Life's meaning

still looking!

 

I feel like it is something that is changeable. We grow as persons, as we learn more about ourselves and develop new interests, our life purpose changes too. At the moment I am just enjoying life, I am done with my study, still working at my side job, doing a language course and going to do some volunteering. This year I am dedicating to improving myself and finding out what I want to do in life.

 

Still looking for it as well. Been thinking about it a lot recently. I am doing my dream job but making zero money and extremely far from my ultimate goal of living in the USA

 

Keep trying at life. Seek to find meaning and purpose in what you do, what you like about what you currently do in your life. Sometimes the mainstream world tries to sell us on this idea that we need to find this "one thing" that will free us and give us purpose.

Perhaps, if we really apply ourselves in what we are currently doing and learn to shift our perspective, we just might find a fragment of meaning.

Of course, all that is easier said than done.

 

The meaning of life stems from actively participating in important tasks like jobs, marriage, removal of addition, helping people, traveling, understanding parents and siblings etc.

 

Religion , build self identity , trauma work who am I what do I enjoy etc .

 

Just focusing on the questions i think it has added a lot of purpose in my life in which the biggest question was why i exist and after getting the answer i wish to become a scientist at NASA and giving my whole life to the world of physics.

 

I guess it can be something different for everyone as each person is different. Yet, there may be some patterns in people's goals. That's a paradox. I believe it can change with age and experience. For instance, your meaning of life as a kid may be trying to please your parents and keep waiting for another Christmas and birthday gift. It's totally different for an adult person. But these are just goals - wealth, fame, sex. As regards the meaning of life - I guess to serve others and draw pleasure from it. You can accomplish that by doing a fulfilling job.

 

I believe my purpose for existence has to deal with love. I say this based on a couple of observations, namely, that I have an intellect and a will. An intellect is important if one is to be an agent of love because you can’t love what you don’t know; my intellect’s ability to self-reflection, empathy, sympathy, etc all help me grow in love with the object of my love. My will helps me make choices based on this love.

The questions then become: What is the purpose of love? What does it mean to love? How am I called to love? On a secular/humanist level I’ve found these questions to be challenging, because at some point the only answer you get back —why does there need to be a purpose?—is really just another question that tends to try to avoid answering the previous questions. It also posses another question, can a question exist without an answer?

The other issue I come to is people say you can make up your own meaning and purpose; however, I don’t see how that’s possible as nothing that exists chose for itself it’s own purpose, but rather it was inherent; for example, a tree didn’t choose to be a tree; it’s treeness and purpose was already dictated by its nature and essence. This is true for plants, animals, chemicals, etc and yet I’m supposed to accept that when it comes to my existence I’m the one who gets to choose why I’m here?

Just so many questions.

 

well dont get me wrong but i was trying to understand your condition first of all i think that you're a fundamental level thinker and for your question that "why there is a need to be a purpose"the need is just to give satisfaction to our curiosity that why i exist and here now you will ask why there is a reason for the existence well it's just because of the existence of science and existence of science is because of existence of reasons as well the curiosity to find it
The conclusion is they all are interconnected to each other's existence
Maybe i am wrong or anyone will be having a better answer than that of mine
But I would be very glad if this is of any help to you
Tell me if you find me somwhere wrong
Even i am also writing this to satisfy my curiosity of knowing the exact answers of your questions

 

This is the challenge I’m talking about in regards to secular/humanism aka atheism; what you mentioned is, I believe, what they’re trying to convey which is that the question “what is my purpose/why am I here” is just an invention of my own curiosity and nothing more. That the existence of this question doesn’t exist apart from me, so therefore I’m the source for its existence. Since I’m the source for the existence of the question then why can I not be the one who determines the answer? Or why does there need to be an answer?

The challenge I have is I agree the question of existence is interconnected with my existence and is facilitated by my nature: however, I disagree with the premise that I chose the question and therefor have the right to choose the answer. I did not will myself into existence; I did not choose my nature. I was created with a nature that has the faculty of reason, which produces curiosity, which has imposed on me the question of purpose/meaning. Since I’m not the creator/source of my own existence then I’m not creator/source of the question and therefore not the source of the answer. As someone who can create things I’ve observed that the starting point of creation always begins first in my mind, and that I then take the idea within mind and dress it with physical material. By doing this I imbue the physical material with my immaterial idea, in short I imbue the creation with its purpose.

Naturally, I concluded if my creators are the ones that can tell me my purpose then this means my purpose for existence should be able to be answered by my parents, right? Well, no. Come to find out my parents also didn’t will me into existence, they merely participated in the act of my creation, and to their credit they don’t claim to be the source of the answer to my question of purpose. Being confined now by the boundaries of atheism, I’m left with no solution to my question.

This then brings me to the last part “why does there need to be an answer?” which is just a question that’s telling me to ignore the existence of the question of purpose; the question which my very nature imposes on me. IMO, that’s not helpful.

I’m left now at a crossroads. I either continue on the path of atheism, however, to do so would mean I would have to ignore the question of purpose, a question which my very nature imposes on me…OR I continue down the path of exploration of the question and open myself up to the possibility of transcendence.

Full disclosure, I’ve already decided to pursue the latter.

 

hey the answer is pretty simple main answer is ofcourse it's rule of nature that humans are created to respond on the stimulus they recieve because it's a sign of a living substance that has life but nature has given us the ability to take decision whether to respond or not
And for the question that why there is need to be an answer
So let's take an example
We + and to neutralize that there is"-"
So as to neutralize question there is an answer

If this arguement is hurting then i am really sorry this was not my intention
This is the last reply of me in this thread

 

But i have to answer really and seriously

 

Maybe we overthink life's purpose. Perhaps we should start to enjoy our lives and focus on the people we live with. Otherwise, if we are not satisfied, we might try to improve the quality of our lives. Also the meaning of life is different for everybody and may change.

But this straightforward answer to the question: "Is there anything more to life?" - "There isn't" - may seem dumb on the face of it, but it's not. Living in our heads is not the proper way to live life, in my opinion.

 

yes, we should not run for perfectionism in life it's just become what we think about it so be always happy and enjoy the journey

 

It is a law of nature that living things respond to stimulus but why did nature dictate for me to have the ability to reason? Why didn’t evolution just give me instinct? Clearly nature deemed that enough for plants, insects, and every animal but mankind…I want to know why!

I’m a little confused as to why you keep saying you’re sorry if your argument is hurting.

Maybe we don’t think about this enough? Maybe we think about it too little? All human beings live in their heads, the only ones that don’t are zombies.

Maybe ignoring certain questions helps with your happiness, but it doesn’t help mine. Thanks for the discussion though.

 

Biologically speaking, the meaning of life is to beget more life. To reproduce. This goes deeper than humanity, deeper than mammality, deeper than animal instinct or even life itself. Even viruses, not complete cells, reproduce. Our compulsion to do this is baked into us so deep, it's unavoidable. So reproduction, children, is life's meaning.
Humans are way more complicated than viruses, or simple cells, though. We reproduce sexually, by reproducing only half our DNA in any given offspring. That means a dependence on other beings. Furthermore, reproduction for us is extremely complex because we have to arrange it so our offspring reach their own sexual maturity and are capable of reproducing themselves. Males can technically get away with impregnating as many mates as possible, and human females could conceivably get away with birthing as many as possible, though that's way more costly for her in terms of risk and resources. This isn't the best strategy. The best one is to have only a few offspring and pour your resources into them, maximizing their chances at success. This means pair bonding with your mate, and that mate is actually more important than any of the offspring because if one or two get sick or get eaten by wolves, that's tragic but you can make another. So relationship, marriage, is a vital piece of life's meaning.
Not all humans can reproduce, though. That's ok, because humans are so difficult to bring to full sexual maturity, there's a lot of tasks, multiple complex systems to learn, so more than just parents have the role of bringing a child to maturity. If you're an uncle, aunt, or cousin, you share DNA with that kid, you still have a legacy to uphold, so you can directly contribute to the nurture of that child and that also has meaning. Even if you don't like kids, you can care for adult members of the family who do care for the kids. Take care of mom and dad in their old age, so they can spend time with grand kids, or even so their parents don't have to spend time on your parents. Even if you are a single child and can't or do not want to reproduce because you hate kids, you can still contribute by providing jobs, mentoring younger employees, creating a prosperous and stable society for children to grow up in. As a single guy in the Army, I took on all the scrub jobs and the shit details, the guard duty, the trash patrol, cleaning vehicles, staying in the field longer than the other guys so they could go home and be with their wives. I could be pro-family without having my own family, and that had meaning.

Philosophically speaking, I don't know about joy but there is for sure suffering, and it gives me a sense of meaning to become a net negative for the suffering in the world. If I create a minimum of it, best I know how, and absorb or transmute it as best as I can, that's success, that means something. Suffering to reduce future suffering, or reduce someone else's suffering, means something. Meaningless suffering is horrible.