occurred to me that I just don't fit into the social working expectations in my country. Even when I enjoyed my job I'd feel incomplete when working full time because I felt like my life had become my job. I'd work 8 hours and I'd spend about 90 minutes prepping for work and then commuting. I'd have that wind down period after work and have daily chores to complete before I could start truly enjoying the day. Only having 2 to 3 hours of personal time a day wore me down. It didn't feel like life is 'worth it' regardless of the income I'm bringing in.
So I made a decision.
I'm going to cut my living expenses down to the absolute minimum so I can work less hours and have more fun. Since doing this my life has been amazing. I'll work about 20 hours a week, put money away into future savings every month and have a solid 8+ hours a day to do whatever I want. I only earn about 15,000 a year but my needs are simple and my life feels complete.
About 10 years ago it occurred to me that I just don't fit into the social working expectations in my country. Even when I enjoyed my job I'd feel incomplete when working full time because I felt like my life had become my job. I'd work 8 hours and I'd spend about 90 minutes prepping for work and then commuting. I'd have that wind down period after work and have daily chores to complete before I could start truly enjoying the day. Only having 2 to 3 hours of personal time a day wore me down. It didn't feel like life is 'worth it' regardless of the income I'm bringing in.
So I made a decision.
I'm going to cut my living expenses down to the absolute minimum so I can work less hours and have more fun. Since doing this my life has been amazing. I'll work about 20 hours a week, put money away into future savings every month and have a solid 8+ hours a day to do whatever I want. I only earn about 15,000 a year but my needs are simple and my life feels complete.