What is the purpose of life if there is no inherent meaning?

[Raizy]

What is my(our) purpose?

It's to survive this POS world and die painlessly (natural death). And this means:

- Academic Success to open up the availability of secure jobs/careers. Satisfy the need for food and shelter.
- All else is less; as you can pay for hookers... nah just kidding. Satisfy the biological needs.
- At worst case scenario, put a bullet in your head to skip the 60 year "grind".
- The rest requires 4000 years of human evolution in the consciousness.

Einstein still has it right... "ignorance is bliss" Be ignorant of your miserable existence, and play Dungeons and Dragons all day, or shoot cocaine.

 

[SticksandStones]

The purpose of life is to find a way to be slightly less miserable than you were before. Eventually you give up and die. The end.

 

[Andre]

There is always this conversation that I'll cherish forever.

Lucy van Pelt: "Why are we on Earth?"

Charley Brown: "Geeh, dunno...perhaps to make somebody else happy"

Lucy van Pelt: "happy? Happy? I'm not happy" - crying- "Somebody is not doing his job".

 

[Greg Bernhardt]

I always liked Dennis Leary's view on happiness

Happiness comes in small doses folks. It's a cigarette, or a chocolate cookie, or a five second orgasm. That's it, ok! You cum, you eat the cookie, you smoke the butt, you go to sleep, you get up in the morning and go to ****ing work, ok!? That is it! End of ****ing list!

 

[turbo]

I always liked Dennis Leary's view on happiness

When I read the part of the quote about "small doses", I conflated Dennis with Timothy.

 

[tony134340]

It seems dissatisfaction is the precursor to curiosity. Do we ask ourselves when we're having a good time with our significant other, 'why am I doing this'? Likely not, though you've probably asked yourself at work the same question. It seems intelligence, an intellectual sensitivity, can go hand in hand with dissatisfaction. But it's not the only one; there's plenty of factors.

If just being satisfied is being successful, then maybe we should strive to be as animals. To be content just fulfilling our basic needs instead of our insatiable need for intellectual stimulation. So if you view the purpose as just to be content, then maybe we need to rethink that view because the other animals seem to do it just as well, maybe better. Maybe we're an accident, the thing that should not be. Who knows? You'd think I'd grow out of asking myself this but as I mentioned, I think dissatisfaction in life is making me question this so much.

 

[qspeechc]

I'm in the exact same position as the OP. There is no purpose to life. We are born- why? Why did we have to be this conscious being? There's no answer to that, no-one can answer that. What should we do here on earth? Well, the first thing to sort out is whether we should live or not (to be, or not to be etc.). Only then can we talk about purpose. I haven't figured out any of these things myself, but, since others are recommending books, I can recommend "The Myth of Sisyphus" by Albert Camus.