What is the meaning of Life? Does life have a purpose? What is the purpose of life?
These are the interesting questions I bet most of us get at some point in our life or at least when we are in trouble. It is important to question ourselves of what we are and what we need to do in our life. But, are the answers to these questions are based on our selection ? or they happen just like that without or with our involvement?
To answer this question, it is important that we need to go back in time and see the causes of our life existence.
Religious preachers vs Scientists
Religious preachers say God has created us. They also say every living thing on earth has a purpose and we are born to fulfill our respective purposes. They also say our purpose is to go to heaven. Or convert people to one’s religion.
On the other hand, scientists and atheists have different opinions on Life’s creation. They say we are alive today because of a random event which is one out of trillions of events.
If we conduct a debate between Scientists and Religious preachers, that debate will not have a conclusion at all. The reason is pretty much simple. If scientists find we are here today because of a particle, within no time religious preachers say that particle is created by GOD. Or the particle is GOD.
Also, scientists start their research with a question and they continue the research with assumptions and theories. If a scientist comes up with assumption and making it a theory, later on, some other scientist will come up with new assumptions and theories. So basically it is a process of knowing and trying to be more accurate than what we were.
One thing we can say is, whenever we dig deep into something to find the cause of its existence, the process becomes more difficult and occurrence of something causes the occurrence of some other thing which in turn causes the occurrence of some other new things. It is a chain process and it will go on and on. It has no ending.
Ok now, let’s come to our discussion of knowing the purpose of life.
Why did I discuss the cause of the existence of life rather than the purpose of life?
Does not it become easy to know the purpose of life if we know who created us? Yes, it is.
Factually speaking, we do not have a clear evidence or a clear thought of who created us and why we were created. I don’t think we are going to know it even in the future.
So how do we know the purpose of life when we don’t know how and why we were created? Whenever we ask this question to ourselves, we need to remember that there are two ways for this answer.
One is combined purpose of the life of all living things together. And another is individual purposes of each living thing.
Now let’s try to fetch the purpose of life from both ways one after another. Because we don’t know whether the creator had created us for fulfilling a combined purpose or individual purposes. Why not just analyze both rather than just assuming it to be one of them blindly.
To find the purpose of life combined, we need to have to know what is the common goal every one of us trying to achieve. Once we know the common goal, it is not much difficult to find a combined purpose of the life of every living thing.
Then what would be the combined or common goal of everyone? Is it living happily? Helping others? Being positive? Exploring life? Making Love? If not, then what could be the purpose of life?
If living happily is the combined goal of everyone? Are we actually happy? At least are we trying to be happy? Yes, but not everyone. Each and every one of us has a different way of living so there is no possibility of living happily is a combined purpose of life.
Not only living happy but the remaining like exploring life, being positive and making Love can’t be a combined purpose of life. Since the way every one of us works on the earth is different in at least countable ways.
Is combined purpose of Life is associated with nature?
Nature is structured and organized very intelligently. So, only basic needs like food, shelter, and clothes are essential to most living things and remaining needs are just optional to have.
If you want to read more about basic living, make sure you read my article on Basic Theory For A Better Living.
As the time passing by, the basic needs of human beings have been changing for many years. To remind ourselves, mobile phones became essential basic things in life today.
So there is no single purpose of life in general to every living thing on earth. If we should have one single purpose of life combined, then that must be related to nature, because nature is the only thing that has been there throughout our existence and it will be there even in the future.
The effect on nature will have an effect on every living organisms on earth. Nature won’t discriminate living creatures. Humans and animals are equal in the eyes of nature. Catastrophic events will have an equal effect on every tiny and large living creatures on earth. If at all if we want to have a single purpose of life to everyone then that purpose should relate to nature.
But, how is the purpose of life associated with nature? Is protecting nature is the purpose of life? Or feeling the nature? Or enjoying the nature? What is kind action to nature is the purpose of the life of every living thing on earth combined?
In today’s world, we are complaining of ourselves about destroying nature and worrying about global warming. If every aspect of nature like trees, mountains, animals, water, and the air is polluted and destroyed by humans and made earth as a red planet like mars in the coming 1000 to 2000 years. Then who is going to care?
The answer is no one. No one is going to care if we protect or destroy the nature. It is just a process of living.
The point we need to understand is that there is no single purpose of life for everyone combined.
Some people may argue saying we are alive today for making sure next generation has a good life. This kind of statements shows the concern for next generation. But those statements cannot become a purpose of life.
We are generous enough to love and show our concern for every other human being. But logically, those are less likely become the purposes of life.
Before we move to discussing the individual purposes of life, let me confirm you saying that there is no single purpose of life for every living thing on earth.
Let’s talk about the individual purposes of life of every living thing. From here onwards, whenever I say the purpose of life, it means the purpose of the life of a living thing. And I am not talking about the purpose of the life of everybody combined.
To prove the existence of concept like the purpose of life particularly for a living creature is kind hard than proving combined. Because the way each creature live is different from other creatures.
The human way of living is far different from animals. Animals mostly follow Basic Living. I wrote an article on Difference between Simple Living, Minimalism, and Basic Living. Please check it if you find Basic Living is new to you.
Rather than just talking about every living thing in general and their purposes of life, let’s take our most seen insects and animals into consideration and dig deep into their life organization to find their purpose of life if exists one. And we also talk about humans in the end.
In the case of insects, let’s take Butterfly. Those are simply beautiful creatures on earth having large scaly wings. Sadly, these have lifespans of less than a month in average. If we try to discuss the purpose of the life of a butterfly in such a small period time of lesser than a month, it definitely sounds odd.
What can a butterfly do in such a small period of time? Can it create a change in the world? can it be responsible for something to happen? Let me ask a simple question, Who is going to care if the butterfly has the ability to change something or do something? At the end of the day, there has to be something for all the butterfly efforts, right? what is the end result? the result is Nothing.
People always argue saying for every little change there can be a major difference in the later stage. It became famous as the Butterfly effect. Butterfly effect does not relate to Butterfly at all. It only explains how a tiny change of action that could cause the bigger impact in the future. But, my question is butterfly effect is for what sake? Just think about it.
If there is no combined purpose of life for all the living creatures, then what is the use of the butterfly little efforts in a period of less than a month? Is it for nothing?
Let’s take a Dog in the case of animals, Why they are loyal to us ? Is it their purpose of life? Why dog is not loyal to cats and rats? Is it also their purpose of life? We see very dangerous dogs, loyal dogs, and serving dogs and many. But let me ask a simple question for what sake? Dogs doing all these for what and why? Is there anything that dogs get just before dying? The answer is nothing.
Let’s talk about most advanced animal on the planet i.e Humans. Human evolution is very interesting and it has been happening for many years. If we start talking about ourselves and what we are doing in this vast universe is unimaginable.
Some people help others, some people steal, some people teach, some people lead, some people kill, some people are under poverty line. Lot of faces for humans. Those can’t be put in single article and can never be written in forever time.
We are doing what we like to do, we are living in a place where we like to live. Let’s remind some basic questions we asked earlier, is helping others is the purpose of life? is making love is the purpose of life? is living happy is the purpose of life? if anyone of this is the purpose of life, then why can’t everyone is able to achieve them? You might say, it is up to their willingness to achieve them or their interest to pursue them, it is in their hands. If that is the case, if whatever we need to do is in our hands then, why the question of purpose of life?
Some people say the purpose of life is to just feel the life. Interestingly, some born with dumb, deaf and blind. And some can’t feel the touch. What is their purpose in life? The answer is there is no purpose in life.
I say there is no real purpose to life. No combined one purpose of life for all living things together and no purposes to life of each and every living thing.
