Having said all of those in my previous post. What is the meaning of life? I don’t want the answer: the meaning of life is to find meaning in life. I want a concrete answer.
First I imagine if someday a meteor hits earth and then all humans and animals die, no exception. I believe live will still survive, at least bacterias, cyanobacterias, or anaerobic bacterias. Imagine as if this world has no observers anymore. What arts humans have created will amount to nothing. All large buildings turns into mere physical structures for moss to grow, and will be destroyed in millions of years time. Memories are erased. Trace of we ever exist is just oil. Just like the bacterias who have died millions of years ago.
Then what is the meaning of all your hard work then? All your long hours working, your stressing work load, your heartbreak, your disappointment, your struggle to achieve something. Is life meaningless?
After imagining a scenario where meteor hits earth, I now imagine a scenario where you are the only human in this Earth. What good is surviving. What good is reading books if you have no one to share your thoughts at, or to discuss about it. What good is all that money or gold you have. Maybe I’ll get curious and build something, some building or tool, but what good does it do if after you die, no one’s going to use them. Ah maybe I’ll collect animals or plants, nurturing, making them my mission in life. But it’s me, maybe there are some people who really are able to live alone with purpose. Then I imagine myself as a tiger. Maybe a tiger is fine living by itself without other tigers. Maybe my focus is eating and resting and dying. Maybe I don’t think, instead I utilize my instinct and it’s fine. Maybe if some creature is used to living by itself without other creatures, then solitude is not a solitude to them. The word ‘solitude’ itself is meaningless to them, because it doesn’t exist. So my conclusion is, as a human, without other humans, life is meaningless.
Then, because I’m a human, purpose is found by having the existence of other people. Well after all, humans are the dominant creature because of their ability to coexist in large numbers. We are 100% social creature at its core. So ‘my purpose is dependent on the existence of other people’ is not my choice, it’s embedded in my biology.
Still related to being together with other people, in the bigger picture, if we follow what nature programmed us to do, our purpose as a species is to multiply and survive. That’s why sex feels amazing, mothers naturally love children, and we naturally avoid pain. If you are those who don’t want to multiply, well shocking news, you are (still) the minority.
But if our purpose as a species is to simply multiplying and surviving, it is depressing, isn’t it? So to me, I have to differentiate between our purpose as a species and our purpose as an individual. So the purpose of life as an individual is to enjoy it while it lasts. To live this human experience. Imagine yourself as a soul, then this soul inhabit this body, experiencing human life. Of course while saying ‘enjoying it while it lasts’ doesn’t mean to do it irresponsibly. It includes the things such as: to love; to care about something; to learn new things and fulfill your curiosity. Unfortunately, as a human in our current society, to survive you must work. You must benefit the society so you can survive, which is done through work. So look for the things that make you happy, while also doing work to sustain yourself. If you find meaning through work, then do it.
But after writing all of those. I imagined that billions of humans currently exist, everyone is different. Maybe in the gene pool, all of us are considered mutations. Just like a bacteria who are slightly different every time they multiply, and each different bacteria does different things, just like our personality. They do different things based on the combination of 2 factors: the environment they are at and how they are wired. The things they create then affect one another. Maybe a bacteria can learn from another bacteria. All of those is to advance as better bacteria species. Maybe all that we think, all that we contemplate, all that we as humans create, is ultimately just to advance us as better human species.
Goofythinker 