41–50 of 239 posts
You need to be responsible for something. A dog. A kid. A dying mom. A goldfish. Without that yes, life just moves along with no purpose.
It's already made plain how to live, what to do, what the most high is looking for in men and women.
It’s quite simple: Do what is fair and just to your neighbor, be compassionate and loyal in your love, And don’t take yourself too seriously.
But don't get too in your head about comparing your work to others:
I want you to think about how all this makes you more significant, not less. A body isn’t just a single part blown up into something huge. It’s all the different-but-similar parts arranged and functioning together. If Foot said, “I’m not elegant like Hand, embellished with rings; I guess I don’t belong to this body,” would that make it so? If Ear said, “I’m not beautiful like Eye, transparent and expressive; I don’t deserve a place on the head,” would you want to remove it from the body? If the body was all eye, how could it hear? If all ear, how could it smell?
Try to build, not tear down. And whatever gets in the way of the work, is the work.
So, if someone is trying to kill you, survive. If they aren't (and I hope that is the case!), try to find ways to help humanity survive in a universe that, if nothing is done, will kill all of us and our descendants sooner rather than later.
Now, assuming that we figure it out, and spread life beyond Earth in a sustainable way (which includes making Earth life sustainable), our descendants can address the question of purpose more fully. But until then, our only reasonable purpose is to give them the chance to ask.
>There are plenty of studies that show that having a "purpose" and working after it is correlated with higher happiness or well being. I wouldn't even consider debating this with anyone. It's too true. >"Purpose" is vague enough, so to make things worse I am going to conflate it with "life meaning", "calling" or "personal values". What is the purpose of the yeast which makes bread? It is life, it has a purpose. What…
>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4LE5bel_GvU Only place I've ever seen the word. Possibly the same video you found?
I had not seen this. Thanks.
I have come across multiple articles, books, podcasts, etc. (Though only recently, so I haven't gone down that rabbit hole yet)
Ask HN: What's the Point of Life? - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28866558 - October 14, 2021 (164 comments)
If you can at least mentally strip away the comforts of your life, what will you do to survive, assuming you want to succeed (on your terms, not the world's) at something that gets you up in the morning? You'll probably begin to ask yourself what am I good at, what do I want to learn, how can I learn it? Reality is a constraint, and you have to figure that out.
This may not work for people in certain mental states or stages in life, but I hope this helps.
I don't think that a purpose is particularly helpful for people. If you don't have one, then live your life as well as you can and you will see patterns emerge. Follow them, be yourself even when it is hard. Good luck!
The "purpose" question is easier when someone is trying to kill you - your purpose is to survive. If you zoom out in time and space, considering the Fermi paradox, humanity is in a "default dead" state. This would be true even if climate change, nuclear war, etc was off the table. This implies that humanities purpose is to survive, against all odds. So, if someone is trying to kill you, survive. If they aren't (and I…
Counter argument: Only insane people have purpose… What is the Purpose of Life? - Sadhguru > https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=vQ7ZvPghdy8