What is the purpose of life?

[SweetSpot086]

What is the purpose of life? Lets say I dont kill myself..what does recovery look like? What do I do, where do I go etc? I have no passions, even if I did, have no energy or motivation to pursue them

 

[netrezven]

I go on with just feeling alive, hacking my comfort zone and pumping up adrenaline. It's bad for health so in few months will cool down a little.

 

[BeyondGoodNEvil]

dont ask this questions as you will find no answers to them.even if you do find the meaning of life its not going to change anything.
Instead be aware of your scenario.
from then you can either improve or ignore it and you should do something that makes you happy in the process

 

[Anonymous 4]

To have a life that has purpose

 

[narval]

the one we want (or can) give. At the end, aren't much more

 

[Mentalmick]

To open up a can of kick ass.

 

[112]

Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent.

If there is an answer to the question - and I am not convinced the question is not nonsense in the first place - one would not be able to put it into words. There is an intrinsic ineffability around it.

To avoid just leaving you with a cop-out answer I will give my personal opinion; I am not a nihilist but believe one must create her own meaning in life. You have not given much information on yourself here and so I am not sure exactly which direction to prod you, but I believe there is an aspect of personal drive toward understanding yourself and your aspirations that should go into informing any 'meaning' you decide upon.

For my own long-ago existential issues, I got over them largely by reading philosophy. I have not had a problematic thought in the realm of 'there is no point to living' in years after reading enough of it. (Although I am also well out of being a teenager now and wonder if my continued growth in personality into adulthood is what spurred this more than my reading.) I would therefore encourage you to seek out authors and people with whom you seem to jive and then delve into their work. It may help you get over the weary feelings regarding meaning and existentialism.

 

[Dead beat dad]

What is the purpose of life? Lets say I dont kill myself..what does recovery look like? What do I do, where do I go etc? I have no passions, even if I did, have no energy or motivation to pursue them

'... What does recovery look like...'
Brother I wish I knew and if I did, I'd share the bejesus out of it...
And while not quite 'recovery,' I see purpose in trying to be kind and compassionate, leave the world and the paths I've crossed better than when I found them... Doesn't always make you feel better about yourself but it engages the 'hope' function, without it meaning too much if it goes south.
Love and respect to you brother and I hope you can find what you're looking for.
DBD

 

[FuneralCry]

To me, I see life as having no overall meaning or purpose, it is essentially pointless. We are just waiting around for death really. I see it as us humans are only here because of evolution. We can give our lives an purpose, we can choose one for ourselves I guess. Many people have goals or motivations in this life.

 

[motel rooms]

To win the Olympics of suffering

 

[Alwaysbadtime]

To be able to use your brain productively and produce income in a satisfying way.

Or have a family, be financially supported and take care of household shit.

Or help animals and try not to hate everything. Be a stable force for your pets.

I have no purpose. An old person told me I needed a purpose over a year ago. She said to work at Starbucks. I'm old. People don't know wtf to tell someone very fucked.

Oops. This is in recovery. Ignore what isn't positive.

 

[motel rooms]

An old person told me I needed a purpose over a year ago. She said to work at Starbucks.

I'm sorry, but this made me lol so hard

 

[Alwaysbadtime]

I'm sorry, but this made me lol so hard

Yeah. It's really fucking bad.

 

[Marktheghost]

Achieve something.

 

[timf]

There are two basic theories for how we came to exist. The first is that nothing existed and then it blew up and became everything. As a result, all life is accidental and the philosophy of "eat, drink, and be merry" leads one to the pursuit of pleasure. One might follow the hedonist path where plunging into as much immediate gratification as one can get. However, this tends to shorten life. Another choice is the epicurean path that moderates pleasure to gain as much as one can get over time.

The second theory is that our life was created. This is an interesting one in that one is left to seek out and discover the relationship the creation should have with its creator. If pleasure is the purpose of the first theory, one might see relationship as the purpose of the second theory.

The first theory can produce hopelessness if the pursuit of pleasure becomes less satisfying. The second theory often produces confusion and false starts as so many explanations seem to be offered in this area. The second theory requires sifting through a lot of baloney to find what is true. If one chooses this path, one might want to get really good at detecting baloney so it can be quickly discarded.

Each person would then be faced with a choice, do you live for pleasure or truth. Given our present society (consumerism and an emphasis on feelings) those who chose to follow truth are really swimming against the current.

We are all faced with the choice of seeking pleasure or truth. It is especially difficult for those who would choose pleasure, but are unable to find it.

 

[motel rooms]

The second theory is that our life was created. This is an interesting one in that one is left to seek out and discover the relationship the creation should have with its creator. If pleasure is the purpose of the first theory, one might see relationship as the purpose of the second theory.

The second theory requires sifting through a lot of baloney to find what is true. If one chooses this path, one might want to get really good at detecting baloney so it can be quickly discarded.

Each person would then be faced with a choice, do you live for pleasure or truth. Given our present society (consumerism and an emphasis on feelings) those who chose to follow truth are really swimming against the current.

We are all faced with the choice of seeking pleasure or truth. It is especially difficult for those who would choose pleasure, but are unable to find it.

People who don't buy into the idea that life was created & whom you accuse of solely pursuing pleasure are the ones who have been doing the sifting through a lot of dogmatic garbage to find out what is true, my condescending creationist friend...

 

[TheAmazingCriswell]

We are all faced with the choice of seeking pleasure or truth.

Why are these the only two options? What do you mean by "truth"? How does one seek truth?

 

[timf]

whom you accuse

I am not sure I made any "accusations". I used "pleasure" in the broadest sense of self-satisfaction. For example, a person may not believe in creation and yet out of love sacrifice their own life to save the life of their child. Such a noble act still satisfies ones desires and values.

How does one seek truth?

The search for truth has been a mystery for many philosophers. One might illustrate it in two ways. The first is a joke that was popular in the Army back in the 60s. A guy tried getting out of the Army by pretending to be nuts. He would pick up various scraps of paper, examine it, and discard it saying, "That's not it". After a while the doctors decided to give him a medical discharge. They placed his discharge papers on the ground. He picked them up and said, "That's it" and left.

The second illustration is a description of early gold prospectors that would find traces of gold in a stream. They would keep panning for gold upstream until the gold ran out which indicated that they were close to the source vein.

One might sharpen discernment skills by first examining the information from intentional liars such as unscrupulous salesmen, politicians and advertising. Being able to quickly see what is true and what isn't is a useful skill. Then one can move on to sincere liars such as those who parrot some axiom that they have found of comfort. Here the trick is that the information you get will be delivered with absolute sincerity. Social activists and many religious and political people make declarations with the conviction of intense feeling, but may not be actually accurate. This requires a bit more analytical skill to be able to take statements and subject them to tests of logic or external facts. For example, the declaration that socialism or communism is better because it is fair for everyone can be subjected to an examination of historical examples where it has been attempted. If then one concludes that what is said is false, one can extrapolate motive. the self-serving motive of an intentional liar can be obvious, The self-stimulation of the self-righteous or mistaken can be more difficult to plumb.

It is unfortunate that most seek truth only so far as it takes for them to settle into a comfortable position. Here simplistic declarations that all Democrats or Republicans are evil or all Catholics or Protestants are evil provide a dead end in the search for truth and one gives over to the comforts (pleasures) or "being right".

There are few the persevere in a search for truth. Consider an examination of Buddhism. If desire is the defect of man, is it necessary to suppress all desire? Does karma and reincarnation actually work to perfect individuals? I found Buddhism ultimately unsatisfactory because it failed to answer what I considered crucial questions such as how would karma and reincarnation work, what mechanism or entity supervises it, where did souls originate, or if it is wrong to show compassion if it interferes with someone's karma.

It can be helpful to consider basic questions before getting too entangled in the millions of ideologies that are out there. For example, you might ask if man is perfectable or is there something intrinsically wrong with people. If you come to see one or the other as true, you can focus more on those ideas that spring from that group. This is called successive approximation. However, one has to be careful because one might be mistaken. For this reason it can be helpful to question that which has been assumed.

I put up a web site christianpioneer.com for those who either had been disillusioned with how Christianity is often presented or were just curious. I am sure that there are similar sites for Buddhism, Islam, and other religions. There are also sites for those drawn to political, social, and philosophical realms in their search for truth.

My advice is keep searching and follow that which resonates within you as truth.

 

[UseItOrLoseIt]

I'm not the first one to say this - the meaning of life is to live it. For us, simple minded people, that's the closest we can get without sounding outlandish. A tautology. Self-contained, self-evident and self-actualizing. Anyone who says otherwise is like a mad scientist bringing up a heart rate monitor and proclaiming:
"This is what a heart is!"

 

[hʚll]

the purpose is to hurt yourself and others, even when you don't want to
=suffer
=be corrupted and evil

 

[PapaSuicide]

Oddly enough, the meaning of life is to love unconditionally. Love yourself, love the next one, love the animals. No philosopher has dared to give purpose to life, because there isn't. Just live!

 

[BottomlessPit]

>be born
>"what the actual fuck is this shit"
>die

 

[Blackpoolbootz]

No purpose at all biggest joke of the universe. So might as well laugh along with it and if you can find someone to laugh with that's great.

 

[Foreversad]

Suffer pain get cheated on pay taxes worry repeat and then die .
SA DI ST IC

 

[Burned out]

Behind every psychology and the motivation to every action in some way ties back to freedom.

 

[heretogethelp]

What is the purpose of life? Lets say I dont kill myself..what does recovery look like? What do I do, where do I go etc? I have no passions, even if I did, have no energy or motivation to pursue them

There is none. Your best bet is to go sleep.

 

[OceanBlue]

To observe your own and others' flaws, suffering, and stupidity before death ends you.

 

[Flippy]

When I listen to Warren Zevon's "Desperados Under the Eaves" I think that the point to life is to be able to understand enough about the world in all its shit stained glory to be able to distil what you've learned into something as incredible as that song so that others can understand a bit more about the dimensions of the human experience and maybe understand each other a little better.

On the other hand, based on what most average people seem to say, it's about as being as mundane and cliched as possible. To do exactly as the person to your left is doing, buy a stupid sized TV to take to your magnolia coloured box that you live in that looks just like your neighbours'. Read as few books as possible, never try to learn anything new, just keep doing what you did as a kid but as an adult. Go see your neighbours to tell them how much bigger your TV is than theirs. hopefully they will feel inadequate and go buy a big TV too. Make sure everything you know is superficial and never think critically. Never point out how unfair the world can be, always dismiss people who have been harmed by the shit the world has dished out (it's not like it's happening to you is it?). Ignorance is bliss and never have a moment of self awareness. You need to go to Ikea to buy more magnolia stuff to go into the magnolia box as the stuff you have has been there for a while, so it's old and useless. Never stop for a minute and wonder if you could, however unintentionally, be contributing to the evil in the world. Just ignore it and focus on yourself, you are the protagonist, everyone else is a nonplayer character in your show. Rinse, repeat, be happy, at least you don't know for sure that you are but you don't know any different. Always make lots of "lalalla" noises and stick your fingers in your ears if anyone at all tells you that their life experiences prevent them from living like you do. After all, life is so easy as far as you've experienced, they must just be lazy and can't be arsed to make the effort, so it's their own fault for not being as great as you are.

I prefer the first/my philosophy personally.

 

[stellabelle]

What is the purpose of life? Lets say I dont kill myself..what does recovery look like? What do I do, where do I go etc? I have no passions, even if I did, have no energy or motivation to pursue them

Existing. Not really purposes unless you pick one. Or several. It depends on the person I guess. Life can be unpredictable along with people in it. Trauma and depression are hard to overcome. Be easy on yourself.

 

[Sherri]

That's an interesting question that I ask myself everyday!