Ask Lemmy

Have experiences and respect other life. That's really it.

The Earth created lifeforms that can understand the universe. Even if there are other conditions out there that can create life like that, it's not common. There is unfathomable empty space between planets and their moons. To say nothing of between planets or stars or galaxies.

Good news! You're one of these rare combinations of matter that can understand the universe. In a real way, we are the universe trying to understand itself. Scientists explore it in a deep way, and should be respected for that, but you don't need a PhD to participate. A single celled organism who figured out better ways to swim in its little pool helped the universe understand itself. The first human to taste a strawberry helped the universe understand itself. Have experiences.

There's a lot of other life also participating in this, and they should be respected, too.

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

Meaning: try to do no harm, give love where I can, and hopefully leave the world a little better where I touched upon.

Why I keep living (bit of a TW):

Also experiencing video games.

I'm looking forward to lunch tomorrow

I don't think life has any kind of inherent meaning; it simply arose from random physical processes when the conditions were right and took off from there. I keep living mostly because it's kind of the default, and because I don't want to hurt others with my death.

It feels like a paradox to me: the meaning of life is to find meaning in life.

For me “it’s complicated”. I live with passive suicidal ideation on a daily basis. Some days are better than others, but generally speaking I don’t want to actually kill myself. However, the idea of being dead does not bother me as it ought other people.

That being said, I do stick around especially for my two sons. I could not bring myself to not be a part of their lives; especially right now as they are 12 and 10. I don’t want to rob them of their father, and I do want to see them through to when they have a life of their own and have their own family (whatever that may look like for them).

As for meaning in life: ultimately everything we do is only for the living. When I die, my life only matters to the people whom I was closest (my kids). Beyond that, who cares right? I have no delusions that I’ll be remembered by anyone else.

But I do have other things I’d like to achieve: find another love of my life, travel the world more, complete as much of my bucket list as possible (e.g. skydiving, bungee jumping, scuba diving, etc).

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

I think one of the best phrases I've heard from the atheist community is "Do No Harm". Very similarly, the Golden Rule, which almost every civilization has a version of, says "Do to others that which you would have them do to you". Beyond that, there are no rules one must abide by. If you would wish others to stand up for you when you cannot, then do so for them. If you wish that people would help you when you are in need, do so to them.

Ultimately, you create your own meaning from the little things you find joy in and if you follow the Golden Rule then you can help others do the same.

I don't think there is meaning. I've never read Camus or Sartre and don't really know what determinism is (quick read on Wikipedia, I think I agree with it?), but

I keep living because it makes me feel good for the most part, and because the thought of dying makes me feel bad for the most part.

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.

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.

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.