Monday, June 5

What Is the Purpose of Life?

Copyright someone else. Not me.


Ahh, the age old question. I’m not going to talk about it because it’s been talked about millions of times through the ages. Instead, I’d like to cut straight into the question itself;
Why does life need a purpose?
Honestly. No one answers this question because it’s engrained into our minds that life needs a purpose. If life doesn’t have a purpose then… what’s the point? Life doesn’t matter if it has no meaning. Meaning, mattering, purpose, point; it just kind of speaks for itself. Purpose can stand alone. Life needs a purpose or it would be. . . purposeless.
Why are we like this? Why do the minds of human beings know from birth the value of purpose? Ok, so maybe it’s there so we can survive. If we didn’t have purpose we’d all just give up and die out. We have this innate sense that there’s a purpose to life and we need to seek it, and that’s what keeps us going.
But what’s the purpose of survival? No, purpose can’t be there for survival alone, because survival needs a purpose. What’s the point of survival? Pointless things get thrown out. Anyone with a tidy bedroom knows that. If it doesn’t clean the house or fill your belly or cheer you up or mend the rip or accomplish anything whatsoever, it’s out of here. Why don’t we just shrivel up and die? Granted, that wouldn’t be very pleasant or fun, but it doesn’t matter either way if life has no purpose.
That brings me to another thing. We as humans need to be happy. In the end, don’t all our goals point towards fulfillment or happiness of some kind? But why are we like this?
Why do we need to be happy?
Why can’t all human beings just settle down and soak in absolute depression and despair? What’s the purpose of having fun? Our body tells us we need to be happy, but does happiness have a point? The harder we try to be happy, the less happy we are. The more times you watch that movie you love, the less you experience the amusement you felt the first time you watched it. Drugs become less effective every time they’re used. Why don’t we just give up, since happiness seems so unattainable?
No, we’ve got to be happy. If we let ourselves get totally gloomy and broken, we’ll kill ourselves off. And we can't have that, now, can we? So maybe happiness just comes down to survival again. But…. Does this seem familiar? It's almost as if I'm running in circles.

This is a question for you, world.

Why do we need a purpose?