The Purpose of Life

Thinkers, philosophers, theologians even scientists have struggled with this question for tens, maybe hundreds of thousands of years. 

Having been religious I thought I had it all figured out. If I may quote the intro to The Used's song, 'take it away':

"Life's greatest questions have always been: Who am I? Where did I come from? Why am I here? Where am I going? You are about to see and hear one of the most significant messages given to us from God."

Those are the questions that religions promise to answer. And I believed mine had the answers until I questioned my religion and found it lacking. It wasn't until after that experience that I found myself reborn, a wanderer in a strange land, again in my infant state, knowing nothing of my existence. It was then that I realized, "My God! I'm going to have to think for myself."

I realized after I left my religion that there was no one purpose to life. There were infinite purposes to life. "The Purpose of Life" is an incomplete sentence, it should be "The Purpose of Life for Me." This is because everyone is different, everyone has different desires.

That middle question, "Why am I here?" is the most important of the bunch. "Who am I?" and "Where did I come from?" helped to answer that question for me. But here I don't want to talk much about the journey; I just want to talk about the conclusion that I've come to so far. 

Instead of living this life for the next I ought to start living this life for this life.

I think children know this. When children are asked, "If you could give adults one piece of advice what would it be?" They respond most often with something along these lines, "have more fun." 

I remember growing up and the need to have fun everyday was very important. During our family prayer at night the kids would usually say something like this, "and help us have a good day tomorrow and to have fun."

A few weeks ago I went through a Stanford course online in philosophy. The topic was the purpose of life. In the course the professor discussed the hedonistic viewpoint in particular to his other musings: that the point of life is to just have the most pleasure possible.

I think this point of view might superficially resemble the child's point of view because at their maturity level they most often express desires to have fun and they express the most delight at pleasures such as candy. But I believe even children have other budding desires that go beyond the hedonistic point of view. 

Even as a 3rd or 4th grader I remember being disappointed in my schooling and it wasn't just because I wasn't having enough fun. I wished they taught more science, I wished I was doing useful stuff there. It felt like a waste of time. In other words I had a desire to learn and be fulfilled in my school work. 

So the hedonistic point of view is not really my point of view, but much like the child's point of view on this topic I think it has a superficial resemblance.

The most efficient way to happiness for children is having fun. And I think that is the purpose to life - to be happy. To me that means to be fulfilled, content, peaceful, at times excited, curious, and the whole range of emotions that constitute lifelong happiness. I know that's partly tautological but we'll start exploring it now. 

Nothing has meaning except the meaning you give it.

Contrary to the religious belief everything only has the meaning you give it. If life has any meaning at all for you it is you that has given life that meaning. You are the one that has assigned the value to life. Money means nothing to swine. Spectator sports mean nothing to me. Even the words on this screen are just symbols and only have meaning in your mind. Your whole world is in your mind.

So, exploring the meaning of life either consciously or subconsciously is very important. Children do this naturally (subconsciously) and often come to the conclusion that having fun everyday is the most successful way to be happy. Ultimately we all do what we want. Therefore you could define the meaning of life simply as what you want, then start defining that. 

I'm sorry if this sounds like I'm rambling, these are all the important thoughts I've had on the matter and I really just want to get them recorded. 

What are the different aspects to being happy? Or in other words, what are the different things I want in my life?  The answer to that question is the answer to the purpose of life for me.

I definitely want the aspect of fun.

I want to have fun with friends and to have play in my world. This can take the form of sports, video games, even (I am tempted to say) spirited debates for these all include cooperation and/or competition and entertainment.

Fun is an interesting thing because it has some ineffable quality about it. (Ineffable because I don't understand why its fun but I know when I'm having it). I suppose this "fun aspect of life" is a more general thing than just play. You can enjoy yourself and "have fun" in my different activities in life. I mean being cheerful, making jokes, being entertained, experiencing pleasure, being joyful, having a good time. I'm gonna lump all these into one word for now: fun. 

I think like the children do, I want to be sustained on a steady diet of fun every day. 

I also want to feel fulfilled in my work.

This has been a hard one for me to figure out. I used to believe that I couldn't be happy in my work as long as I was working for someone else, or perhaps even as long as I was indeed working at all. I equated working to drudgery and I still do to a much lesser extent. This is of course because it was all I had experienced.

However, my study of economics, management and entrepreneurship has lead me to a partial paradigm shift. Without going into details here I now can and do see value in belonging to a group and doing something with and for the larger society.

I realized that employment vs entrepreneurship is really a false dichotomy in many minds. Every employee is in business for himself and his business is to provide his labor or specialized services to his employer. Every employer is nothing more than an employee of sorts to his customers and a consumer of his employee's goods. In many ways (not all) its a distinction without a difference.

This understanding has caused me to take more pride in my work because it allows me to view myself as an acting agent, a dignified individual on par in the free will department with my bosses, managers, supervisors and employers. Danial Pink got it right in my case when he deduced that many employees want more autonomy, purpose and mastery over their work. I would also add progression.

I was going to make a different heading to talk about success in life but I think I can fit it in here. I've set for myself certain career goals that constitute what looks like long-term financial and entrepreneurial success for me. So setting myself goals that will progress my life and lead to future happiness, then achieving those goals is success to me. And as far as my work is concerned I have a few goals set:

I want to move up and out of my current position at work into a different type of labor as a programmer. I would like to make as much or more money on my own entrepreneurial projects as I do at my career.

Besides those two goals I have a more long-term goal of doing or being a part of something that makes a difference in the world. What I mean by that is breaking the status quo; doing it better or asking if it needs to be done at all. Instead of working for a company that does something the same way its always done it I want to (at some point) head into the fray and do something new, be on the cutting edge, create a new innovation that will ripple it's influence throughout time and improve the future of not only my life but many others as well.


I want to be fulfilled in my intimate relationships.

This is also something that I feel I've consciously known for a short time, but subconsciously understood forever: what an intimate relationship is. 

I think a lot of people including myself at times are most comfortable with a "working relationship" with most of the people in their lives. But an intimate relationship with someone requires that you understand each other from the ground up and love what you see.

Take any evil person as an example, any person without morals, a sense of right and wrong without empathy for others, take any sadist. Lets take the most iconic of all.

Hitler was an evil man, and if I knew him, or even now if I study him I could know him from the ground up. By that I mean I could understand him and his values, the reasons he behaves the way he does. But I couldn't love him. I really don't think I could because our values are so different. Christians have this idea that you should love everyone even if they're evil. but I think that's rewarding sadism.

Love is not empathy. I could have empathy for Hitler I could explore his past and feel some of his pain perhaps but that does not mean I could love him. I'm still working all this out but I think love is something more innate. The real question is could Hitler love me? I don't think that is possible. Anything he would call love is not my definition of love. I think if we used the same word to mean different things, that would be an insult to the people I claim to love.

That's why I agree with Stefan Molyneux when he said that "Love is our involuntary response to virtue." More specifically I think that definition only applies to virtuous people: love is a virtuous person's involuntary or emotional response to virtue in others. I don't think a Hitler has the capacity to love.

So to have a loving and emotionally intimate relationship I think you need two people that are both virtuous that can take delight and joy out of knowing and experiencing the other person. I'm striving for excellence in this area and I want more of these kinds of people in my life.


I've always wanted to know the truth about every goddamn thing. 

I'm very curious and I take a tremendous amount of satisfaction out of learning about the world I live in. My favorite is when I learn something that changes the way I see every other thing - a paradigm shift. Those moments are awesome. I'm not going to say anything more about this, but if you're more curious about how I feel go watch "the Joy of Discovery" on youtube by melodysheep. It is sufficient to say that the quest for truth is a massive part of my purpose of life.

I want to know myself.

The above answer to my purpose of life is not a finished product. It's a beta version, maybe an alpha version. But it rests upon a foundation of something that I don't see changing for a long time: using my emotions as a guide in this quest for happiness.

Its good to feel anger when you know why you feel anger and you're comfortable with the reason. Same goes for sadness, I think its generally unhealthy to feel happy at a funeral. And I think its generally unhealthy if you don't feel anger in an abusive environment. 

So one tool we have to understand ourselves as humans is our emotional state. I'm in the process of making a new habit: if I find myself feeling an emotion that is unpleasant or that I feel is inappropriate I try to question why I'm feeling that way. And I don't try to artificially control those feelings. My limbic system doesn't care if these emotions are inconvenient or "wrong" it only tells me the truth about how I feel. 

So far I've learned about myself using this method. I've also learned about myself by studying science. A very broad understanding of artificial intelligence, neurology, sociology, psychology, genetics, evolution, and most recently child development all help me understand who, or rather, what I am.

In my quest for happiness I think its of paramount importance to know myself.

To me the purpose of life is to be happy.

The Buddhist (and other eastern philosophies) do this by giving up their personal desires for this life in preference for an indifferent and apathetic existence. 

The Theist (Muslims, Christians, and in my previous case Mormons) do this by giving up their personal desires in this life in preference for the hope of a happy, fulfilling paradise hereafter. 

I've rejected these ideas. To me the purpose of this life is to be happy and that can't be done by denying your personal desires. Tempering them, negotiating with them surely will lead to sustained happiness but denying them, being a dictator over your own self fragments the self and isn't fun.

Having realized that there is no one purpose to life, that there is no meaning in anything except the meaning I give it, I now believe that my purpose in life is to be happy because this is the only life I get.

The Ultimate Value in Political Philosophy

Due to this post's title I expect that nobody will ever endeavor to read it. 

Regardless, I want to summarize the process by which I came to my current political philosophy. 

During recent evaluations of the "Climate Change" proposal (and I call it a proposal rather than theory because it implies action is required) I've realized what the measuring tool is that I use when confronted with new ideas.

By "measuring tool" I mean my ultimate value, the thing I care about most when trying to make sense of a new idea. 

Moral philosophy is my natural and first concern when evaluating new ideas related to how we organize ourselves as a society. This has not always been the case.

I studied economics studiously a few years ago and economic efficiency became my measuring stick. I realized that so many things the government tries to control would be better handled by the free market. Mixed with a natural inclination to be free I embraced the ideology of libertarianism.

After seeing a trend of bad economic policy in government and improved quality with lower costs in the free market I concluded that government's place was not in any affairs the free market could handle on its own.

Where did this push government? I wouldn't want my food being grown by the government, that's just a given. Neither would I want my cell phone or car created by the government, so it has to be pushed out of technology as much as possible. 

Government's place got pushed out of the post office, obviously, then out of education, and certainly out of the medical industry. They're pretty shitty when it comes to monetary policy, they shouldn't do trade wars and actually all regulations are commercial regulations so they all need to go.

Government became for me for a short while the "Government of the Gaps." Every time I would look into 'who does better at x; government or free market?' It always turned up free market and government got pushed out of everything, one industry at a time. That is, it got pushed out of nearly everything.

All it was to do in my "minarchist" view was national defense, police, and maybe handling of the law and courts because these are the things government does best: issue verdicts and kill people. 

Like I said, economics was my measuring tool and it managed to take me that far. But just as vacuum tubes were replaced by a new paradigm so was my thinking about to make a quantum leap forward. While wrestling with the question of whether or not the court system could be run with greater economic efficiency by the free market (which I now believe it could) I realized my measuring stick was inadequate. 

I had been asking the wrong question.

National defense, police, law and courts - all these things cost money. And where does government get its' money? From the people. Put more accurately government steals the people's money. This is called taxation.

Stealing is immoral and immorality trumps economic efficiency. I knew this was true by looking at my own life: it would be very economically efficient for me to steal the income I need to live if I had the opportunity, but I wouldn't do it because it would be immoral.

I realized this: morality trumps economic efficiency. Therefore if government must steal in order to pay its policemen, soldiers and judges I could not support such a minimalist government regardless of economic efficiency.

And that's where I stand today. Everyone seems to have a 'measuring stick' or 'ultimate value' they use to evaluate new ideas (especially when the realization of those ideas have implications on how we organize ourselves as a society).

Some people care mostly about what is fair. Equality is the word for them. If some people are rich, and others are poor, well that just wont do. Everyone deserves to be happy and no one should have less than anyone else. I believe having this as an ultimate value presupposes that someone is dishing out the goodies, that someone is in charge of all the wealth. And if that was the case then yes, equality is only fair; all the kids should have the same number of toys.

Other people are quick to defer the question to a higher authority. I get this a lot from those that are religious in my parents' generation. Its almost as if they believe they shouldn't think about these issues because God is judge, its not their place, their just children.

If equality is your ultimate value then equality trumps morality. Jack has more than Jane so take from Jack and give to Jane. Problem solved! 

If religious doctrine is your ultimate value (which it may have been for me as a teenager, so I get it) then religious doctrine trumps morality. Oh, Jack is a homosexual so he's bad. Problem solved!

I really cannot think of any other method or measuring tool or ultimate value that is more important to me than asking, "is this moral?" Of course that statement is totally tautological because of course I feel that way - its my ultimate value. But anyway, I have to reject any other ultimate value because they all seem to have childish-like, unempowering, and illogical premises inherent in them. 

Maybe equality is morality to you - whatever make everyone equal makes everyone have the same amount of happiness so that's what is right. Or maybe whatever God says is your definition of morality; if God says this is bad, then it must be bad even if it doesn't make logical sense. 

Well neither of those are morality to me. My definition of what's wrong is very simple. Whatever is the initiation of aggression is wrong. You can kind of approximate that idea by living by the golden rule, but basically aggression isn't necessarily bad because that could be self defense, but the initiation of aggression is bad because there is no excuse, its just unprovoked attack. Stealing, rape, assault, murder, even fraud is under that umbrella of initiation of aggression so all those things are bad. 

If that's not your definition of morality then give it some thought and really pin down what you think is right and wrong. Its possible you could have a definition I've never thought of before. That would be cool to hear about.  

I think any ultimate value that can trump moral considerations (and can therefore lead to aggression) should really be given a lot of thought. Its a heavy issue and deserves a lot of seriousness. Besides that it really feels good to be consistent.