We spend our days bound by endless obligations. Yet, even with loneliness, failed relationships, and soul-draining work, people still manage to catch a glimpse of happiness. Why?
there is no point. simply try to enjoy it
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Plenty happens after you die. You’re just not there for it.
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Welcome to adulthood.
The question you ask is universal. The answer much less so and in that difference lies the journey of life.
For some it’s about amassing as much wealth as possible, for others it’s about cementing a legacy. The pursuit of happiness is a common approach and to serve is yet another. Some seek solace in religion, others in hedonism. Some spend a lifetime searching, others exist and take in the experience.
For me it’s about making the world a better place.
All I know is that I’d rather be here than not be here. It doesn’t get much deeper than that for me.
I prefer not having a meaning of life.
Imagine having a real purpose. Then the question would still be “why”, but you’d also have that obligation to do.
It’s up to you to create your own purpose in life.
In my view, connection with others and the happiness and joy we can find in that is the reason for living.
It’s what makes the world so terrifying that there are so many broken people who just want to hurt and dominate others and have no care for depth of connection. Because they are wasting their lives on accumulation of power and are painfully obviously deeply sad and broken people.
Sam Altman has his own issues, but he’s dead-on when talking about someone like Elon Musk:
“Probably his whole life is from a position of insecurity. I feel for the guy,” Altman said. “I don’t think he’s, like, a happy person. I do feel for him.”
So find people, find connections with them, make your life about your connection with others. That’s my suggestion. Love is scary, but also freeing. Will that be a struggle with the obligations we face? Sure, but not impossible, especially if you do your best to set clear boundaries and focus on your family and friends as opposed to the soul crushing job you work to be able to take care of yourself.
One of my favorite films is Dead Man. It’s a “buddy movie” about the importance of friendship and the unlikely places we find it. Two men who have been rejected by their respective societies find friendship, trust, and kinship in each other. I think this may be worth a watch for you.
You are the Universe experiencing itself.
Brilliant.
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Because the alternative would be having no happiness at all.
It’s the everyday drudgery, miseries and annoyances that make the good times worthwhile. Just like you never appreciate the sun more than in a place that gets very little of it.
I currently live in a country that enjoys a very high standard of living and where people really do enjoy the good life. Yet weirdly enough, a lot of the locals are depressed and keep complaining. Why? Because they don’t realize what they have, because it’s their everyday normal.
As for what’s the point of living, if you don’t want to fall into the easy fallacies of religion, I suggest you simply enjoy your life while you can. You were born with a finite number of hours on this dirtball and they’re ticking away, so make sure you spend as many as you can with your loved ones having a good time. Because when the clock stops ticking, it’s over.
There’s no meaning, no purpose. We’re random life on a random planet. Try to have a happy life and try not to inhibit the happiness of others. That’s it.
There’s no meaning, no purpose.
… That you don’t provide yourself, and it could be anything.
it could be anything.
But you have to actually believe it. So the trick is to find your purpose, as much as it is to make it up. There’s something in you that wants to come out… or maybe not!
Anything?
Whatever’s important to you.
It’s important to me that I have no goal or purpose, and I will focus on making that come true no matter that.
Learn. Evolve. Improve one’s mind. Understand more of the universe. Gain a greater understanding of one’s place in the universe. Grow beyond what we understand and comprehend existence at this point.
There is no purpose but to be alive, or rather, you make your own purpose.
Well, things do happen after you die, just not to you.
Compassion for those who come after us is one possible source of meaning.
One could also consider that having no afterlife makes this life more meaningful than it would be compared to an infinity.
Your body decomposes.