What do you keep living for? Is there a specific person, goal, or idea that you work for? Is there no meaning to life in your opinion?
Context: I’ve been reading Camus and Sartre, and thinking about how their ideas interact with hard determinism.
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!
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.
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.
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–helping1 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.
I have a lot of books left to read.
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.
Meaning must be generated, not found.
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).