Ask Lemmy

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 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!

I currently live to make life a little better for animals and other people. And when I have time left over I use creative outlets to create stuff.

Im not sure. I stay for my family and husband and my animals.

But I wouldn't mind dying. Eternal rest from all the grind. Even if there is nothing after death. It would be nice to just sleep forever.

Ecclesiastes is a good read. I found "Everything is meaningless" to be very liberating. The book does go on to say what is good: to love God of course, but also to eat, drink and enjoy your work. But the whole thing is worth a read.

Well, Camus and Sartre are not exactly about finding meaning, but dealing with the world with no inherent meaning.

No advice here, but I suppose it would be rather difficult to argue for objective meaning of life under atheism, which seems prevalent here on lemmy, so I would consider the feasibility of the existentialist project, in creating meaning or living with the condradiction between our desire of meaning and the meaningless world.

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.

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.

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.

It's a great relief to come to the realization that there is no grand inherent meaning to life, and no need for one. No constant worrying about what the meaning is and how much time you have left to "figure it out", no need to feel like there's some big thing you have to accomplish, no pressure to be someone important or make an impact on the world. No need to find the correct religion or moral code. It's simple: we're all (humans and animals) just trying to live our lives in peace and find happiness, so as for goals: Live and let live. Try to not hurt each other, and better yet, help each other--helping^1^ someone isn't always easy but it's a good feeling. It creates a feeling of meaning/purpose better than most anything else I can think of.

1: besides doing some task for someone, it could also be as simple as a smile, a kind word, or just listening/being there.

The closest thing to meaning I believe in is derived from evolution. Meaning for me is to lift myself and those around me.

I have a lot of books left to read.

You could say, in a way, that I live to convey what to live for.

Perhaps I've done a little too much LSD (probably not), but I have a certain innate understanding of recovering from rock bottom. I want to help people help themselves, as psychedelics have done for me. I hope the insight I have about myself can translate to others' struggles. Any number of things could end up helping or hurting someone, and I'm doing my best to provide resources to people on learning how to do more than simply tolerate life. Psychonautics were what helped me, but what would help my friends, or people I don't know at all?

First will come my psychonautic journal on harm reduction in substance use (my main hobby in life), but then a book about the hardships and joys of life in a more broad sense.

The world hurts right now. It needs all the help it can get, so I do what I can. When a friend hurts, I listen, and I do my best to make them smile.

Truly, simply being a human is good enough for me.

I have discovered that the meaning of life (for me) is to just exist. Whatever I do in life, I was meant to and builds on why I am here.

I think “What is the meaning of (my) life?” is not a question that we should be focusing on. It assumes that there is meaning to life. Neither is saying “Life is meaningless,” as it assumes exactly that. Both approaches presupposes an answer.

I'd rather think about "What can I do today/tomorrow/this week/this year/in this life?" That is a lot more digestible than chasing a meaning, or dismissing what could be meaningful about my actions.

I'm already here, so.... What is it under my control that I can do something about? What can I do about it? Something along those lines.

PS:

The overall tone of my response might be nihilist, or having shades of stoicism, but I am personally biased towards Epicureanism (not the present-day meaning, but the more classical meaning) which gives emphasis to ataraxia, or put very loosely, that state of contentedness. It's not about avoiding pain and preferring (temporary) pleasure, but rather a more stable state absent of pain and having pleasure that is brought about by mindful actions. I am not exactly learned in this so please take my words with a pinch of salt (or several).

It's about connection. You can feel it when it's there with your loved ones, in art, in nature, anywhere you can find it. You can't think it into being. You can only open yourself up to it when it's there.

I want to see my planted apple tree bear fruit for the first time (it's looking good this year so far!), and then I want to try splicing in a branch of my neighbours cherry tree, and then I want to keep building gradually to have a mutant tree with all kinds of fruit throughout the season. I'll be the creator of my own Tree of Life.

Small goals, small joys, small triumphs - it's what'll make my life grand, I believe.

I live to be a good person. Figuring out what that means is a lot of reading, reasoning, and experimentation. I'm not sure you even need to justify wanting to be a good person, but maybe it is good to do good.

Logically I am a determinist and a nihilist. It's the only thing that makes sense to me.

But I can't live life like that. Life is lived through feelings and it feels like I have free will. So I feel meaning by contributing positively and that my choices in life matter.

So, I contribute, try to do good, be helpful and nice to people, and also fulfill some hedonistic desires such as good food, lovemaking, shows, etc.

I'm religious so that's pretty much figured out for me lol

Meaning must be generated, not found.

Ive been lucky to have discovered Stoicism early in life and that what has been driving me for decades now!

To put it shortly Stoicism focuses on self growth with things like identifying natural human virtues (need for knowledge, justice, temperance, courage) and focusing life around improving those. This is expressed through a princicle called dichotomy of control which says that there are things that are out of our control like death that we shouldn't focus on and things that are like natural virtues that are something we can do to improve upon.

It also deconstructed and included all of the cool contemporary ideas like mindfulness and being cosmopolitan two millenia ago so its a really great suite of natural philosophies that survived the test of time.

Stoicism is also low key Idealist as in your natural perception of your own virtues and state is the only real thing that matters which is what makes this ideology so much more freeing. You don't judge yourself against some mystical ideal but to your own perception of purpose and growth.

It's an easy, frictionless and a highly rewarding way to live :)

there is no inherent meaning to life.

i choose to continue living each day because a) i am still enjoying myself enough to stick around, b) i'm a chicken and nothing has motivated me to voluntarily face quicker death just yet, c) i am committed to not fucking up my kids in that particular way if i can continue to avoid it, and d) i do work that matters and eases the suffering of others to create meaning for myself.