The question of all questions. The thought of all beings. The manifestation of all destinies and eventualities.
Why the hell do I exist and what am I here to do — in fact what the hell am I doing right now and why?
This is an important question for everyone to ask. And indeed everyone does ask it on a regular basis. Usually to no avail…
Nobody controls you. Ultimately you are free to do as you please in this universe. As a conscious entity you possesses as proficient of a reality manipulator as anyone on the planet; a human body! Dont forget that you also poses a mind superior to all other living beings on this planet and for the most part equivalent to what's utilized by the smartest amongst us. Between your thumbs a revolution and between your ear lobes a nuclear weapon, so to speak. AND SOMEBODY gave you all the discretion in the world to pick your own purpose for what the hell to point it at and wreck with it, or better yet build into a heaven on earth.
A purpose or a lack there of, a purposelessness so to speak, is a hard thing to grapple with. By comparison its easy to conceive of your just imprisonment in a bodily reality manipulator, the sharing of consciousness with other human brains outside your physical being and the communal awe in any number of religions which may or may not be true. Heck we dont know if anything outside of ourselves is even true, the “all eating acid” so to speak. Fortunately this is solved for us by Jose Y Gasset DeOrtega who postulates that it is precisely the fact that external reality has an impact on us which proves it to be real and true.
You do exist. And your existence DOES MATTER!
What you do with it is none of my business. Or it would not be if it wasnt for the nagging little bit where it can prematurely end my existence. So im here to tell you that your existence has a purpose and help you think logically and rationally through what it can and should be.
At the very minimum your body is evolved through natural selection to reproduce. That is the strongest driver of your anatomy and of every single one of your consciousness inputs. If you just manage to make more of your self that is as good of a purpose as any. In fact one can argue that this is the ultimate purpose as far as the widget which is the human body is, as far as its concerned. So if youre satisfied with that and you solved all your problems stop here. No need to go on any further. However if you feel you need a purpose beyond the foundational lets continue..
Honestly your purpose in live can be anything you want it to be. Thats the beauty of it. Its self-deterministic and no one can tell you otherwise. One persons purpose can be to fish for his village and another's can be to take care of his community elders by taking them out on bike rides. The thing of it is that you come to realize that no one controls you and you are the ultimate captain fo your ship. As they say “with great power comes great responsibility” and thats a massive burden on some. So how do you grapple with such a philosophical weight on your shoulders once youre at a level where you realize you have such a responsibility? You work your way through it with hard work as anyone.
Lets say you’re a father with a genetic disability with a child born carrying that trait into an ableist society. Its very easy to see that your immediate life purpose may be to see to it that those children succeed and thrive in life. That is an immediate and nobile purpose which is rooted in deep seeded needs and wants which are a keystone to all societies the world round. To propagate oneself and to take care of ones young by necessity points you in a particular direction. But if we tease at it by extension we can derive some other purposes. The scientist and mathematicians among us focus on a vision for the future beyond themselves or their prodigy. They see that their purpose is to discover or uncover truths about reality which can be harnessed for the greater whole. To some undoubtedly the purpose becomes that striving for greater heights within their specialized fields of exploratory. And this is a noble end but to what extent? Some of the work ultimately results in dynamite, bullets or new torture methods more vile and cruel than any seen before in the history of humankind. Is knowledge really the trump card over prodigy when it comes to purpose?
Lets zoom out and think about what it takes for intelligence to survive on this rock hurling through space at thousands of miles per hour all together. Its one thing to help your offspring be better off, its entirely another to help the human race survive so that civilization and intelligence can into perpetuity. And now why would that matter? Isnt it a pre-ordained happening that we will persist here forever? The answer unsurprisingly is no. We have destroyed civilization in the past with the Roman Empire and we are perpetually on the brink of doing so again with nuclear weapons. Nothing is guaranteed and focusing on the overarching threats to humankind seems like a worthwhile endeavor, the success of which retroactively would conceivably justify our purpose in this time in history.
There are a number of serious crisis's which would wipe humanity out entirely. If any one of the many accidents were to befall us at any point in time we would once again turn into an empty rock devoid of life floating through space. If this were to happen we would collectively not be able to figure out our purpose in the universe. So to this extent preventing any one of these maladies from befalling our species is worthy of a life's purpose. Because by extending our capacity to understand our live purpose collectively your individual actions become worthy and purposeful.
Personally i’ve chosen to tackle climate change. For me if we create a boiling climate where nothing on our level of intelligence can survive, we may be ( as far as we know ) dooming the most advanced civilization in time-space to irrelevance. By providing a software solution to climate change in the form of a bicycle marketplace app I am furthering my goals of longevity, progeny, and sustainability of human civilization simultaneously. You dont have to follow in my footsteps but you do have to consider impact. What is something you can contribute beyond self or children that will have a maximal and long lasting impact on this earth? If you can think of an answer to that the whole world round will thank you for making it your life's purpose.
To be purposeless is to be a bag caught in the wind. Equally poetic and unresected in its banality of form.
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