You can still pass on your memes!

If society is an organism, you’re a somatic cell rather than a germ cell. You’re an important part of multicellular life!

It’s fun! And it pays well. Get your engineering or comp sci degree and give me a call.

That’s a valid way of looking at it, too.

Realistically, the concept of “purpose” doesn’t exist in the universe outside of our imagination any more than justice, beauty, or morality. Things just are what they are and follow the laws of physics.

If we’re making it all up as we go along, there aren’t any wrong answers. I claim the purpose of living things is to reproduce, but it’s true that living things reproduce because that’s what living things do (otherwise we’d have run out of them by now). Kind of a chicken/egg thing there.

I’d everyone else died of old age and you are the last, would you still want to leave the earth better than you found it?

Yes. Humans are not the only thing existing on this planet, and I find it rather arrogant to treat it this way. If I’m alone staring down the heat death of our universe? Well it doesn’t quite matter anymore.

Would you take comfort in or be indifferent to the happiness you brought

Absolutely. This is probably more nurture vs nature though. I’m very much an atheist but was raised in a strong Christian household. I’ve shunned the religious aspect, but “Love your neighbor as yourself” is pretty much ingrained in my DNA at this point. I find happiness in bringing it to others.

As for ideas of good and better, of course they are my own opinions and based on experiences of others. There is no objective “good” and “better”, because there is no objectively true meaning to life. For me personally, doing what makes me happy would include eating good food, drinking good whiskey and listening to punk rock. Those are not objectively good, but they are good to me. I will share them with likeminded people, and I will find other ways to better my neighbors’ lives.

Determine is an ambiguous word, here, so I’m going to break it into two parts:

• You might discover that your actions are meaningful to others. Hedonic pleasure probably won’t be, but everyone is into something.

• You decide if something is meaningful to yourself.

Something doesn’t have to have a purpose to b meaningful; and something doesn’t have to be meaningful to have a purpose, or at least, not meaningful outside of that purpose. I can appreciate the buffing leaves on a tree in spring without needing those specific leaves o that tree for anything. I have several wooden spoons that serve me well in the kitchen but if they disappeared tomorrow I wouldn’t notice or care.

To be clear: Meaning is internal, but purpose is some sort of external function, utility, or goal.

Is knowledge better if it serves a purpose, like improving your art?

In my opinion knowledge that serves a purpose (improved art, medical science, applied engineering, take your pick) is better than “trivial” knowledge, but even trivia has purpose (it can entertain and inspire) and sometimes converts from trivia to “useful” knowledge when combined with new science and tech. A good example is pure math, here’s a stackechange thread about mathematics areas that were found to have applications well after their discovery, by mostly mathematicians doing math for the sake of math.

Should art serve a purpose? Is beautiful enough, or should it be useful?

If you mean its physical form has a function other than to be perceived by humans for entertainment and inspiration, then sure, why not? But maybe not always. :) Also of note, not all art is necessarily beautiful. I would say a fair bit of “useful” or otherwise multipurpose art is quite ugly. Shock films, muckraking journalism, and hostile architecture come to mind as examples.

There’s one massive quality that makes positive Nihilism different from Absurdism. Absurdism states that trying to create meaning in a chaotic universe puts you at odds with it. Therefore, doing so creates unhappiness. Optimistic Nihilism, as the common thought I was trying to convey but incorrectly labelled is called, believes that without inherent meaning in our chaotic universe, we are free to create whatever meaning we desire.

Both believe the universe is inherently chaotic and meaingless. Only one believes that you can successfully create meaning.

I don’t think there’s a purpose, really; to put purpose or duty to a sense of joy is to try to quantify it, to package it - and since everyone is different, and perceives things differently, then that means joy takes just as many different forms and can’t be packaged so neatly.

I think life in every sense is more chaotic than that, and that randomization of cells or events or emotions can’t and shouldn’t be whittled down into some universal experience or explanation. Making something your “purpose” immediately brings with it a certain expectation - it almost makes it sound as if you’re trying to be happy out of duty, which seems…weird.

I don’t think you’re failing at life if you’re unhappy. Everyone has low or weak points, and that inevitably changes in some form of another. That’s one of the universals, a product of events and living situations and hormonal/genetic makeup. Sometimes people can have all their needs cater to and still your brain will fuck you over.

So I’d ask yourself why you’re looking for a purpose in the first place. It makes sense if there’s some goal you want to attain; and if that goal is happiness, it’d be best to think about some actions you could do to obtain it. If you’re not looking for that goal and just asking why people seem to pursue happiness, then the best answer I can give you is: why not? Suffering feels bad and I don’t wanna feel bad.

I don’t expect others to feel the same. I have chosen to give value to one over the other simply because I would prefer a world where we collaborate towards collective happiness, joy, and pleasure. I suspect many others believe that working towards the prosperity of the collective will hamper their ability to find personal prosperity, and I simply think they are wrong. I think such a case boils down to chasing momentary pleasure over long-lasting pleasure, because that is my experience with such people.

In a way I believe in tangible karma; those who work to bring pleasure to those around them are occasionally taken advantage of, but more often are given pleasure in turn. Likewise, I’ve never met a self-centered asshole who isn’t consistantly overcome with unhappiness, while almost universally blaming that unhappiness on external factors.

I plant trees I will never get to sit under because I appreciate those before me who did the same. Again, that is no more than what I have chosen to give value to.

But this is a bit of a digression. The reality is these are the wisdoms of my experiences, and I wager there’s no universal truths in them. Nothing matters, so I look to these experiences and see that a co-operative, collaborative life looks more pleasurable. So I strive towards one, encourage others to do the same, and refuse to tolerate those that would actively work to steal happiness from others. Yes, I am aware that the inverse is equally true - why is it wrong to steal happiness from others if nothing matters - but this perspective is simply not the one I have chosen to place value on. Arbitrary? Sure. It still represents the best way I’ve found to enjoy life.

Yeah but just like lives, not all stories are good. When you can’t change fundamental building blocks of your own story to create a pleasing narrative for yourself, all you can really do is exist in what there is. Most people exist like this.

Fighting your objective reality for an unobtainable greater meaning, will cause mental illness if you keep doing it. Come to terms with the real you as opposed to the ideal you, and make what you have for your life as nice for yourself as you can, while you can.

Save your desires for manifest destiny for your OC’s and write some stories about them or illustrate them or something.

If you’re not already, go do something fun!