Ask Lemmy

When I was young, raised religious, there was an intense focus on finding purpose in life, almost as if there is no value to life itself without some end goal.

After leaving religion and superstition behind everything that is left is remarkable, fascinating, and beautiful. There's no need for life to have a purpose, a sunset doesn't need to clock in to work, a rock doesn't have an active role to perform but it's still fine for it to exist, us too.

I used to wish there was done grander purpose, but have you ever considered where that ends? Say you do have an ultimate purpose on earth, to collect all the smeeshmups, you do it and then what? Say your purpose is to be a good little Christian person and go to heaven, then what? Glorify some monkey with an anus for eternity because he agreed you did a good job? Yikes

For the meaning in life to is explore and play with my best friend…my wife. Even my career has switched to something that feels more like play than a grind for a corporation who enjoys the lion’s share of my labour.

The purpose of life is not served by fretting about what its purpose is.

It’s a bit like sitting on a roller coaster rubbing your chin and wondering how to monetize the experience. Just put your hands up and scream. It’s nice.

Pets, always work

I keep living at this point simply because God wants me alive. If He didn't, He would have killed me by now. When I was in a really dark place (I'm doing better now), I realised that killing myself was pointless, because if it was my time to die, God would take me from this life regardless. So God must still have a plan and uses for me and thus, I should still be alive, and that's meaning enough for the fact that my body continues to operate.

I am not sure to be fair, right now I already have two goals, I want to finish my transition and I want to love and be loved for who I am. Once that is done I suppose I will feel fulfilled for a while, I might make art afterwards or something, I like making games and stuff so I'd likely try to do that I think !

My goal is to be happy and better the lives of as many people as I can!

Yeah, I mean, ultimately meaning in life is what you make of it and the ideals you believe in. That varies from person to person. For me, it's those nights I can go outside and look at the dark night sky with a sea of light from other worlds, dream about going to them, and remembering how small our world is, and how much beauty there is in the universe beyond our own homes and lives. But, it's not that for everyone, sometimes it's the small stuff, a nice hot bath, or a really great cup of tea, or just going out in the sunshine on a cool crisp morning.

Ultimately, there isnt a right answer to this question. But I think it gets at the heart of it just by asking the question, life is what you make out of it.

You're in luck, there's a whole movie devoted to this very topic.

Although, basically, it's nothing very special. Uh, try and be nice to people, avoid eating fat, read a good book every now and then, get some walking in, and try and live together in peace and harmony with people of all creeds and nations.

I stopped looking for external meaning in life a long time ago.

Look into nihilism (like actualy nihilism, not like "hurr durr I hate everything so I'm going to make the world suck" people who label themselves "nihilist"). It's actually very freeing.

Edit: Just saw your "Context," so it appears you're on that track already. I guess I lean more toward the, "there is no meaning, so stop wasting time and effort trying to find or invent it" side than the "create your own meaning" side.

Life is what you make it. You get one life so make it count in some way. I ain't the boss of you, you decide what that is, just do something.

I like to learn and grow. I've settled into a good career and a family so now I'm thinking about projects I can take on. And I'll see where those take me.

Meanwhile, try to live a life that gets celebrated when you're gone.

I ask myself this simple question: Are you making things better? I find meaning in helping others, and this is my guiding principle. I hope that when my time comes, I can say that I did make things better, that I did help others.

Hey, this is broken. What if I dedicate my life fixing it, that would be cool. That’s how I found my meaning.

I live to be in peace, hang out with my cat and have fun. That’s pretty much it. Right now having fun is trying to fix an old radio.