| 
Let me tell you a story:
A great wizard walks across a vast desert. He wears a long purple cloak and a high pointed hat. His white beard touches the ground. He carries a large bucket. He stops and scoops up a full bucket of dirt.
You are the dirt in this bucket. It contains most of your chemicals you will be made of when you are born.
The wizard says, "Congratulations!" "You are the lucky one to be chosen to become a human soon. Many other scoops of dirt have and will be selected to become various animals, plants, insects, bacteria and viruses. YOU, however, have been chosen to receive the GRAND prize."
"Soon you will be born as a human. Unlike the other creatures, you will have awareness, consciousness and will have great control over the course of your life."
"The rules of this life to come are as follows: If you live through all stages of your human life, you will become a young adult human, then a middle-aged human, then elderly. You will have pleasures and suffering and pain throughout the various stages of life. And you will eventually die. When you die, you return to the dirt that you are, forever."
"Would you rather remain now and forever as the dust that you are in this vast desert, or would you like to live one life as a human for a few years?"
"The important question is, how would you want to spend the few precious years of your life, before you return to dust?"
How do you want to spend your life that you have been given?
The question then arises, "what is the purpose of our lives?" The answer: no purpose.
We are just another life form, part of the natural progression of Evolution and created by normal events of nature. We are just fortunate to have evolved such advanced brains that we can ask abstract questions, take a circumspect view of reality and have self-awareness.
In the long run, it doesn't matter how we live our lives. Think about the people who lived 1000 years ago. What is their relevance now to anyone? What if you become the President? A billionaire? A criminal? A loser all your life? It doesn't matter in the long run.
Many people focus on achieving some type of immortality, such as becoming a powerful leader to be remembered in history. Or a famous writer whose books continue to be read hundreds of years later. Or to follow some religious teachings to have an afterlife or rebirth. Or to have people think well of you after your death and to remember you for a long time. Or to have many children who continue your genetic line into the future (although your unique genetic code disappears by one-half with each new generation).
But this is all false thinking. After hundreds of years, it won't matter.
What about working toward advancement and survival of the human race? Better yet, the protection and advancement of all forms of life on earth and preservation of Earth itself? A laudable intention supporting Mother Nature and the Grand random experiment of Evolution. But such efforts represent just another way to spend one's life.
How about striving for Happiness in each phase of your life? There may be nothing worse than to be miserable and unhappy most of your life.
Striving for Happiness and contentment seems to be a good direction in Life. Being happy should be a desired Baseline, regardless of whatever else you strive for.
|
I laugh.
