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?
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.
Your body decomposes.
Well, that’s kinda the point.
If you assume that all we get is what we have while we’re alive, then that life becomes the point
A lot of people that reach the conclusions you have, opt out. They move into a commune, they go vagabond, they may choose to just flit between jobs and find whatever fun is in them.
Or, they may decide to become focused on finding purpose within the world that is, the societal structures as they exist. Some of those devote themselves to service, or find jobs that they believe make life better for others.
Some stay in the framework of things, but do the bare minimum and focus on their off time their purpose.
The point of it, from that point of view where this is all we get, is to find what makes staying alive worth it.
It isn’t like the certainty of no afterlife removes your ability to live and love and do good things. It can make it harder to bear the bad things of life as well, but that’s anything really.
The point is what you decide it is.
Couldn’t have said it better myself. Time, and how you use it, becomes more important once you understand that it’s finite.
Well written!
If nothing we do matters, the only thing that matters is what we do.
Life sucks, the world is a bad place. Leave it just a little bit better than you found it and you’ve lived life’s purpose in my book. We are generational garbage collectors, picking up the pieces of societal trash our forebearers left behind. So do your part. Pick up the trash. Leave the world just a little bit better than you found it.
Genuinely thanks for that first line. I’ve held that idea for a long time without the correct words for it to explain how I feel to other people.
I feel like it also compliments the philosophy of “why not?” As in, “if nothing we do matters, why not be kind? Why not love people? Why not help people present and future?” If good and evil are equal utility, why not be a good person?
life’s like minecraft. you set your own goals and then you pursue them.
Also punching trees is a lot of fun.
the number of trees I’ve punched in life is more than zero.
deleted by creator
a game-o-sopher. when life gives you shitty loot, change the difficulty settings.
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.
There’s no meaning, no purpose.
… That you don’t provide yourself, and it could be anything.
it could be anything.
But you have to actually believe it. So the trick is to find your purpose, as much as it is to make it up. There’s something in you that wants to come out… or maybe not!
Anything?
Whatever’s important to you.
It’s important to me that I have no goal or purpose, and I will focus on making that come true no matter that.
I promise that I will die. Even if it takes the rest of my life!
The journey wasn’t taken from you just because there is no destination
Literally a theme in the video game Journey.
There’s no point, and that’s beautiful. Go live your life the way you want to — nothing will happen after you die
the worst advice ever given to Ted Bundy
Or another way, the process is the point
Nobody exists on purpose. Nobody belongs anywhere. Everybody’s going to die. Come watch tv.
Morty?
Life is the point, this one
Why do you need reward in a second life for the first one to matter?
Wait, there is nothing after second life? What is the point of second life without third life to give it meaning? /s
But you are here now, so live a good life and enjoy it while you can. Maybe try to help others do the same. This is all we get, so use it to the fullest.
This. “It is a cheap generosity that promises the future as compensation for the present.”
Paraphrasing something I read somewhere “Do we open a book just to close it again?” That for me, it means that it is not merely for doing something that we exist, but to tell stories, to pass on knowledge, to keep rituals alive, to be a vessel for something beyond ourselves. The important part, same as books, is to tell stories. Everything sparks from there.
We’re all just stories in the end.
“There’s no point living, so you may as well die” is so last decade. “There’s no point dying, so you may as well live” is where it’s at
“We’re all going to die someday. Might as well do what you love doing” - Alex Honnald. Free Solo (or something like that)
There’s no point in living, but make sure you take a couple of the bastards with you when you go down.
Why does there need to be a point?
Does there need to be a point? We eat because we’re hungry, sleep because we’re tired, live because we’re instinctively apposed to death.
there is no point. simply try to enjoy it
thanks for the profound insight, nutsack.
