Why Are We Here?

What is the purpose of human existence?

What is the purpose of Human Life Any organism that is said to breathe and feel with its senses is said to be alive. Plants, animals, organisms, and humans are endowed with this concept of life. Hence there is said to be life on earth. But life is not permanent and anything which is alive will decay and die someday. Life can be made beautiful or can be simply led. This rests entirely on the persons’ goals, ambitions, and achievements. The success ratio and personal response to challenging situations are deciding factors. Environmental factors, socioeconomic conditions, parental upbringing, peer group influence also contribute to one’s growth and in making life beautiful and successful.

• Ethics and moral values imbibed into life by the individual act as indicators.
• One’s the judgmental capacity of good from bad, right from wrong, legal from illegal, ethical and unethical all act as guidelines to one’s life and help him in leading a good or bad life depending on the choices he makes.
• The purpose of life is to live and let live.

The societal living is possible when there are communal harmony and feeling of brotherhood among its members. The institutions of family and marriage contribute to the harmonious living in a society. Peaceful coexistence is the key to a successful life. Life, when led to the full, has to end one day. So what is the destination it has to reach when the soul leaves the body? For believers and the devout, the aim is to become one with GOD or any superpower or the Ultimate. Every human being seeks salvation after having led a full life.

Why are we on earth?

Why Do We Exist, Instead of Not Existing? – As we grapple with the first question, we have two pretty simple explanations for our existence. One explanation is that we exist due to a cosmic accident of unbelievable proportions, wherein atoms started moving and spinning at such an incredible rate that, in bumping together, the sun, the earth, and intelligent life forms were eventually created.

1. You might believe in the cosmic accident theory, and you are entitled to possess this opinion, just as I am entitled to believe that someday, Tom Brady will stop playing football.
2. Unfortunately, there are problems with both of our logics.
3. The issue with believing in the cosmic accident theory is that we have to confront the problem of the atoms.

Where did they come from? Who put them there? Everything that exists had to come from somewhere, at some point, right? Without answering this question, this line of reasoning is left unresolved.

Does life have a purpose?

What makes life different from non-life – Since this theme generates confusion and controversy, we must be careful. All life forms share at least one essential purpose: survival. This is even more important than another key purpose for life, reproduction.

1. Plenty of organisms, after all, are alive but do not reproduce.
2. To be alive is more than passing genes along to the next generation.
3. To be alive is to want to remain alive,
4. This is an essential difference between living creatures and other complex but non-living forms of material organization such as stars or rocks.

These non-living material forms simply exist. They passively undergo the unfolding of the physical processes that shape them. For rocks, this is a give-and-take with erosion; for stars, it is about countering gravitational implosion while there is enough nuclear fuel to fuse in their cores.

• There is no strategy to any of this, and no action can be taken to delay what is inevitable.
• The essential difference between the living and the non-living is the urge for preservation.
• Life is a form of material organization that strives to perpetuate itself.
• Life has autonomous intentionality.
• The question of whether life has a purpose becomes confusing when we consider the stunning diversity of living forms on this planet.

There is no controversy in saying that a single organism wants to remain alive. Even bacteria purposefully move toward where there is more sugar. But things get more complicated when we ask whether all of life shares a collective sense of purpose. They get more confusing still when we learn that the history of life on Earth shows increasing complexity.

What are we and why are we?

“A human being is part of the whole — called by us universe, a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts and feelings as something separate from the rest, a kind of optical delusion of his consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest to us.

Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature.” – Albert Einstein We are truly living in a very unique time in the history of our civilization, facing several simultaneous challenges and converging crises: a deteriorating environment, a very unequal distribution of dwindling resources, widespread poverty, wars, climate change, oppression of many peoples, and dissatisfaction with life even in those countries with a surplus of material wealth.

How did we get into this mess? What are we to make of all this? Do things have to be this way? Why is this happening to us? What can we do about it? Earthrise from the moon ( Nasa ). The first images of Earth from outer space literally changed our worldview. The answers to such questions are certainly not simple, and you will not find them in any textbook. All these problems and converging crises are systemic.

They are part of the same pattern. For the most part these crises we humans have brought upon ourselves over the course of many centuries by our attitudes towards each other and towards Nature, and by the concepts we have developed regarding who we are and the very purpose of our being here — in other words, our worldview.

A worldview is a cultural phenomenon. It can and does change over time and worldviews can differ substantially across and even within cultures. But at its most basic level it is determined to a great degree by asking the most profound questions: Who are we? Where do we come from? What is our purpose? Where are we going? All of these questions are fundamental to how we individually and collectively make meaning,

As such they are questions asked by all spiritual traditions and since the very beginning of our species. Even the first cave paintings suggest that as soon as we were human, we started to ask these kind of questions. The worldview that informs us and helps us to make sense of the world is a crucial element of the transition towards a regenerative human presence on Earth.

Spirituality, in all its divers expressions, can be understood as sustaining, infusing, and giving direction, meaning and purpose to a cultural system. Understood in this way, spirituality comprises the ultimate in shared values and ethics of a culture and forms the basis for legitimizing its socio-economic structure, its relationships with the more-than-human-world and its cosmic ecology (e.g.

Love, compassion, forgiveness, mercy, reverence for that which nurtures and sustains life, etc.). The root meaning of religion is to bind together. To create a more sustainable future for humanity we need to find new ways to bind humanity together — in all its diversity of worldviews and belief systems — so that we may heal our relationship with the rest of the community of life.

In a purely secular culture, committed to scientific rationalism, many of the life-sustaining aspects of spirituality as a cultural guidance system can atrophy. Nevertheless, science itself is required to offer answers to the age-old questions of Who are we?, Where do we come from?, Where are we going?, What is our purpose? Many of the scientific discoveries of the last century have opened the possibility of a new synthesis of science and spirituality, that connects all of humanity and the rest of life to the mystery of our existence as co-creative participants of a continuously transforming universe.

This emerging synthesis of science and spirituality is offering cultural guidance based on knowledge and wisdom, informed by reason, intuition, and inspiration. Each unique culture practices and celebrates spirituality in a manner reflective of its unique situation in the world. The 20th century revolution of technologies that permits long distance travel and instant communication across the world has brought all cultures closer together, making us more aware than ever of the many diverse spiritual-cultural traditions that have flourished for millennia as intricate, elaborate meta-solutions to the challenges and opportunities of living in a particular place.

Thus, in addition to offering numerous explanations for the vast, unseen, sublime dimensions of life, spiritual and cultural traditions the world over have distinct practical and instrumental value in sustaining their peoples over time. Paying attention to the worldview that inform how people in a particular place interpret their experiences and guide how they create solutions is an important part of a whole systems approach to creating regenerative cultures.

After millennia of primary participation (in which humans saw themselves as part of nature), we have unleashed unprecedented scientific and technological innovation in a relatively short period since the scientific resolution and the enlightenment (in which humanity saw itself as separate from and above the rest of nature — the narrative of separation ).

Now we are challenged to integrate the wealth of knowledge and capability that this remarkable period has brought us into a new narrative of interbeing — a synthesis of ancient wisdom of our interconnectedness and interdependence with modern science and technology. Image Source We now have a choice to make! Either we move into a new phase in the evolution of consciousness and a new era of life on planet Earth, or we will witness the unraveling of the web of life and the immature end of our species and much of the community of life along with us.

The time to make this choice is now! It starts with a fundamental shift in our dominant worldview. It is time to grow up! ” human beings are here to ensure that life somehow continues. Whether your personal life continues is not the bottom line of it. And that is the beginning of your growing up ” — Stephen Jenkinson (This piece is based on the introduction to the worldview dimension of Gaia Education ‘s online course in Design for Sustainability which I first wrote in 2012.) Daniel Christian Wahl — Catalyzing transformative innovation in the face of converging crises, advising on regenerative whole systems design, regenerative leadership, and education for regenerative development and bioregional regeneration.

If you like the article, please clap AND remember that you can clap up to 50 times if you like it a lot ;-)! Author of the internationally acclaimed book Designing Regenerative Cultures

Why do humans want to live?

Ask a grown-up: why do we live? W hen questions are especially interesting and difficult at the same time, as yours is, they tend to have several answers. We live because one day in early childhood we realise that we are alive and already have lots of reasons to go on living.

1. These include the fact that there are many things about life that give us pleasure and happiness – even if sometimes we are sad, too, and sometimes ill: but these bad things pass.
2. We live because of the happy things.
3. We live because there are people who love us, and people we love back.
4. We live because we want to find out things, and learn, and become able to do things that we would like to do.

We live because others want us to, and we want them to live along with us. We live because we have hope, and want to see what happens next. I hope that lots of people live because they know life at its best can be wonderfully good, and want to help make it so: and that is a great reason for living.

What is the point of living life?

What Gives Life Meaning? – Many different things can give life meaning, and these vary from one person to the next. For some people, their relationships with family and friends are what give them a sense of meaning and purpose. Others might find meaning in their work, hobbies, or creative passions.

And for others, their spirituality or religious beliefs help them find the point in life. What matters most is what you believe is most important to you. Everyone has different values and beliefs that give their life meaning. There is no wrong answer. What gives someone else a sense of meaning, purpose, and fulfillment might not be helpful for you—and that’s fine.

If you’re feeling lost or uncertain about what the point of life is, it might be helpful to think about what matters most to you. What are your values and beliefs? What do you enjoy doing? What makes you feel happy and fulfilled? Spending time thinking about what matters most to you can help you find meaning in your life.

Is Earth the only planet with life?

Life in Our Solar System? Meet the Neighbors – Among the stunning variety of worlds in our solar system, only Earth is known to host life. But other moons and planets show signs of potential habitability. more

Where did life come from?

Where did life on Earth begin? – Two possibilities are in volcanically active hydrothermal environments on land and at sea. Some microorganisms thrive in the scalding, highly acidic hot springs environments like those found today in Iceland, Norway and Yellowstone National Park.

• The same goes for deep-sea hydrothermal vents.
• These chimney-like vents form where seawater comes into contact with magma on the ocean floor, resulting in streams of superheated plumes.
• The microorganisms that live near such plumes have led some scientists to suggest them as the birthplaces of Earth’s first life forms.

Organic molecules may also have formed in certain types of clay minerals that could have offered favorable conditions for protection and preservation. This could have happened on Earth during its early history, or on comets and asteroids that later brought them to Earth in collisions.

What is the end goal of life?

The goal of Human Life The goal of life is a question that has puzzled philosophers and theologians for centuries. It is a deeply personal matter that varies from person to person, and can be influenced by cultural, societal, and individual values and beliefs.

Some people believe that the goal of life is to achieve happiness. According to this view, the ultimate purpose of life is to find joy, contentment, and satisfaction in one’s pursuits and relationships. This might involve building close connections with loved ones, pursuing activities and hobbies that bring happiness, and working towards goals that bring a sense of fulfillment.

Others see the goal of life as making a positive impact on the world. These individuals may be driven by a desire to contribute to society, to help others, or to leave a lasting legacy. They may seek out careers or volunteer opportunities that allow them to make a difference, or engage in philanthropic endeavors to help those in need.

1. Still others may believe that the goal of life is to find meaning and purpose.
2. This might involve exploring one’s passions and interests, seeking out experiences that bring a sense of fulfillment, or striving to understand the mysteries of the universe.
3. Some people find meaning and purpose through religion or spirituality, while others may find it through personal growth and self-discovery.

Finally, some people see the goal of life as achieving personal or professional success. This might involve striving to reach the top of one’s career field, accumulating wealth and material possessions, or achieving recognition and status within one’s community.

Ultimately, the goal of life is a deeply personal matter that is unique to each individual. It may change and evolve over time, as people’s values and priorities shift and they gain new insights and experiences. Whatever one’s goal of life may be, it is important to remember that it is a deeply personal matter and that there is no one-size-fits-all answer to this question.

: The goal of Human Life

What does 42 stand for?

What is base 13 and how is it related to the number 42? – Base 13 (otherwise known as a tri- decimal or tre-decimal) is a positional number system that holds 13 as its base. It uses 13 digits to represent numbers. Digits for base 13 include 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, X, E and T or 0-9, A, B and C. It should be known however that Base 13 is not used in any practical situation. The number 42 from Douglas Adams’ ‘The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy’ represents all meaning (‘the meaning of life, the universe, and everything’) as determined by the fictional supercomputer Deep Thought. The number 42 is not a particularly significant number in base 13.

1. However, in The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, 42 is Deep Thought’s answer to “the Ultimate Question of Life, the Universe, and Everything.” Deep Thought is a fictional supercomputer built for that very purpose in the book.
2. In this case, instead of representing a physical object, the number 42 is the actual answer to the question, “What is the meaning of life?” In some Spanish-speaking countries, there is a phrase that goes, “42 es la respuesta a la pregunta final” or “42 is the answer to the final question.” This has led many to search for representations of the number 42 in order to unearth any hidden meaning the number might possess.

Others have dismissed it as making no sense whatsoever.

Is it OK not to have a purpose in life?

WHAT IS LACK OF PURPOSE? – If you feel like your life has no meaning and direction, you may be struggling with a lack of purpose. Lack of purpose can affect all aspects of your life, and can cause you to ruminate on anxious thoughts that cause you distress.

Where did we come from why are we here?

Dr Matt Tocheri explains that our evolutionary story is not linear as was once thought to be the case.6.8 Well, my name is Dr. Matthew Tocheri. I’m Canada Research Chair in Human Origins at Lakehead University and Research Associate in the Human Origins program at the Smithsonian Institution.

My specialty is paleoanthropology. So I study human origins and human evolution. The last few decades have been sort of a blossoming of paleoanthropological research, lots of new findings from the human fossil record, lots of new findings from genetics, lots of new findings from a whole array of research that come together to provide new information about human origins.

Several decades ago, each fossil was put into its place in one single lineage leading from early man through to, say, Neanderthal man through us.53.2 However, as more and more people have found fossils throughout the Old World from Africa all the way through Europe and Asia, we now realize our evolutionary story is a lot more like the evolutionary story of other animals, that it wasn’t just a simple linear evolution of features leading to us, that, in fact, our family tree is much more bushy.

And there were lots of cousins, essentially, that unfortunately have gone extinct. And we’re the only ones left of this otherwise quite diverse group. Our species, modern humans, Homo sapiens, first evolved in Africa roughly about 200,000 years ago. And we know that from the earliest fossil evidence of our species, as well as modern human genetics.102.4 So all the DNA in our bodies today lead back to a common ancestral population that was living about 200,000 years ago.

Now, Neanderthals, are essentially the descendants of earlier hominins that left Africa probably about 500,000 years ago. You can look at it as the common ancestor that we share with Neanderthals. Part of that group left Africa around that time, and then basically got isolated from the population still living in Africa.

And roughly about 200,000 years ago, our species evolves from the populations that stayed in Africa. And Neanderthals evolved from those that had stayed in Eurasia. Well, we know that we shared the planet with Neanderthals. But Neanderthals are also very much like us. They have very large brains. They’re larger-bodied.153.4 They’re body proportions are the same as us.

And they also used very sophisticated tools. And they lived in cold climates, used fire in controlled ways. And so sharing the planet with something like that, which is otherwise very recognizably human, is easy for us to picture. But Homo floresiensis, when it was discovered, it also overlapped in time with our species as well as Neanderthals, but was isolated often in the Indonesian island of Flores.

Now, it’s very surprising because it doesn’t look like a Neanderthal. It doesn’t look like us. It looks more like hominin species that we find in the fossil record roughly one to three million years ago in Africa.198.9 And yet, it’s extremely far away and found in sediments that overlap with our species.

So to see that we shared this planet, not only with Neanderthals, but as well with another, more distantly related cousin is really quite remarkable. A non-linear bush Our evolutionary story is not linear, as was once thought to be the case. Rather, like other animals, the human family tree is much more like a bush made up of a variety of extinct cousins.

Palaeoanthropology has blossomed in the last few decades, with recent findings from fossils, genetics and other scientific research providing new insights about human origins and evolution. Genetic evidence tells us that all the DNA in our bodies today leads back to a common ancestral population of modern humans ( Homo sapiens ) – our species – which first emerged in Africa about 200, 000 years ago.

We know that we shared the planet and a common ancestor with Neanderthals (who had recognisably human features), but it has been a recent discovery that we shared the Earth with another, more distantly related (and morphologically distinct) cousin Homo floresiensis,

Is it who we are or who are we?

Interrogative: What is she doing? Etc. Who are we? is a question. Who we are can be correct for example when a person/company wants to introduce the values they stand for.

What should I say to what are we?

Column: How to have the ‘What are we?’ conversation “Honey, we need to talk” That phrase is usually the start of a relationship conversation both partners know is going to be brutal. I’m talking about one of those awkward, dreadful, uncomfortable chats that boil down to statements like, “I need space” or “I met someone else,” or perhaps the one that feels most like a punch in the stomach, “I’m not in love with you anymore.” But there’s a relationship conversation that isn’t necessarily always negative, and could even bring a couple closer together.

1. It’s the “What are we?” discussion, in which couples have a heart-to-heart to define exactly what their relationship is, and to determine one of two things: are they committed to a future together, or are they just friends having fun? Dr.
2. Victor Harris is a relationship expert at the University of Florida, who teaches courses on the topics of dating and healthy romantic and familial relationships.

Harris said more and more couples are finding it necessary to have the “What are we?” talk because of the “hooking up and hanging out” culture. “The way people get involved currently in relationships is that they get physical way too soon,” said Harris, who holds a Ph.D.

in family consumer and human development with a focus on close relationships. “So, then they have to figure out, ‘Do we have a friendship here?’ ‘Do we have trust and should I commit to the relationship?’ It’s risky because they don’t know since they might not have the foundation of friendship, trust and commitment.” How do you start the “what are we?” conversation? Harris said healthy ways include asking, “How do you think we are doing?” or saying “I would really like to talk about what we both want from this relationship.” Also, make sure to bring up the subject in a gentle, non-confrontational way versus acting defensive, aggressive, resentful or bitter.

Having asked a few men in my life the question, “What are we?”, I can say with certainty that there are only two possible outcomes when it comes to the response: you’ll either hear what you want or you won’t.

Possible responses to “What are we?”:• We’re friends.• We’re having fun.• I don’t want a long-term relationship.• I really don’t know.• I don’t want to get married.• I like you, but I don’t think you’re the one.• What do you think we are?• I love you.• We’re a couple.• We’re in a committed, monogamous relationship.• I see a future with you.• I want to marry you.• I want to spend the rest of our lives together.

What you hear could surprise you, and it could cause you to feel ecstatic, excited, happy or relieved. Then again, a response you didn’t want to hear could cause you to feel upset, devastated, disappointed, frustrated, angry or sad. When I was in my 30s, I had the “what are we?” conversation with a boyfriend.

His response: “I feel like I should be in love with you right now, and I’m just not.” It killed me. But, I have to say, I’m glad I found out how he felt because I didn’t have to wonder anymore. It helped me to end the relationship and move on. Another time I asked “what are we?” it turned out great. The response was short and sweet.

Said my current boyfriend, “Do you even have to ask? We’re on the same page.” But be careful. According to Harris, timing is everything. If you ask “what are we?” too soon, it could scare off your partner. That said, if you wait too long, you could be wasting time and becoming emotionally attached when your partner just isn’t.

1. You can go 5, 10 even 20 years without the person committing to you, and it’s harder to get over because of the length of time you’ve invested in the relationship,” said Harris, who has been married for 34 years and who has worked in the field of relationships for two decades.
2. Having the conversation early on will save you a lot of time and heartache and investment in a relationship that wasn’t going anywhere, and you can then begin to focus on another relationship that is based on friendship and trust and commitment with someone who wants that with you.” It takes courage and vulnerability to ask someone “what are we?” It’s no small thing.

But I know that personally, I’d rather learn where I stand in a relationship than continue to see the person, wonder what he’s thinking, and possibly harbor resentment for him not expressing his feelings either way. Think of it this way. If you get crushed by a response (like I did), you’ll survive.

What is the point of life if you are not happy?

But here’s the thing: How do you achieve happiness? – Happiness can’t be a goal in itself. Therefore, it’s not something that’s achievable. I believe that happiness is merely a byproduct of usefulness. When I talk about this concept with friends, family, and colleagues, I always find it difficult to put this into words.

You go on holiday.You go to work.You go shopping.You have drinks.You have dinner.You buy a car.

Those things should make you happy, right? But they are not useful. You’re not creating anything. You’re just consuming or doing something. And that’s great. Don’t get me wrong. I love to go on holiday or go shopping sometimes. But to be honest, it’s not what gives meaning to life.

• What really makes me happy is when I’m useful.
• When I create something that others can use.
• Or even when I create something I can use.
• For the longest time, I found it difficult to explain the concept of usefulness and happiness.
• But when I recently ran into a quote by Ralph Waldo Emerson, the dots connected.

Emerson says: “The purpose of life is not to be happy. It is to be useful, to be honorable, to be compassionate, to have it make some difference that you have lived and lived well.” And I didn’t get that before I became more conscious of what I’m doing with my life.

Why do we fight to stay alive?

WHY DO WE FIGHT TO LIVE? The story of Run the Jewels is, above all, a story of great branding. Type their name into YouTube and you’ll see what I mean. Their first album, ‘Run the Jewels’, begins with a song called ‘Run the Jewels’, the chorus to which goes ‘Run the jewels, jewels, jewels’.

There’s the acronym – RTJ – that crops up whenever there’s three syllables going spare. Then there’s the gun-and-fist hand-symbol that both forms the basis of all three album covers and serves as a get-out-of-jail-free card for anyone unsure what to do with their hands at a gig. RTJ have turned brand recognition into an art form.

But the songs are pretty decent too. They provide for young people what the priesthood provided in previous generations: a comprehensive vision of the world and a sense of purpose. They paint a picture of a world in which all the lies, violence and corruption have finally come to a head and it’s now or never for all the would-be saviours of humanity.

• The overriding impression is of this final battle between good and evil in which you’re never quite sure exactly which side the RTJ boys are on.
• Angel Duster sees Killer Mike questioning not just authority figures but the very point of life itself: ‘Somewhere between love and lust a nut get bust and a baby get made, It seems that trouble trouble us and follow us like all our days, In every holy book it says we suffer, that’s what it is.

So riddle me this from the womb to the tomb why do we fight to live? Why do we fight to live? It’s a question that a lot of philosophers have addressed, but none have done so with as much miserable panache as this man here. Arthur Schopenhauer was born in 1788 in the city of Danzig.

A brooding and serious child from the very start, he later wrote this in his memoirs: “Even as a child of six, my parents, returning from a walk one evening, found me in deep despair.” At the age of seventeen, he was packed off to boarding school in Wimbledon where he spent his time learning to hate the English and fear attractive women.

When one of his friends at the time suggested they flirt with some girls, he is reported to have replied: “Life is so short, questionable and evanescent that it is not worth the trouble of major effort.” He went on to become a lecturer in philosophy at the University of Berlin where he was a colleague of Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, the intellectual superstar of the day.

Everyone loved Hegel but Schopenhauer was not a fan. He wrote this in his magnum opus, The World as Will and Representation : “Hegel, installed from above, by the powers that be, as the certified Great Philosopher, was a flat-headed, insipid, nauseating, illiterate charlatan who reached the pinnacle of audacity in scribbling together and dishing up the craziest mystifying nonsense.” “If I were to say that the so-called philosophy of this fellow Hegel is a colossal piece of mystification which will yet provide posterity with an inexhaustible theme for laughter at our times, that it is a pseudo-philosophy paralyzing all mental powers, stifling all real thinking, and, by the most outrageous misuse of language, putting in its place the hollowest, most senseless, thoughtless, and, as is confirmed by its success, most stupefying verbiage, I should be quite right.” “Further, if I were to say that this Great Philosopher,

scribbled nonsense quite unlike any mortal before him, so that whoever could read his most eulogized work, the so-called Phenomenology of the Mind, without feeling as if he were in a madhouse, would qualify as an inmate for Bedlam, I should be no less right.” “.that clumsy and nauseating charlatan, that pernicious person, who completely disorganized and ruined the minds of a whole generation.” “a commonplace, inane, loathsome, repulsive and ignorant charlatan, who with unparalleled effrontery compiled a system of crazy nonsense that was trumpeted abroad as immortal wisdom by his mercenary followers” “The height of audacity in serving up pure nonsense, in stringing together senseless and extravagant mazes of words, such as had been only previously known in madhouses, was finally reached in Hegel, and became the instrument of the most barefaced, general mystification that has ever taken place, with a result which will appear fabulous to posterity, as a monument to German stupidity.” Now if you like Schopenhauer and hate Hegel, you could view this diatribe as a real triumph.

1. You could see it as Schopenhauer zapping poor Hegel with zinger after zinger, exposing the charlatan for who he is and leaving him stupefied and unable to respond.
2. Or you can view this tirade as the bitter ramblings of a sad, sad man, shouting desperately into an unhearing void, railing against an old rival who has long since packed up and moved on to other things.

One diatribe, two possible interpretations. But know this before you pick: during his time in Berlin, Schopenhauer insisted on scheduling his lectures at the same time as Hegel’s. Over two hundred students went to Hegel’s. Five went to Schopenhauer’s. No wonder that Schopenhauer made ‘life is terrible’ the foundational premise of his philosophy.

It’s quite admirable in a way. One day Schopenhauer took a long hard look at his life, realised it was bad, and then made this fact into the cornerstone of an entire intellectual system. Life gave poor Schopenhauer lemons and Schopenhauer made awful, awful lemonade. Why is life so bad? According to Schopenhauer, it’s because we’re all manifestations of a thing he called the will-to-life (also known simply as the Will).

This will-to-life, he says, is both the true reality behind all appearances and the mindless force that powers everything in the universe. As mindless force, it drives all our instincts and desires – forcing us to suffer in our pursuit of new things – but it has no ultimate goal or purpose and so it can never be satisfied.

Getting what we want provides only temporary relief from pain. Before long we get bored and the thirst returns. We need more love, more money, more status, and so we suffer again. Schopenhauer thus takes life to be a pendulum swinging between pain and boredom. So why do we fight to live? Not, Schopenhauer says, because it’s rational to do so.

He reckons that if we could see things clearly we’d all come to the same conclusion: we’d be better off not existing. We fight to live because it’s the will-to-life – not the intellect – that decides how we act. Schopenhauer compares the situation to a lame person riding on the shoulders of a blind giant.

We can kid ourselves that our intellect is in charge, but it’s really the Will that dictates where we go. The will-to-life supposedly manifests itself most strongly in our desire for sex. Schopenhauer writes that “the genitals are the focus of the Will” and “sex is the ultimate goal of almost all human effort.” Even though we’re unconscious of it most of the time, the will-to-life is always driving us to pair up and reproduce.

It drives us to pair up with people who’ll help us create what Schopenhauer calls ‘well-balanced children’ (three words quite unremarkable in isolation but very creepy when strung together). The problem is, these people who’ll balance our children out are almost never a good match for us emotionally.

Not only does the Will load us up with unattainable desires, it hitches us to someone we’ll soon hate. He writes: “Lovecasts itself on persons who, apart from the sexual relation, would be hateful, contemptible, and even abhorrent to the lover. But the Will of the species is so much more powerful than that of the individual, that the lover shuts his eyes to all the qualities repugnant to him, overlooks everything, misjudges everything, and binds himself for ever to the object of his passion.” – Schopenhauer Like Killer Mike, Schopenhauer thinks that baby-making happens somewhere between love and lust.

Only after we’ve been sexually satisfied can we truly see things as they are. Only then can we realise that we’ve been duped by the will-to-life. He writes: “Directly after copulation the devil’s laughter is heard.” So when life is awful and even sex won’t fix it, where do you turn? Schopenhauer turned to Eastern philosophy.

1. In fact, he was one of the first Western philosophers to draw on Hindu and Buddhist traditions.
2. He borrowed heavily from the Upanisads, an ancient set of writings on which modern Hinduism is based, particularly the idea that the world has two aspects: inner reality and outer appearance.
3. What the Upanisads called Brahman and Atman, he called Will and Representation.

From Buddhism he borrowed the idea that the only way we can rid ourselves of suffering is to first rid ourselves of all desire. We have to learn, however difficult it may be, to overcome the will-to-life. We have to renounce all our striving and craving and learn to be satisfied with the barest necessities.

1. We should, in short, learn to live like Buddhist monks, seeking salvation through resignation.
2. Unlike Buddhist monks, though, Schopenhauer sees this kind of lifestyle not as a triumph but as damage control.
3. He writes: “Nothing else can be stated as the aim of our existence except the knowledge that it would be better for us not to exist.” When the problem is stated in such bare terms, the answer seems obvious.

But suicide isn’t a solution for Schopenhauer because of another doctrine he adopted from Eastern philosophy: reincarnation. Schopenhauer writes that the will-to-life cannot be extinguished. When we die, the Will in us expresses itself through some other object, plant, animal or human being, where we are doomed to suffer all over again.

1. Even death is no escape from the horrors of life.
2. Only the destruction of reality itself could put an end to the meaningless suffering that pervades all existence.
3. Looking back on Schopenhauer’s philosophy today, it seems almost laughably childish.
4. You might say that his greatest achievement was finally making compatible the two defining philosophies of teenage life.

No longer do angsty fifteen-year-olds have to choose! Thanks to old Schopenhauer, they can have the best of both worlds. Everything is terrible and everything is sex! But that’s a bit harsh on poor Arthur. The fact is that, although his philosophy hasn’t gained widespread acceptance today, it prefigured a lot of the big ideas to come.

It’s easy to forget that The World as Will and Representation was published in 1818. That means that his will-to-life – a subconscious drive to create healthy children – prefigured Darwin’s On the Origin of Species by forty years and Freud’s ideas by seventy five. He was the first Western scholar to seriously engage with Eastern philosophy and one of the first to think seriously about sex and love.

He deserves to live on in the hearts and minds of moody teenagers. It’s the only kind of life he wanted to live anyway. : WHY DO WE FIGHT TO LIVE?

Why do we want immortality?

The human preoccupation with immortality appears to flow from our unease with mortality. Many people believe death to be a particularly bad thing and thereby fear death. Immortality, then, may seem to be the solution to the problems that death and mortality pose for human beings.

Is it worth it to live life?

What is a good life for you? – “This is life.” Have you ever had a chance to say this statement sometime in your life? Usually, it happens when you can experience good things and have excellent overall satisfaction in your life. Then, almost everything feels clear, and you don’t feel lost regarding your place and societal role.

Therefore, life is worth living for you. However, to arrive at this kind of sentiment, there can be a lot of soul-searching and asking yourself questions. What makes life worth living can be different for every person, but in general, some things can make us arrive at this conclusion. It is a worthy goal to see life in such a way, as this will only make your time in this world worth spending and not feel like you are only going through the motions without clarity.

See if you can do and achieve any of the following.

Do you need money to live life?

Why Do We Need Money? – Money can’t buy happiness, but it can buy security and safety for you and your loved ones. Human beings need money to pay for all the things that make your life possible, such as shelter, food, healthcare bills, and a good education.

You don’t necessarily need to be Bill Gates or have a lot of money to pay for these things, but you will need some money until the day you die. Because money is necessary for obtaining the goods and services you need to survive, an understanding of personal finance is essential. You need to be responsible with the money you earn and save enough for the future to ensure you will still have enough leftover when you can no longer trade your labor for money.

The sooner you start saving your money, the more likely it is that you’ll never face a lack of money or financial stress. In fact, if you save enough and invest wisely, you could even become financially free — which happens when you have enough money to live on for the rest of your life.

What are the 3 meanings of life?

Coherence means a sense of comprehensibility and one’s life making sense. Purpose means a sense of core goals, aims, and direction in life. Significance is about a sense of life’s inherent value and having a life worth living.

What is the true meaning to life?

What Is the Meaning of Life?

• Reliance on an eternal afterlife only postpones the question of life’s purpose.
• Human life may not have been created with any pre-determined purpose, but this need not mean that it cannot have a purpose.
• Even in the most absurd, painful, and dispiriting of circumstances, life can still be given a meaning, and so too can suffering.

The question of the meaning of life is perhaps one that we would rather not ask, for of the answer or lack thereof. Still today, many people believe that we, humankind, are the creation of a entity called God, that God had an intelligent purpose in creating us, and that this intelligent purpose is “the meaning of life”.

• The Second Law of Thermodynamics states that the entropy of a closed system—including the universe itself—increases up to the point at which equilibrium is reached, and God’s purpose in creating us, and, indeed, all of nature, might have been no more lofty than to catalyse this process much as soil organisms catalyse the decomposition of organic matter.
• If our God-given purpose is to act as super-efficient heat dissipators, then having no purpose at all is better than having this sort of purpose—because it frees us to be the authors of our purpose or purposes and so to lead truly dignified and meaningful lives.
• In fact, following this logic, having no purpose at all is better than having any kind of pre-determined purpose, even more traditional, uplifting ones such as serving God or improving our karma.

In short, even if God exists, and even if He had an intelligent purpose in creating us (and why should He have had?), we do not know what this purpose might be, and, whatever it might be, we would rather be able to do without it, or at least to ignore or discount it.

1. For unless we can be free to become the authors of our own purpose or purposes, our lives may have, at worst, no purpose at all, and, at best, only some unfathomable and potentially trivial purpose that is not of our own choosing.
2. You or others might object that not to have a pre-determined purpose is, really, not to have any purpose at all.

But this is to believe that for something to have a purpose, it must have been created with that particular purpose in mind, and, moreover, must still be serving that same original purpose. Many Junes ago, I visited the vineyards of Châteauneuf-du-Pape in the South of France.

• One evening, I picked up a rounded stone called a galet which I took back to Oxford and put to good use as a book-end.
• In the vineyards of Châteauneuf-du-Pape, these stones serve to capture the heat of the sun and release it back into the cool of the night, helping the grapes to ripen.
• Of course, these stones were not created with this or any other purpose in mind.

Even if they had been created for a purpose, it would almost certainly not have been to make great wine or serve as bookends. That same evening over supper, I got my friends to blind taste a bottle of Bordeaux—an evil trick, given that we were in the Rhône.

• To disguise the bottle, I slipped it into one of a pair of socks.
• Unlike the galet, the sock had been created with a clear purpose in mind, albeit one very different from (although not strictly incompatible with) the one that it came to assume on that joyful evening.
• You might yet object that talk about the meaning of life is neither here nor there because life is merely a prelude to some form of eternal afterlife, and this, if you will, is its purpose.

But I can marshal up at least four arguments against this position:

• It is not at all clear that there is, or even can be, some form of eternal afterlife that entails the survival of the personal ego.
• Even if there were such an afterlife, living forever is not in itself a purpose. The concept of the afterlife merely displaces the problem to one remove, begging the question: What then is the purpose of the afterlife? If the afterlife has a pre-determined purpose, again, we do not know what that is, and, whatever it is, we would rather be able to do without it.
• Reliance on an eternal afterlife not only postpones the question of life’s purpose but also dissuades or at least discourages us from determining a purpose or purposes for what may be the only life that we do have.
• If it is the brevity or finiteness of human life that gives it shape and purpose (an argument associated with the philosopher Bernard Williams), then an eternal afterlife cannot, in and of itself, have any purpose.

So, whether or not God exists, whether or not He gave us a purpose, and whether or not there is an eternal afterlife, we are better off creating our own purpose or purposes. To put this in Sartrean (or existentialist) terms, whereas for the galet it is true only that existence precedes essence, for the sock it is true both that essence precedes existence (when the sock is used on a human foot) and that existence precedes essence (when the sock is used for an unintended purpose, for example, as a bottle sleeve).

1. Plato once defined man as an animal, biped, featherless, and with broad nails (thereby excluding plucked chickens); but another, much better definition that he gave was simply this: “A being in search of meaning.”
2. Human life may not have been created with any pre-determined purpose, but this need not mean that it cannot have a purpose, or that this purpose cannot be just as good as, if not much better than, any pre-determined one.
3. And so the meaning of life, of our life, is that which we choose to give it.
4. But how to choose?

In Man’s Search for Meaning, the psychiatrist and neurologist Viktor Frankl (d.1997) wrote about his ordeal as a camp inmate during the Second World War. Tellingly, Frankl found that those who survived longest in the concentration camp were not those who were physically strong, but those who retained a sense of control over their environment.

1. He observed: We who lived in concentration camps can remember the men who walked through the huts comforting others, giving away their last piece of bread.
2. They may have been few in number, but they offer sufficient proof that everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of human freedoms—to choose one’s own attitude in any given set of circumstances—to choose one’s own way.

Frankl’s message is ultimately one of hope: Even in the most absurd, painful, and dispiriting of circumstances, life can still be given a meaning, and so too can suffering. Life in the concentration camp taught Frankl that our main drive or in life is neither pleasure, as had believed, nor power, as Adler had believed, but meaning,

After his release, Frankl founded the school of logotherapy (from the Greek logos, meaning “reason” or “principle”), which is sometimes referred to as the “Third Viennese School of ” for coming after those of Freud and Adler. The aim of logotherapy is to carry out an existential analysis of the person, and, in so doing, to help her uncover or discover meaning for her life.

According to Frankl, meaning can be found through:

1. Experiencing reality by interacting authentically with and with others.
2. Giving something back to the world through and self-expression, and,
3. Changing our attitude when faced with a situation or circumstance that we cannot change.

“The point,” said Frankl, ‘”is not what we expect from life, but rather what life expects from us.” Neel Burton is author of, More from Psychology Today Get the help you need from a therapist near you–a FREE service from Psychology Today.

: What Is the Meaning of Life?

What is the 5 purpose of life?

Living the Purpose-Driven Life – Like many people, you might feel that you’re simply existing in life, going through the motions without understanding what it all means, In The Purpose Driven Life, Pastor Rick Warren reveals the meaning of life from a Christian perspective—five purposes that you were created by God to fulfill: worship, unselfish fellowship, spiritual maturity, your ministry, and your mission.

Why is it so hard to find your purpose in life?

Finding Purpose is Difficult, But Purpose is Important – When I think of finding purpose in life, the first thing that comes to mind is that it isn’t something we get taught. We learn the basics, reading, writing, and arithmetic at school, but we are never introduced to anything about purpose or meaning.

One way of justifying this might be to suggest that purpose is something that parents are supposed to teach their kids. You could add that these sorts of ideas often come from religion or culture, which isn’t the role of public schools to teach. But on the other hand, if parents are never taught this either, what do they have to pass on to their kids? I’d suspect that this is part of why it is so hard to find purpose in our lives, but there are also other factors.

Since I was a teenager, I’ve been an intellectual rebel; I was never into TV like the rest of my family and often spent time learning on the internet. But this doesn’t mean I was immune to the pressure that popular culture put on all of us, but maybe my outsider status helped me see things more clearly.

The predominant view in our unnatural modern life is that material success is the ultimate goal. Now I realize that not everyone believes this or accepts it, but it is an underlying priority of the media and culture we consume. Put another way; we are encouraged to focus on what we can get outside rather than satisfying what is inside us.

Think of it this way; if every day, you are told to care about your house, car, clothes or other possessions, then you might start to think that is all that matters. I’m not saying that people shouldn’t care about material things; instead, there is lots of pressure to care only about those things.

1. But with that pressure, we often ignore or don’t think about the other stuff that falls outside our possessions.
2. Bringing this together, finding purpose in life is hard because we don’t know how to do it, and we are regularly told that it isn’t all that important.
3. The problem is that both of these assumptions are way off base because there are ways that we can discover our purpose, so it isn’t something we should ignore.

It is essential to find our purpose because it makes life more bearable. While I can’t claim to have all the answers, I have found the Japanese concept of ikigai helpful in this search. The search for ikigai asks us to look at what we love, what we are good at, what the world needs and what people will pay for.

• Using those four different ideas can help us think about some of the possibilities to create purpose in our lives.
• So while finding purpose and meaning in our lives can be difficult, it isn’t impossible, as there is a process that we can follow.
• On the other hand, you might be wondering why you should even look for purpose in your life when you didn’t know it was a thing, to begin with.

But this is my second point, finding purpose in your life is important because it makes a massive difference in so many things. Where purpose comes from is hard to say, but I think we have all at times felt like we weren’t on the right path or that things weren’t working the way they were supposed to.

That strange feeling of being off track could be a sign that purpose is missing from your life. Life is filled with ups and downs, sometimes we face challenges that we are not prepared for, and we do our best to deal with them. At other times things are going well, or we are so busy that we don’t have time to think, so we don’t feel the need to worry about purpose.

But ultimately, without reasons for doing what we are doing, we might not have the motivation to keep going. There have been times in my life where I had lots of drive and kept working towards things, regardless of how much time it took or what I lost at its expense.

And while these times were filled with what could be called work, I was delighted and willing to keep pushing along. Also, in the past, I remember there were times when it was hard to get out of bed or even motivate myself to go to work. But since finding my purpose, I’ve not had that problem. Even if I have a busy day with my day job, I will still have time to work towards my goals and spend time with my daughter.

These two meaningful purposes make it so much easier to get out of bed in the morning. If you want to look at science, it is clear; studies have found that having a sense of purpose in life results in a significant decrease in mortality, Having a sense of purpose is important because it will help you live longer. When nothing is working out or the world appears to be turning to shit, we can always appreciate what we are doing if we feel like we are working towards something and living with purpose.