If nothing happens after we die, what's the point of it all?
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We spend our days bound by endless obligations. Yet, even with loneliness, failed relationships, and soul-draining work, people still manage to catch a glimpse of happiness. Why?
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A [email protected] shared this topic
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It's up to you to create your own purpose in life.
In my view, connection with others and the happiness and joy we can find in that is the reason for living.
It's what makes the world so terrifying that there are so many broken people who just want to hurt and dominate others and have no care for depth of connection. Because they are wasting their lives on accumulation of power and are painfully obviously deeply sad and broken people.
Sam Altman has his own issues, but he's dead-on when talking about someone like Elon Musk:
“Probably his whole life is from a position of insecurity. I feel for the guy,” Altman said. “I don’t think he’s, like, a happy person. I do feel for him.”
So find people, find connections with them, make your life about your connection with others. That's my suggestion. Love is scary, but also freeing.
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Welcome to adulthood.
The question you ask is universal. The answer much less so and in that difference lies the journey of life.
For some it's about amassing as much wealth as possible, for others it's about cementing a legacy. The pursuit of happiness is a common approach and to serve is yet another. Some seek solace in religion, others in hedonism. Some spend a lifetime searching, others exist and take in the experience.
For me it's about making the world a better place.
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It's the everyday drudgery, miseries and annoyances that make the good times worthwhile. Just like you never appreciate the sun more than in a place that gets very little of it.
I currently live in a country that enjoys a very high standard of living and where people really do enjoy the good life. Yet weirdly enough, a lot of them are depressed and keep complaining. Why? Because they don't realize what they enjoy, because it's their everyday normal.
As for what's the point of living, if you don't want to fall into the easy fallacies of religion, I suggest you simply enjoy your life while you can. You were born with a finite number of hours on this dirtball and they're ticking away, so make sure you spend as many as you can with your loved ones having a good time. Because when the clock stops ticking, it's over.
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All I know is that I'd rather be here than not be here. It doesn't get much deeper than that for me.
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I prefer not having a meaning of life.
Imagine having a real purpose. Then the question would still be "why", but you'd also have that obligation to do.
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There's no meaning, no purpose. We're random life on a random planet. Try to have a happy life and try not to inhibit the happiness of others. That's it.
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You are the Universe experiencing itself.
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IIRC, the nihilist position is that there is no point, and the way I've chosen to interpret that is that it means we are free to personally define the point at any time, and for any length of time, as we please. The pointlessness lets us custom design life to fit our needs and desires, if we can minimize getting caught up in "you should do this and be that" external mentalities that may be incompatible with our natures. This seems like one of many correct paths to life satisfaction.
Of course, part of the battle is discovering what's in your(you in general not you specifically) nature to do and be, and then having the courage to see it through no matter what influences around you are saying or doing that may contradict it. The other part being unlearning incompatible mindsets that may have been fed into your mind when you were younger; authority figures anywhere in, and in any stage of, life are in dangerous positions to cause long term harm to impressionable, trusting minds, which is why I personally focus more on the "figure" and less on the "authority" part of "authority figure" when I'm dealing with people in those positions.
"It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it" - Aristotle or whoever actually said it.
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Learn. Evolve. Improve one's mind. Understand more of the universe. Gain a greater understanding of one's place in the universe. Grow beyond what we understand and comprehend existence at this point.
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Well, things do happen after you die, just not to you.
Compassion for those who come after us is one possible source of meaning.
One could also consider that having no afterlife makes this life more meaningful than it would be compared to an infinity.
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There is no purpose but to be alive, or rather, you make your own purpose.
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Because the alternative would be having no happiness at all.
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There’s no meaning, no purpose.
... That you don't provide yourself, and it could be anything.
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Absurdism > Nihilism
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Why does there need to be a point to it all. We exist, and we can set our own goals and create our own purpose in life. That's what self determination is. Personally, I find happiness in doing things that I find meaningful or interesting.
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oVbKHNNWOUg
Give it a try of you really want to know...
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While happiness might need reason, life doesn't. I find that, in a way, we live in a probabilistic universe with enough attractors that allowed things to form. Among them were humans, now also building some things with/against the odds, and subsequent self-image/sense of importance.
You can still suspend thinking about the inevitability of death and inherent lack of meaning to feel or create something. It does require one to choose and get comfortable making choices that are beyond right and wrong (not in a moral sense), however.
I don't know if there is one answer for why people can still feel happy despite it all, and I suspect there will be different reasons. One reason could be that they've just accepted the futility, focusing on what makes them happy. Or maybe they've accepted that pursuing universality/objectivism when it comes to subjective things is impossible. Or maybe even that no matter which option one takes to view life, one cannot escape delusions.
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If there's no point, why not have fun?
