I think the purpose of life is to be happy. To achieve that end I've begun trying to acquire a balance between my mind, body and soul. Intellectual pursuits, physical exercise and meditative practices. I think if one of the three are neglected, its neglection would open up a source of unhappiness. Following along the 'soul' side of things, I also engage in mindfulness practices which open up a path to inner happiness (happiness devoid of external influences).
There's a bunch of other practices and theories that are certainly useful to cultivating happiness, so as I get older I'll probably incorporate some of them into my doctrine.
I can't see my belief that happiness is the purpose of life changing anytime soon.
There's a bunch of other practices and theories that are certainly useful to cultivating happiness, so as I get older I'll probably incorporate some of them into my doctrine.
I can't see my belief that happiness is the purpose of life changing anytime soon.
I want to go to the moon. That is my biggest dream and the major purpose in my life. It sounds kinda crazy or silly at first, but I think it will be possible within my life. I am 19.
SpaceX already is doing crazy stuff like managing to land the relatively cheap Falcon 9 that is capable of going into orbit. I think it is just a matter of time until the colonization of the moon is a serious discussion matter, maybe just 1.5 or 2 decades.
Other than that I have another smaller purpose, that is to maximize future opportunities and my potential positive outcomes out of my experiences and second to that, of others around me. Let me explain what I mean by that.
I like to imagine hypothetical alternative timelines of the world that I perceive. I like to say 'of the world that I perceive' because I know for a fact I can interpret facts wrongly, so I may not know for sure what's true or what's false, thus I am aware only of my perception and not of the actual reality. But with that said, I am confident that I know what I know most of the time. When I am thinking about those hypothetical timelines I factor in my current situation, what I want to achieve and how things worked for me in the past if I've had to think about situations like this. The most important outcome of the scenarios is not completing my original goal, but maximizing what opportunities I can create on the way to achieve the goal. Out of the factors that I take into consideration I choose a variable factor and I keep the other factors constant. For example let's say that my goal is to learn the Lua scripting language in 1 month. The timeline would be that I know Lua in 1 month. So how can I maximize my opportunities? Well, let's say that instead of doing math problems and other useless things, I make a script for Toribash. That is the variable factor and that is an opportunity created with the positive experience of having fun. Not only that I would know Lua now, but I also would have made a script for Toribash and had fun. But what else can I do? What about making a physics based script, so I learn a bit of physics on the side? That is another opportunity created and that's a timeline that I would like to live in, and I do now. That is how I made my Snake, Pong and Pool scripts btw.
Maybe I am overthinking this, but that's how I think. I like to imagine sometimes that instead of my current age, I am 90 with only a few years left to live. And I know exactly what I know now and have the same experiences as I do now. And I ask myself what factors can I change now in order to improve my hypothetical 90 years old self.
That's what gives purpose to my life. I don't believe in a deity or in other supernatural stuff like ghosts, afterlife, mind-body duality etc. But I respect if someone believes that in the sense that it's not my business what others believe unless it's harmful to me or them. Then I will try to help if I can.
What I know is that we are a product of time and chance. Lots of heated atoms interacting with each other for a long time gave rise to me and you, collections of atoms with sentience.
SpaceX already is doing crazy stuff like managing to land the relatively cheap Falcon 9 that is capable of going into orbit. I think it is just a matter of time until the colonization of the moon is a serious discussion matter, maybe just 1.5 or 2 decades.
Other than that I have another smaller purpose, that is to maximize future opportunities and my potential positive outcomes out of my experiences and second to that, of others around me. Let me explain what I mean by that.
I like to imagine hypothetical alternative timelines of the world that I perceive. I like to say 'of the world that I perceive' because I know for a fact I can interpret facts wrongly, so I may not know for sure what's true or what's false, thus I am aware only of my perception and not of the actual reality. But with that said, I am confident that I know what I know most of the time. When I am thinking about those hypothetical timelines I factor in my current situation, what I want to achieve and how things worked for me in the past if I've had to think about situations like this. The most important outcome of the scenarios is not completing my original goal, but maximizing what opportunities I can create on the way to achieve the goal. Out of the factors that I take into consideration I choose a variable factor and I keep the other factors constant. For example let's say that my goal is to learn the Lua scripting language in 1 month. The timeline would be that I know Lua in 1 month. So how can I maximize my opportunities? Well, let's say that instead of doing math problems and other useless things, I make a script for Toribash. That is the variable factor and that is an opportunity created with the positive experience of having fun. Not only that I would know Lua now, but I also would have made a script for Toribash and had fun. But what else can I do? What about making a physics based script, so I learn a bit of physics on the side? That is another opportunity created and that's a timeline that I would like to live in, and I do now. That is how I made my Snake, Pong and Pool scripts btw.
Maybe I am overthinking this, but that's how I think. I like to imagine sometimes that instead of my current age, I am 90 with only a few years left to live. And I know exactly what I know now and have the same experiences as I do now. And I ask myself what factors can I change now in order to improve my hypothetical 90 years old self.
That's what gives purpose to my life. I don't believe in a deity or in other supernatural stuff like ghosts, afterlife, mind-body duality etc. But I respect if someone believes that in the sense that it's not my business what others believe unless it's harmful to me or them. Then I will try to help if I can.
What I know is that we are a product of time and chance. Lots of heated atoms interacting with each other for a long time gave rise to me and you, collections of atoms with sentience.
Last edited by dista; Jan 26, 2016 at 08:05 PM.
