I’ve started to get this feeling “what is the point of living life if eventually we’ll all die”? And furthermore, I got another question. If we die, doesn’t everything come to an end? Don’t you lose memory of absolutely everything you’ve done in life? So in other words, what’s the point of doing things in life if we’re all going to eventually die and never even remember what we’ve done? Maybe other people might but would you personally have remembered this upon your death? I’m talking in a non-religious point of view. From a scientific logical point of view, everything you’ve done in life comes to an end and you cannot even backtrack anything to trace your memories or whatnot. I don’t believe that scientifically there is a such thing as “afterlife” or whatnot.
So really, I got extremely depressed over the past few days thinking about this question. I mean you can be the richest person in the world right now but in probably ~80 years, you’ll completely forget about that. Or otherwise you can live in total misery and poverty but you’ll forget about it maybe 50 years later.
So this question has struck my head really hard. I felt like I didn’t want to do anything. What is the actual point of life if we’re all going to die no matter what we have accomplished?
This is like asking “What’s the point of playing a pickup game of basketball with friends if the game’s eventually going to end?” Something is better than nothing.
Does the non-existence preceding life negate it’s meaning? Hardly. Then why should the non-existence after? Non-existence is infinitely longer than existence. The point of life is living, because there is so little of it.
To the OP: sometimes I feel that way, too. More often than sometimes, if truth be told. I haven’t come up with a good answer. I just keep putting one foot in front of the other. My working answer is, “I don’t really need a reason right this minute, so I’ll just keep on.” Also, although I don’t have any people in my life who look to me for anything, I do have a dog and three cats (just added a new one to the fambly :)), so that will do for today.
To put it in perspective, this question has been asked by human beings ever since there were human beings. It’s the basis for creating all religions. No one (IMHO) has come up with a definitive, final, satisfactory answer. So far. It will make you nuts and not help much to dwell on the question. Because you won’t find a global answer you can be sure of. You can find temporary answers in isolated meaningful moments. That may have to do.
If you’re excluding transcendence, then there is no point. There is no difference between you dying today, tomorrow or having never been born. You’re simply a random collection of interacting chemicals that mysteriously happens to know that in some weird way it forms a system. There are trillions of similar systems so your particular system is not particularly unique or important. When your system is no longer able to remain coherent, other systems will react to this dissolution, but their reaction is not unique and they may have similar reactions to the loss of a dog, their shelter or even their favorite book or childhood belonging. They too will cease to be in an extremely short amount of time taking those reactions with them. Eventually, the fact that at one time your particular system existed will have such little impact on the world that your existence or lack thereof is basically the same as throwing a rock in a pond and looking for the ripples two years later.
The end game is always the same, the complete and total destruction of anything and everything that humanity as a whole has ever accomplished. There will be noone admiring our monuments or wondering about our existence. There will be no descendents that at least keep a vanishingly tiny portion of our DNA with them. There will be no highly evolved super humanity. It all ends the same way, eventually if we are unique in the universe and never leave this planet, there will be a ‘last life’, probably a single celled organism that will be blown apart by the fury of an exploding sun or if we’re not alone, it will be supping on the last drop of energy from a long dead planet until there’s nothing left to sustain it and then that’s it, that’s all and the universe becomes a lifeless husk that noone cares about, remembers or even exists in order to care about it.
I think it was Camus who posited that ‘suicide is the atheist’s problem’ (This is paraphrased, he thinks suicide is everyone’s ultimate question, but acknowledges that the divine changes the equation) He sees there only being three options, suicide, hope or rebellion. Hope is unreasonable and illogical. Suicide he doesn’t want to accept. Rebellion is what he settles on. You reject the absurdity of existence by essentially embracing meaninglessness. He posits Sisyphus as our guide. We push our stones up the hill only to watch them roll down the other side and then start all over again. I personally have always found Camus’s answer to be unsatisfying, but it’s probably the best answer anyone has come up with.
The biggest question–really, the only question–humans face. “What’s the point?”
As a psychotherapist largely oriented toward existentialism, I would point you toward Victor Frankl as an useful start toward determining the perimeters of the question.
Well, from a non-religious perspective, the only “point” to life is what you make of it.
From a nihilistic point of view we live on a ball of dirt hurtling through universe. And we just happen to be (imo) the most advanced species on that ball of dirt. It’s even possible we’re the most advanced species in the entire universe. Presumably you live in a fairly advanced society as well. At a time of unprecedented scientific and social progress.
So you’re experiencing an experience that on a cosmological level could be infintisimally rare.
If for nothing else, the “point” would be to experience this rare existence in a way that you enjoy, and pass on beneficial things you can to the people around you. Maybe make this mud ball a little better place than you left it when you’re gone.
The hilarious thing is, nobody really wants to know. If it could be indisputably mathematically proven that the point of life was X, 99.9% of sentient life would say “huh” and unpause their Playstation or resume texting or whatever. When people ask what the point of life is, all they really want is for someone to say “Don’t worry, dude - you’re nailing it. Really. Keep up the good work.”
So don’t worry. You’re nailing it. And hey, keep up the good work.
You’re having an existential crisis. I’ve had several in my life, and they’re not fun. Many people, myself included, have one early on when they first begin to understand death. It’s also common to have one around the age of 40.
I found it helpful to understand that this is a common human experience, and that most people are able to get through it and move on.
As for the actual meaning of life? If you figure it out, let us know. For me personally, it’s about finding things that satisfy me. This morning I had a bowl of a new cereal that is really good. I’ve gotten several compliments this morning on my clothing choices, which always makes me happy. I finished up several work projects by the deadline. Will any of this matter in a week? Probably not. But focusing more on this moment, and making it great, rather than trying to have “accomplishments” can help ground you and make it possible to move forward.
“The tragedy of the human experience is that we are aware of our own mortality.”
My problem with this is ‘enjoy.’ If you posit the point is to experience rarity, why put ‘enjoy’ in there? We know that joy is just a chemical reaction that is an attempt to maintain the coherence of the system. There is no value to it, any more than there is value in suffering or ennui. If your goal is rarity of experience, then joy is illogical to seek since that’s what all the other humans are seeking and their bodies are telling them to do. Rarity would be rebelling against joy. Experiencing the rare might not be a joyful experience. If novelty is the point, then your goal should be mixing drugs for new emotions or doing things that have never been done - and I would posit most of those involve more suffering than joy. Thousands of people have climbed Mount Everest, how many have had their testicals torn off by an anglerfish?
I actually have a problem with ‘joy’ in other contexts as well. It leads to the ‘heroin junkie’ scenario. If our goal is simply joy, then why not spend our days as high as we can for as long as we can until the money runs out or the highs stop working and then OD in one last glorious orgasmic state? There’s nothing that’s going to make you as happy as heroin. The body just can’t produce that quantity of opiates. It’s why addicts ignore their families, their hobbies and everything else in search of their next fix. Heroin is the greatest orgasm you’ve ever had multiplied by 100, so is heroin the meaning of life? Procure enough money to spend half a decade strung out and then off yourself? You’re probably maximizing your ‘joy.’ So that seems to be where that philosophy leads us.
My individual self is not the entirety of my identity, it’s something I’m doing for the duration of a lifetime. And no, everything I do within it doesn’t come to an end; I affect other people (intentionally and unintentionally) and hence the future is something I helped to create.
