I want to Know the Purpose of My Life

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• Nick, you got a point. Life is for LIVING. You mean beautifully I presume. The rivers, fruits, ... sky... all are there for living. But to leave beautifully, we need to have more than that. Fellow human beings to toil in the field, carry crops and fruits ... a civilization. But I need to be part of the work force. Get what I need. Save for Rainy Days! Aha, there we are! We THINK about the FUTURE. Be it planning for a trip to Greece (easy, isn’t it?), ... fast forward, hmm what after my life ends on earth? HAVE I PLANNED FOR WHERE I WILL ARRIVE?! That’s the Question! Have a good life! Here and in the Hereafter

• Yes, among animals on Earth, humans seem to excel in THINKING about the future. As a result, humans have concocted a huge number of speculations about what happens after we die. Evidence suggests that such speculations started at least 100,000 years ago! Presumably the impetus for such speculations was a combination of humans thinking they didn't want to die (i.e., relying on their instinct for survival) plus thinking about people who had died but seemed to be still alive in dreams.

  A major problem with such speculations, however, was recorded in one of the earliest available writings. The ancient Egyptian "Song of the Harper" (found in the tomb of King Inyotef, c.2650 – 2600 BCE) states: "There is no one who can return from there [i.e., speculated afterlives] to describe their nature, to describe their dissolution…" Stated in modern terms, the problem was (and still is!) that zero evidence supports any such speculations.

  In contrast, a vast amount of evidence supports the following ideas: 1) Many conflicting speculations about "life after death" exist, but logically, all can't be correct, and logically, all are oxymorons; 2) adherents of specific "schools" of speculations about "life after death" have caused both animosities among followers of rival schools and clerical promoters of specific speculations gaining inappropriate influences over the lives and fortunes of their adherents; and 3) to adapt to changing biological and physical environments, survival of any species is promoted if individuals die (i.e., they no longer consume resources, their mental processes stop, and their bodies decompose) but if their modified DNA continues in their offspring (whose DNA is, e.g., more difficult for existing viruses to attack and more capable of surviving in a different physical environment).

  As for "the purpose of your life", if you live in a society in which everyone has an equal right to claim one's own existence, then your purpose is your choice. You can choose to follow someone else's speculation or you can follow your own ideas – provided, of course, that you don't infringe on someone else's equal rights. If you do decide to follow your own ideas, however, it's strongly recommended that you develop your ideas based, not on speculations, but on reliable data. And on the other hand, if you don't live in a society in which you're free to choose your own purpose, then you may want to adopt the high priority goal of gaining your freedom – subject, of course, to the constraint of not infringing on the equal freedoms of others.

• Asking "What is the purpose of life?" is silly: life IS the purpose! You're asking, "What is the purpose of the purpose?" (or "What is the life of the life?"). It's amazing what silliness can be generated from sloppy thinking, e.g., "The Sky exists to provide a favorable living condition on Earth. The fertile ground exists so that crops could grow in it. Rivers exists to provide water to the living beings." That's silly! In reality, living beings exists because there are rivers, fertile ground, and favorable living conditions on Earth - and only life has a "purpose", namely, to continue living.