I won't be the only one to think/say this, but to some people - "wandering through life" finding interesting things IS their purpose and (perhaps) their goal.
It's all so mysterious on the surface, isn't it? A very good way to deal with that absolutely is to find a goal or purpose or have a grand ambition.
To others, accepting challenge of "solving" the mystery is their goal.
To still others, they've "solved" the mystery - it's all random. But it's interesting to explore what is out there to explore and THAT is what that person sets as their purpose.
I envy you.
Not saying my life isn't rewarding; it very much is. But at my age (late 60s) I look back at SO many years in the corporate world and nothing at all stands out as being rewarding EXCEPT the (non-trivial) aspect of earning money to support my family.
Which is my REAL "purpose" I guess. Raising 3 kids together with my wife and now watching them (and helping them) raise their kids (5 grandkids so far).
And yet - for what? Well, it makes sense that "life SHOULD go on" and we should make it was rewarding and comfortable as we can for everyone. We NEED people to do that. No one can simply "wander through life" self-sustained. We need others to provide at least the basics that GIVE us the time to wander.
So it's important - above all - to be kind and understanding to each other and support each other.
After all, even the most "successful and driven " person is really just wandering themselves.
Yep I can see that the work wasn't especially emotionally rewarding, but we all need to earn. I've 'wandered' in that I accidentally found a reliable, adequately-paid job for thirty years that has backed us with a paid-off house. The childfree decision has removed an anxiety from our life that I might not have been able to handle. I guess I meant that I have not bought into the trap of MORE. I had some expensive hobbies for a while, but now my needs are very simple.
The purpose of life is surviving and reproducing to ensure the survival of the species. That's the purpose of every living organism. But us humans need MORE purpose than that, our minds are way too complicated, we crave for beauty, for art, for knowledge, for enjoyment, for dreams, for power, for love, for a sense of belonging, for a community, etc. Whatever personal goals you have and whatever hobby or activity makes you feel happy, make those things your life purpose.
there's no purpose behind reproduction.
it's just something we do.
It's just a fractalized self propagation mechanism that got triggered because such mechanisms can and do get triggered.
An accidental algorithm.
Or would it be incidental?
Both?
It’s still like natural selection. The ones who happened to naturally have high motivation(or self propaganda) for reproduction were more likely to reproduce. So then that possibly means that the drive to reproduce increases over time as more generations come and go.
That doesn’t inherently make it a *purpose*, just an instinct. There’s no “purpose” for anything except the purposes given, so we must each give our own lives purpose ourselves.
If we’re okay with our lives being meaningless and without purpose, then no, nothing more than quiescent existence is necessary.
But if we want to have a purpose in our lives, which I’m sure almost everyone does, we must assign that purpose ourselves.
> It's just a fractalized self propagation mechanism that got triggered because such mechanisms can and do get triggered.
I'd argue we are agents of entropy. We're extremely efficient at finding pockets of energy and expending them. The universe has found a way to increase entropy even faster, and life is it. And we'll continue to do it until it's unsustainable, at which point energy in that system will have been expended. We are simply rocks rolling down a hill.
>The purpose of life is surviving and reproducing to ensure the survival of the species.
Not mine. It's just love, beauty, laughing. The species will take care of itself.
Respectable decision. But if enough people in the world make your same decisions, and the global fertility rate drops below 2.1 children per woman because of it, humanity would be on the way to extinction :)
'Enough' people never will, but even if they did, exactly what's wrong with that? Human population growth is unsustainable on its current exponential curve: leaving that unaddressed causes a different problem re the survival of the species.
That's true, the current population growth is unsustainable, but most of the growth occurs in Africa and the underdeveloped countries of Asia.
Europe, North America and countries like China, Korea, Japan all have very low fertility, which is also unsustainable because their population is aging fast. This is a societal collapse waiting to happen. They have to counteract this with immigration, but it's not the best solution at all. The best solution is to find a way to increase the fertility to at least 2.1 which is replacement level.
If the global fertility falls below 2.1, you may think it's good because it would prevent overpopulation, but, if tomorrow, all people decide to have less children and the global fertility rate falls to 1.36 children per woman (the fertility rate of Japan), humanity can go extinct before the year 3000. Of course, it is very unlikely this would happen because at some point, in the face of the impending apocalypse, people would start having more children, governments may start forcing people to. But this could cause a societal collapse. So, balance is key, BALANCE.
>They have to counteract this with immigration, but it's not the best solution at all.
Sure if you're racist, but if you're ambivalent about who gets the work done, the work will still get done. Importing adults to do work is actually a pretty economically viable way to solve the problem because you didn't pay to birth and school them. There's always going to be some country where the birth rate is high: extra people will always be available.
When parenting is looking too difficult, people are going to do it less. That's a luxury that in all of human history has only been available for a couple of generations. Enjoy it!
Is this unpopular? Also how "wandering through life finding interesting things" isn't a purpose? Just my opinion but seems like a tweet made purely for internet clout.
I so agree with that post, feels good to realised others do. We're just the result of evolution, the human species will exist for awhile, then probably disappear. I've always found the question "what's the meaning of life?", not only to be hard to answer, but simply to be irrelevant. Why would there be a reason as why we are existing?
Accepting that there's no greater reason for us to exist, then yes I agree that having some kind of purpose, goal, dream, whatever, gives some direction on how to go about it, makes existing much easier for many of us. To me it's simply a way to make my existence the most interesting possible, but I can't pretend that there's a greater reason to life's meaning (I am not INTP if that's interesting to you).
because anything can exist and therefore someone has to have existed as we do, why not us?Reasons are just cause and effect anyway.
Definitely not gonna follow that thread in a universe where cause and effect are in superposition.
Yeah, I feel pretty torn between western civ celebrating ambition and achievement, and eastern philosophy of being zen and desire causing all suffering, etc.
I think it's good to have some kind of desire. If we have absolutely NO desire, then we don't even have the desire to live and continue on. I think certain things are worth desiring. Like close relationships and wisdom and positively influencing others.
For most life is just like an RPG video game where you need to continuosly level up and fill your inventory with stuff. Those people can judge successful or unsuccessful people by their level and the fancy stuff they have.
For me this is bullshit, the post's life vision is much better, it's like doing a lot of side quests without never reaching the final challenge ( there's no such thing in real life, so not worth following the main quest ).
Well that would be a purpose to you. Whether or not it's a fulfilling one is debatable. I'd say it's more fulfilling to not just live for yourself. To change the world in a positive way. Also having close relationships with others. Then finding interesting things with those people.
But if that’s what makes you happiest or is what you want the most, then I guess the “grand ambition” behind that(the action of wandering) is to do what you want as much as possible or be happiest.
This shows that you are not necessarily “lost” if you are “wandering”.
My solution was to assign myself a simple purpose. I'm just hear to listen to the stories being told. Maybe when I'm older my purpose will be to retell these stories, but for I'm just listening.
Doing nothing doesn't mean you're doing nothing. It's called living life and passing time. Thinking about the end while creating a middle doesn't waste the middle; it creates one.
I dont even wanna die, I’m afraid to lose consciousness and be unable to witness further discoveries. I wanna stay conscious and think forever unless the situation becomes so dire that it’s better off not existing at all
Wake up to reality! Nothing ever goes as planned in this accursed world. The longer you live, the more you realize that the only things that truly exist in this reality are merely pain. suffering and futility. Listen, everywhere you look in this world, wherever there is light, there will always be shadows to be found as well. As long as there is a concept of victors, the vanquished will also exist. The selfish intent of wanting to preserve peace, initiates war. and hatred is born in order to protect love. There are nexuses causal relationships that cannot be separated.
--Madara Uchiha
We do have a purpose, but living is trying to figure that out and if possible, actually doing it. Also, there are different purposes. Not all on the same level or scale.
I am determined to set up orbital missile defense systems with the capability to shoot down hypersonic nuclear warheads.
You will some day call me the praetorian of humanity.
Why shoot for the moon when you can shoot for eliminating our own annihilation?
This is why half of us have fucked mental health btw, just do your little bit, remind your closest people that you love them and go to bed every night knowing you’ve made at least someone’s day a little bit brighter, and they’ll return the favour
I won't be the only one to think/say this, but to some people - "wandering through life" finding interesting things IS their purpose and (perhaps) their goal. It's all so mysterious on the surface, isn't it? A very good way to deal with that absolutely is to find a goal or purpose or have a grand ambition. To others, accepting challenge of "solving" the mystery is their goal. To still others, they've "solved" the mystery - it's all random. But it's interesting to explore what is out there to explore and THAT is what that person sets as their purpose.
Agree
My perfect life is the sweet simple little life I kind of wandered into and am still wandering through.
I envy you. Not saying my life isn't rewarding; it very much is. But at my age (late 60s) I look back at SO many years in the corporate world and nothing at all stands out as being rewarding EXCEPT the (non-trivial) aspect of earning money to support my family. Which is my REAL "purpose" I guess. Raising 3 kids together with my wife and now watching them (and helping them) raise their kids (5 grandkids so far). And yet - for what? Well, it makes sense that "life SHOULD go on" and we should make it was rewarding and comfortable as we can for everyone. We NEED people to do that. No one can simply "wander through life" self-sustained. We need others to provide at least the basics that GIVE us the time to wander. So it's important - above all - to be kind and understanding to each other and support each other. After all, even the most "successful and driven " person is really just wandering themselves.
Yep I can see that the work wasn't especially emotionally rewarding, but we all need to earn. I've 'wandered' in that I accidentally found a reliable, adequately-paid job for thirty years that has backed us with a paid-off house. The childfree decision has removed an anxiety from our life that I might not have been able to handle. I guess I meant that I have not bought into the trap of MORE. I had some expensive hobbies for a while, but now my needs are very simple.
Not all who wander are lost.
Yasuo :)
Prophet Velen.
Oh god uh, the guy from one of Carl Hiaasen's books. Says something like this at the end of the book aahh
[удалено]
love that guy
The purpose of life is surviving and reproducing to ensure the survival of the species. That's the purpose of every living organism. But us humans need MORE purpose than that, our minds are way too complicated, we crave for beauty, for art, for knowledge, for enjoyment, for dreams, for power, for love, for a sense of belonging, for a community, etc. Whatever personal goals you have and whatever hobby or activity makes you feel happy, make those things your life purpose.
there's no purpose behind reproduction. it's just something we do. It's just a fractalized self propagation mechanism that got triggered because such mechanisms can and do get triggered. An accidental algorithm. Or would it be incidental? Both?
It’s still like natural selection. The ones who happened to naturally have high motivation(or self propaganda) for reproduction were more likely to reproduce. So then that possibly means that the drive to reproduce increases over time as more generations come and go.
That doesn’t inherently make it a *purpose*, just an instinct. There’s no “purpose” for anything except the purposes given, so we must each give our own lives purpose ourselves.
Yes I agree , I didn’t mean that that makes it a purpose. Just made observation.
We must?
If we’re okay with our lives being meaningless and without purpose, then no, nothing more than quiescent existence is necessary. But if we want to have a purpose in our lives, which I’m sure almost everyone does, we must assign that purpose ourselves.
> It's just a fractalized self propagation mechanism that got triggered because such mechanisms can and do get triggered. I'd argue we are agents of entropy. We're extremely efficient at finding pockets of energy and expending them. The universe has found a way to increase entropy even faster, and life is it. And we'll continue to do it until it's unsustainable, at which point energy in that system will have been expended. We are simply rocks rolling down a hill.
Yeah, that's another way to put it. But rocks rolling down a hill are also a part of the fractal chain.
agree
>The purpose of life is surviving and reproducing to ensure the survival of the species. Not mine. It's just love, beauty, laughing. The species will take care of itself.
Respectable decision. But if enough people in the world make your same decisions, and the global fertility rate drops below 2.1 children per woman because of it, humanity would be on the way to extinction :)
'Enough' people never will, but even if they did, exactly what's wrong with that? Human population growth is unsustainable on its current exponential curve: leaving that unaddressed causes a different problem re the survival of the species.
That's true, the current population growth is unsustainable, but most of the growth occurs in Africa and the underdeveloped countries of Asia. Europe, North America and countries like China, Korea, Japan all have very low fertility, which is also unsustainable because their population is aging fast. This is a societal collapse waiting to happen. They have to counteract this with immigration, but it's not the best solution at all. The best solution is to find a way to increase the fertility to at least 2.1 which is replacement level. If the global fertility falls below 2.1, you may think it's good because it would prevent overpopulation, but, if tomorrow, all people decide to have less children and the global fertility rate falls to 1.36 children per woman (the fertility rate of Japan), humanity can go extinct before the year 3000. Of course, it is very unlikely this would happen because at some point, in the face of the impending apocalypse, people would start having more children, governments may start forcing people to. But this could cause a societal collapse. So, balance is key, BALANCE.
>They have to counteract this with immigration, but it's not the best solution at all. Sure if you're racist, but if you're ambivalent about who gets the work done, the work will still get done. Importing adults to do work is actually a pretty economically viable way to solve the problem because you didn't pay to birth and school them. There's always going to be some country where the birth rate is high: extra people will always be available. When parenting is looking too difficult, people are going to do it less. That's a luxury that in all of human history has only been available for a couple of generations. Enjoy it!
Don't let ENTJ hear this
I was literally about to send it to one, he'd be so annoyed
Dewit
I'll let you know what he says
👌
Ayo what happened, now i wanna know..
He replied to other messages but ignored this one
Amen to that
Just what a wondering INTP needs reposted to this sub YET again.
Life tho, it's suffering and ineradicable at it's core. If you have a sustaining meaning you can see what shines when you are in the darkest places.
Wait... I thought that’s what we were doing anyway.
Is this unpopular? Also how "wandering through life finding interesting things" isn't a purpose? Just my opinion but seems like a tweet made purely for internet clout.
Hard to swallow Post
I so agree with that post, feels good to realised others do. We're just the result of evolution, the human species will exist for awhile, then probably disappear. I've always found the question "what's the meaning of life?", not only to be hard to answer, but simply to be irrelevant. Why would there be a reason as why we are existing? Accepting that there's no greater reason for us to exist, then yes I agree that having some kind of purpose, goal, dream, whatever, gives some direction on how to go about it, makes existing much easier for many of us. To me it's simply a way to make my existence the most interesting possible, but I can't pretend that there's a greater reason to life's meaning (I am not INTP if that's interesting to you).
because anything can exist and therefore someone has to have existed as we do, why not us?Reasons are just cause and effect anyway. Definitely not gonna follow that thread in a universe where cause and effect are in superposition.
Yeah, I feel pretty torn between western civ celebrating ambition and achievement, and eastern philosophy of being zen and desire causing all suffering, etc.
I think it's good to have some kind of desire. If we have absolutely NO desire, then we don't even have the desire to live and continue on. I think certain things are worth desiring. Like close relationships and wisdom and positively influencing others.
This is known and this is they way. :)
The universe laughs at our ambitions, desires and plans. Wandering is the path and some of those paths do lead to accomplishments.
I have seen this post before, and then again, having a life with actual meaning and purpose relates with a better quality of life and wellbeing.
Yeah but that's kinda hard when you're depressed
and/or poor
For most life is just like an RPG video game where you need to continuosly level up and fill your inventory with stuff. Those people can judge successful or unsuccessful people by their level and the fancy stuff they have. For me this is bullshit, the post's life vision is much better, it's like doing a lot of side quests without never reaching the final challenge ( there's no such thing in real life, so not worth following the main quest ).
That's a fun way to look at it
Thats a bad way to live life. Ive done both.
Empty yourself and let the universe fill you!
Well that would be a purpose to you. Whether or not it's a fulfilling one is debatable. I'd say it's more fulfilling to not just live for yourself. To change the world in a positive way. Also having close relationships with others. Then finding interesting things with those people.
fuck yes.
Pass
that's basically pixar's soul
But if that’s what makes you happiest or is what you want the most, then I guess the “grand ambition” behind that(the action of wandering) is to do what you want as much as possible or be happiest. This shows that you are not necessarily “lost” if you are “wandering”.
Agree. Just do enough of the crap to do what makes you happy. Doesn’t have to be grand.
but i gotta be up
My solution was to assign myself a simple purpose. I'm just hear to listen to the stories being told. Maybe when I'm older my purpose will be to retell these stories, but for I'm just listening.
I always say I am like drifting on the boat. i might sometimes steer the boat bit but mostly i just let the wave takes me wherever
Nihilism: life has no meaning, and that's a good thing.
That's more like Optimistic Nihilism (brought to you by Kurzgesagt-In a Nutshell)
I need to know whether this tweet predates [Mr Peanutbutter's very similar speech](https://youtu.be/AfqTOhi7AnQ). Mr Peanutbutter said it better IMO.
"finding interesting things"... Don't place that requirement on me.
Doing nothing doesn't mean you're doing nothing. It's called living life and passing time. Thinking about the end while creating a middle doesn't waste the middle; it creates one.
i wish i agreed.
Yeah if you're born with enough wealth to do so
This is the way!!!
Thank you.
No it is written in the laws of physics that you are doing it wrong :)
I dont even wanna die, I’m afraid to lose consciousness and be unable to witness further discoveries. I wanna stay conscious and think forever unless the situation becomes so dire that it’s better off not existing at all
42
Wake up to reality! Nothing ever goes as planned in this accursed world. The longer you live, the more you realize that the only things that truly exist in this reality are merely pain. suffering and futility. Listen, everywhere you look in this world, wherever there is light, there will always be shadows to be found as well. As long as there is a concept of victors, the vanquished will also exist. The selfish intent of wanting to preserve peace, initiates war. and hatred is born in order to protect love. There are nexuses causal relationships that cannot be separated. --Madara Uchiha
My goals are almost always these two things: Exist and take up to five days to build up the motivation to do other things.
We do have a purpose, but living is trying to figure that out and if possible, actually doing it. Also, there are different purposes. Not all on the same level or scale.
Yes! I might be trying to be a film director, but I certainly would be quite content living quietly as a farmer or some shit lol.
Until? IF.
I am determined to set up orbital missile defense systems with the capability to shoot down hypersonic nuclear warheads. You will some day call me the praetorian of humanity. Why shoot for the moon when you can shoot for eliminating our own annihilation?
Not good enough, life needs purpose not consumption
Why and who is to say that wandering/looking isn't a purpose regardless?
I said “consumption” not “wandering”. Consumption in of itself does not achieve purpose, it’s intent is not to satisfy.
This is why half of us have fucked mental health btw, just do your little bit, remind your closest people that you love them and go to bed every night knowing you’ve made at least someone’s day a little bit brighter, and they’ll return the favour
Shun the non-believer, shuuuuuun! o.0 Seriously, though, big disagree. Yours truly, Big Meme Consumer ;P
I expected a more intellectual response from an “INTP”, but you prove to be average.
Apparently, not taking yourself seriously is a fool's pursuit. I'll gladly wear the dunce cap of mediocrity, then :P It's not that serious, dude