Why?
 

Well?

Why?

What's the point?

What's the purpose of your existence?

If any.

What is with all the exsistential angst going around? It's hard enough to just be myself and now all the people in the Cellar are questioning God and the Meaning of Life!

I'm here because I volunteered for the experiment. I chose a nasty habit and a melodramatic narrative. It's getting boring, but I'm sure I'll come out alright in the end. By the way, I am not dissing on your thread, SteveD, it's just an observation.

Don't hold back on my account... :stickpoke

42.

As good a reason as any.

Is there a purpose? Or do we do what we've been trained to do. If our ancestors didn't work, would we?

Our purpose is to prepare for death. Or rather make a feeble attempt at ignoring it, or running away from it.

The Dark Tower? Ka? 19?

yes, i'm still rereading The Gunslinger series. I'm on volume The Wolves of Calla now. all this because of the thread about what technologies would survive the fall...

Oddly enough, I find myself getting more and more towards the objectivist philosophy, the more I look at it.
I'm here to achieve some sense of personal satisfaction, and to enjoy myself. If that ends up being useful to society, more's the better.

Yep, that's about it.
- Pie

*sigh* I've been hacking at that one for.. damn.. most of my life. I used to think there was some 'purpose', however the older I get.. it seems to have little or no point other than to consume and breed to continue the species. (then again! maybe there is a point to it all and I just haven't stumbled across it yet... until then '42' will just have to do)

To show love when I can.

To allow others to show me love if they can.

To continue to wonder the purpose of my existence.

Well said, Brown. My life.... although seemingly meaningless is to help those around me. Those who deserve such help that is. A soulwatcher if you will. I give love and take pain, and all in all, I am respected for it. It is what I do, and what I will be doing till this body fails to exist any longer.

Why not?

Why why not?

As far as I'm concerned, I have two purposes. One, to continue to exist. Two, to leave things better than I found them.

Others might have a different purpose for me to exist, tho so you'll have to check with them.

I leave the "why" to folks who know better than I. I'm just a humbler seeker in quest of "how?"

I apparently exist to pick on vegans and furriners.

Dun, I thought you were a young man. However, your statement seems wise for a youngster. In my opinion, you will not find love without pain. As long as you continue to help others, you will be repected. The only question I have; is what you mean when you say "those that deservre such help." I hope you meant those who really need help, for who are we to say who deserves help.
Anyway a profound statement, that not many can honestly say is a driving force in their life..........

well, love is pain and pain is love. who can cause you pain if you do not hold some degree of love for them? really. if you care nothing about a persons regard for you how can their thoughts, words, actions cause you pain? and if you don't hold much stock in their thoughts, words, actions - do you hold love for them?

for me? i consider my reason for existence to be my son. in mymind i am here to raise him to be a better man than i can ever hope to be. to paraphrase a certain Mr Pacino - i always new the right path, but i have invariably chosen the wrong one. i hope to raise my son to be a better man. a better human.

beyond that i hope to brighten someone's day. may that be my assistant who has no living family, my son who has no other father, my parents who have no other son, the man on the corner who i bought lunch, my client who lost his wife to a sudden illness... someone. everyday.

i don't believe in ka, karma, or luck. i do believe that there is a certain point where all credibility is shot. i believe there comes a point where "i" can no longer be the one to make a difference. i believe my actions have a consequence. i believe there comes a point where i can no longer be used in a truly meaningful way - so i must hope to impact the lives of those that have not passed that mile marker, whatever it may be.

that is what i believe.

Here's why. (good read)

I like this thread, such an interrogatory thread for such suicidal people, I agree with some of the others I've read, we are here just for the sake of breeding and keeping the species going, the delicate balance depends on just that, balance, and while we're here, we can make things good before we go. I hope to see more posts coming from this thread, good ones

"You are an odd little boy, but I suppose... as our mothers have always told us, atleast my mother told me 'always try new things'."

Anyone who's in the position to give help, thats who. Everyone has to judge whether their assistance is going to do any good, since nobody has unlimited resources.
You have to decide the risk, freeing a trapped animal might lead to injury or death. Picking up a pedestrian could do the same. (Personally I won't pick up women anymore.)
Investing time or money is less risky, but there again, most people would hope it wasn't wasted. You might not see a positive result but you(I) definitely don't want to see a negative. :cool:

Who's suicidal?

Why? What's going to happen to me if I don't?

I'm not sure, I guess, if we stop breeding, the race will slowly diminish.

"Why?" isn't as deep a concept as we try to make it. In the end, we're only looking for shelter, food, and sex to answer our instinctive need to propogate the species. We have evolved an advanced problem-solving ability so that our basic biological needs are met almost without any effort. The resulting spare time isn't something our brains are used to, and there's lots of wasted traffic along our neural pathways. This is directionless, random electrical activity that we have come to interpret as "deep thought" but is actually the product of an organ that is still keyed for high activity and hasn't adapted to the lack of need for it. At the pinnacle of human evolution, having answered all our survival needs with permanent shelters and food sources, and the ability to self-reproduce, our brains will be the size of peanuts and we will no longer have limbs, since there's no need to go anywhere, anyway. We will be utterly self-contained, no longer producing digestive waste, impacting our environment only insofar as we require 3 square feet of space for our bodies to wobble on. As we die, the single offspring we each produce will occupy the space we used to occupy. If only Darwin could have lived long enough to see the realization of his dream....



what?

Damn... Just damn...

And I thought I had a low opinion.

:stickpoke: lol. what? isn't this the ideal scenario for people who think there is no soul, no god, only animal instinct and evolutionary advancement?

Yeah, but why do I as an individual care about that? If it's my only justification for getting out of bed and (attempting/pretending) to do something useful every morning, it seems pretty slim.

Um, no.

Maybe we get out of bed every morning and attempt to "do something" due to ego? Do depressed people suffer from depressed ego's? Is that why I--I mean they! they! stay in bed all damn day??? Anyone?

You're right. My bad... I was looking at it via a different angle. Sad thing is I forgot what that angle was..... :)

Probably the angle that we are all human (I'm not so sure around here :biggrin: ) and as such should help all other humans.
Nice ideology but breaks down in practical application.
That's why I prefer to help those I can on a one to one basis rather than throwing money at organized charities or having the (shudder) government involved. :)

:thumbsup: If we all helped each other one on one we wouldn't need mass involvement. But one person can't make a difference, right?

mr noodle you're mad. you see the logic of superfluous thought capacity but still believe in god?

WooHoo - us other guys finally have a chance now! :)

i thought i was just being sarcastic and weird.

but, um, yeah.

To continue generating experience as a self-reflexive sensory organ for the God from whom I grew (and perhaps became detached)? Maybe. I oscillate between an ill-defined existentialism and uncertain panentheism with mystical hopes and nihilistic bad days. Mostly, though, I just want to be happy and help others do the same. I like sex, books, and horror movies, and if I could find the meaning of life somewhere in there I'd be very happy. I guess like most people I'm just making it up as I go along and hoping for the best.

in which order? choose wisely, your future may depend upon it.

That's almost as difficult as figuring out the meaning of life.

Sorry to resurrect an ancient thread...but, lookout, I was just curious what you thought of the series. I just finished #4. I read the first three many moons ago.

Is it normal to take 16 years to get through a series of novels?

Why ? - Because I chose my parents wisely

Actually I love the whole series of books. In fact, I might reread them again.

not unusual given the ... tectonic pace at which they were released to the general public.

and worth re re reading. I read them many many moons and moods ago, and when each new one was released, I liked to go back to the first one and read them all again in order so the big finale (the current most recent book) would be a fresh ending and the story would be fresh too.

My 19 yr old G-daughter seems to be going off on a philosophical bent.
Here is her latest on FaceBook