I love this existential question. Why are we here on this earth, as individuals and society? In no particular order, we are here:
For no reason: it’s a matter of incredible chance – and beauty – that life exists. To learn the scientific facts of how this planet was formed, how water arrived on earth, how the sun nourishes life – these are remarkable to fathom.
Through the Big Bang and its cosmic chaos, life came to be on this planet. There is no reason for life. It just happened. And life on this planet will come to an end. Our sun will die, and humans well before that.
Faced with this existential fact, we seek meaning from our short time here.
To survive: amidst this chaos, our animal impulse is to survive. And, so, we live on.
To find purpose: survival is our basic pursuit, but we are social creatures with brains, hearts, desires and dreams. We seek purpose. Some find purpose through art, comedy, politics, religion. We seek a sail, a compass and a destination, or at very least a broad direction.
To those three core reasons, I’d add three more:
For pleasure: this one irritates me because it seems to preoccupy society, absorbed by multi-billion-dollar advertising and marketing industries and consumer culture. Other animals enjoy pleasures – play, sex, intimacy, the feeling of a warm sun, the smell of a flower. But we have taken the pursuit of pleasure to be a god in itself. We live for travel, consumption, experience, laughter and fun. Money for the moment. Lovely stuff, but base. Pleasure and happiness are fleeting feelings, not states of being.
When you read interviews of what people regret about their life when on their deathbeds, very few look back and talk of these pursuits, however fun they were. They talk of wanting to spend more time with people they love, to have lived more authentically, and to have spent more time with friends.
So yes to seeking pleasure, but to what extent, and to what end?
To love: and to do so deeply. To love our friends, nature, moments of silence and beauty. Ideally, to experience profound romantic love. To experience the love of a child, or a stranger, or a friendly cat or dog, or the beauty of a grain of sand.
If we are social creatures, we are also deeply loving creatures. Over time, our hearts are hardened with heartbreak, loss and shards of pain. Yet – as with water – we always seek out love, through droughts, in puddles, ponds and the occasional monsoon. Love deeply, through droughts, and floods.
To make a difference, however small: I’m no Aristotelian, but my understanding is that Aristotle used the word eudaimonia to explain purpose in life, which means to have a good spirit or soul. In other words, there’s a moral element to life. Aristotle wrote specifically of higher virtues including wisdom, justice, and courage.
The world is wrecked and ruined by capitalism, imperialism, racism, sexism, homophobia, colonialism, ableism and overlapping systemic injustices. We can be beyond vile.
But humans are innately social creatures who care for each other and our environment. We must, in order to survive.
The greatest purpose in this short life is to try and make a difference, however small.
The late bell hooks called it “white-supremacist capitalist patriarchy.” It will not last forever. What we replace it with largely depends on small efforts of countless individuals. This is a great reason for living, in my mind.
