A tough question to have to face up to. Doesn't it all depend where you are in life's cycle? "Get into a good university." "Get a good job." "Get married and buy a home." "Pay off the mortgage, get the children off to university." "Inherit the family fortune." And then we'll see. Usually this means buying something you've always wanted, ticking off bucket-list destinations, boosting one's position in the status hierarchy, chasing honours and fame.
What do you want from life? Something material? Or something intangible? Is there an ulterior purpose?
It is useful to consider the Aristotelian notion of teleology (from the Greek telos, aim, purpose, end goal, design, final cause), the study of where we're heading to and why. This is about the fulfilment of your human potential. Making the most of your talents, temporal and spiritual. But reductionist materialists would argue that we are nothing more than stochastic products of emergence (evolution) existing in an indifferent and meaningless universe, and our only purpose is survival and reproduction, and there's nothing more. The race to own more stuff and to show off achievements is a vestigial remnant of sex drive; peacock feathers.
Personally, my own quest is for a higher level of consciousness; for greater understanding; transcendence; participating in something more than the ego; coherence. I am aware that I am destined never to get anywhere near grasping intuitively the wholeness of Cosmos, of which we are such a tiny part; nevertheless, each insight, each step nearer, is significant. Hence – one lifetime at a time.
Joy I seek, rather than pleasure. Comfort; not reaching out for luxury. Conscious experiences, rather than ego trips. So, I am (eventually, over time) to observe the Universe unfolding, as it experiences itself (Big 'C' Consciousness). And integrate my own small 'c' conscious experiences, my qualia, with those of the Universe. Over time. This is not (and this notion is central to my beliefs) something that can be achieved in a single lifetime! In feeling the sun and wind on my face on a sunny day, in reflecting upon triggered or unbidden memories, in experiencing simple joys, I am doing this. Physical reality is but a substrate for conscious experience; the biological layer (consciousness requires a container, a platform, from which to observe the unfolding Universe).
I asked Google Gemini for its distillation of the purpose of life, and the answer astounded me: "Be at the interface where chaos becomes meaning". Wow! Very good. And ChatGPT? Slightly more prosaic, but instantly relatable. "To become more conscious, and to use that consciousness well." Yes, I'd agree with that too. It's a search, a journey – in the form of daily rural walks, a starry night, the changing seasons, cats, good food, good music, interesting conversations that share new ideas and refine old ones. The framework is complete.
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