/lit/ - Literature

Not at all. We aren't here for comfort and enjoyment.

>>6042601

What are we here for?

>>6042605
Searching for that answer is in itself half of what we're here for.

>>6042621

So you believe the purpose of life is finding a purpose?

>>6042601
This

but not this >>6042621

>>6042605
Fucking and punching.

>>6042600
The meaning of purpose: the reason for doing something. The purpose of walking to the bathroom can be so you can empty your bladder. The purpose of walking to the fridge can be so you can get a glass of water.

In these cases, it's used for an action. Purpose can also be used for a general activity, i.e. what is the purpose of basketball. Many reasons can be given for this; for exercise, because it's fun, etc… However, it's merely a grammatical abbreviation. What it's really asking is what is the point of PLAYING basketball. What's the point of school: what is the point of GOING TO school. What is the point of work - what is the point of working.

As the original definition says, purpose is the reason for DOING something.

What is life? Life is a noun, meaning the state of being alive. Also used colloquially for the aggregate of actions performed and experiences experienced during this state.

One could pick up a rock and say, "What is the purpose of this rock?" Anyone could see that is a frivolous question, unless one subscribes to some mystical teleology where everything fits in a predetermined place. A rigid system like this might work for one who seriously wants to know, "What is the purpose of life?"

However, since this question actually means, or could be rephrased as, "Why do humans do anything that they do?", the best answer to that is, "Hey, I don't want to give an accounting of every action I've ever done in my life, and I haven't done them all for just one single reason either; who are you, God?"

>>6042633

What is it then?

>>6042637

Is that a "Californication" reference?

>>6042640

If you don't do everything for a reason, doesn't that mean that you have NO REASON to do anything?

>>6042625
In many ways, yes. To find something higher than ourselves to live for, some ideal beyond our own urges and ego.

>>6042637
Punching the other guys so I can fucking the bitches.

>>6042600

Does anyone else have a vague feeling that the purpose of our existence is to be a link in the chain from our species' genesis to a far flung destiny as Gods of Life and Death? I mean, why not? We've come a long way since we climbed down from the trees.

There is no purpose. We float through our days forgetting yesterdays until we eventually become nothing, again, like we should be, like we were before.

>>6042663
I used to think that when I was a teenager, but I grew passed it once I discarded my arrogance and learned humility.

>>6042666
satan is a nihilist

>>6042640
You're looking at everything like our actions are entirely self serving, existing only to satisfy our urges and desires. You aren't looking deep enough into yourself.

>>6042666
dark trips

>>6042666

That's an extremely nihilistic view on existencialism.


>>6042663

Please explain better.

>>6042666

>>6042600
>being an Englishman

>>6042677

Our technology will advance to a point where we are effectively immortal, with full control over the laws of nature.

>>6042682
this

>>6042666
these are the thoughts of the enemy

get behind me, satan!

>>6042677
Nihilism is valid. You're just instinctually conditioned to give a fuck about your life, but we both know you don't mean shit. None of this does.

>>6042683

Did you hear that on a youtube video, or the yahoo homepage?

>>6042682
>>6042687

I didn't get it.

>>6042690
Nihilism says more about how the individual views themselves than about the world.

Yes, but happiness is not joy. Happiness, true happiness, comes from complete compassion towards others, and acting right so that you and all others can get to the same bliss.

>>6042698

That's altruism.

>>6042695
Just as any form of ideology. Your point being?

>>6042698
This has to be one of the most retarded posts I read on 4chan in the last few years.

>>6042712
lurk more

>>6042695
>>6042711

He's right.

>>6042651
Exactly. Voila, you've been Max Stirner'd.

>>6042671
I looked deep into myself and then I think I got schizophrenic as a result. I don't actually believe anything I wrote in that post, I believe in the exact opposite. I believe in a mystical teleology where even the lowest rock has an unfathomably beautiful meaning and place in the universe.

I've considered the idea of whether humans can be truly altruistic and selfless or whether they're all selfish to the verge of suicide. Then I pseudo-realized that I wasn't really suicidal for the reasons I thought I was, i.e. for purely philosophical reasons, but for neurochemical and psychological reasons as well e.g. shitty childhood and shitty environment. I realized, in short, that my very philosophical worldview could have been based on material circumstances, and that if I was completely different, I could be completely different in this way and so forth. Essentially it was like a hardcore realization of determinism. Of course, I say it was a pseudo-realization because it called into question my very mind itself. The more I got into learning about psychology, the more I pseudo-realized I was basically an archetype, a type of character that had already been set out long before, with a host of different psychological ailments and ways of thinking resulting from certain events just as people who were writing long before I was born predicted. Then I realized that I might in fact have been merely verifying what applied to me, in the much the same way people think horoscopes are very realistic. But then I actually had a life-changing dream, quite coincidentally, one night, that almost completely shattered my entire psyche and worldview and quite accurately predicted not only what happened to me the day after the dream but what happened in the long-term after that over a few months; well, as I was saying, another day after that, I randomly looked at a horoscope in a newspaper for the day that the dream occurred, and it actually pretty cheesily said that people with my astrological sign would have an incredibly important dream that night that they would probably do good to write down and remember (which I did, immediately upon waking up from the dream). That just about blew my damn mind.

What was I saying? I don't actually write this autistically. I'm a bit like Proteus. Everyone is nowadays. Last night I tried to write a short story but ended up writing an insane half-coherent rant about how everyone is trying to castrate me and I signed it with these names in a list

>Gregor Samsa
>Darl Bundren
>Quentin Compson
>Leopold Bloom
>Stephen Dedalus
>Chief Broom Bromden & McMurphy Co.
>Josef K.
and more

I used to cry a lot for no reason but now I laugh a lot for no reason. I feel really happy but I'm beginning to creep other people out. Usually a rant like this should be ended with please help? but I don't need your help.

>>6042683

I do believe technology is a huge factor when we start analyzing our purpose here.

>>6042711
that's not true. there's plenty of self-serving ideologies and philosophies

>>6042737

Give me an examplem please.

>>6042729
The answer you're looking for has been right in front of you your entire life, you're just too afraid to reach out and humble yourself before it.

>>6042729
>>6042729


>yfw god exists

>>6042747
Hope you're not talking about any God that a Church follows. All corrupt in my experience. Although a host of psychic phenomena and synchronicities has led me to believe there are both benevolent and malevolent supernatural forces behind the universe, and probably some Absolute. Again, am I insane … ? I could be Christ's little brother if I only stopped jacking off. heh.

>>6042671
It's exactly the opposite; a stance implying that humans are deep and have profound motives, other than their affects, just like humans only seems deep because you never get to reach the bottom of it: it is in fact, --- not even superficial.

The moral or religious feeling, or the feeling that an act has profound causes, is caused by a 'profound' emotion; this emotion is the result of many different thoughts commonly going with it, who are perceived as a whole, and not as a plurality of profound thoughts, which are nevertheless, in themselves, self-serving: thus an act is done, and one gets this particular feeling, and mistakes a plurality for a unity, thus believing his feeling about his deed is the result of something deep, of something profound, where once again it is, --- not even superficial.

Abstracting this 'profound' feeling enough will result, at first, with a theory of morals as something deep, and irrational; as something fundamental in humans, and then, the second result of the abstraction of such feelings perceived as deep, will be to look for a cause to them, --- the logical answer will often be divinity. The final result of the abstraction of a confusion between plurality and unity, is kantian ethics.

>>6042765
I'm not talking about the God of any church anon. Spirituality and religion are two separate things. You have to reach out to God yourself, not through some other person.

>>6042777
Good! And holy trips too. Someone else exists besides me. No more solipsism. Thank you. I've already suspected this. But what's the point? Everything's pretty funny. I'll see you eventually. Ow

>>6042666
>>6042777

GOD AND SATAN IN THE SAME THREAD
FIGHT FIGHT FIGHT

>>6042772
It's our relationship to divinity that defines our existence in this place anon. You just haven't taken that leap, to let yourself be beholden to something higher than yourself.

>>6042777
>not through some other person.

there is a lot in the bible that encourages the meeting of believers

btw the 'other person' should be christ, who is manifested corporately in the church (by church i mean believers, the body of christ, not a physical building)

>>6042800

>It's our relationship to x that defines our existence in this place anon. You just haven't taken that leap, to let yourself be beholden to something higher than yourself.

>>6042731

I just think that we're alive for too short a time to effectively grasp our purpose. We still have one, but it's such a macroscopic purpose that it renders our actions meaningless at this point. We're each little iron atoms in a structure we're too tiny to see. In this light, I'd recommend adopting a hedonistic attitude towards your life.

>>6042666
>>6042777

Oh shit

>>6042806
It's important to reach out to others, but it begins by looking within.

>>6042800
You reply with empty sentences, emptier than your new-age I-don't-have-to-worship God. Even if your God existed, he would not be the justification you seek to explain the miserable existence you lead, and why you can't put up with the Great Expectations that you once had; --- your God is an abstraction, and nothing but one more word to justify existences, like people justify it with ideologies, or humor, but they fucking shake inside, especially when they're about to die, and saints realized at this point that they fucked up when heathens dismembered them, that they shouldn't have listened to all that shit, and shit's absurd yeah, but why would you even care? it's all words, it's not like meaning or divinity or whatever actually matters; you lead your life and spend, what, very few moments thinking about it, and it doesn't matter, you would live the sameway maugre your empty concepts, and why would you even care if it weren't the case?

You sound empty... if you've got but an hour upon the stage, don't strut and fret the shit out of it.

The purpose of life, is the most meaningful tautology there is, that is, living.

>>6042833

Sed quid igitur sum? Res cogitans. Quid est hoc? Nempe dubitans, intelligens, affirmans, negans, volens, nolens, imaginans quoque, et sentiens.

ET SENTIENS MUTHAFUKA

>>6042832
I grew passed Gnosticism a long time ago. The God I'm talking about here isn't some vague abstraction. I had to humble myself before I could experience something beyond that. But this isn't something we can really discuss in an argument like this. It's not meant for this.

>>6042637
At the same time

>>6042653
Has anybody figured it out yet?

OR is it naive to even question this?

>>6042600
Not happy, but to find contentment and balance.

>>6042653

> spook

Life is what you make it

almost certainly not

>>6043300
There.
Still love that song.

>>6043302
Yet, you're wrong. It most certainly can and *should* be. At least in part.

lmao, all these pseudo intellectuals

The purpose of life is however you define it.

The purpose of life is whatever the fuck I want it to be.

>>6044403

>Excuses others of being pseudo-intellectuals (never been on /lit/ before?)
>Uses a cliche to answer to question

>>6042600
No. The point is virtue.

>>6044412
>>Excuses
>Calls me a newfag lol
>Cliche

lol, nice argument there friendo, now disprove it.

>>6044408
But as the philosopher Jagger once said, "You can't always get what you want".

>>6044475
Whose virtue?

>>6042600
if you think so

>>6044412
it being a cliché doesn't make it any less right

This is a good thread. The Stirner guy, Tallis, the godfag are all actually bringing up decent points if contradicting, but the great part of 4chan is they don't have to jerk each other off and be respectful.
Good job guys.

>>6042600
The purpose of life Is to be happy. Searching for "Deeper meaning" or "serving a higher power" are just roundabout ways of achieving that goal.

Some people find happiness through sex and drugs, others find it through good works. If they are both equally happy, then both paths are equally valid. Remember however, what makes one person happy might not necessarily make somebody else happy.

>>6046021
i think that's too simplistic. you have to distinguish between what makes people happy, and then what only makes them happy in the short but not in the long term, and, what people say makes them happy but really doesn't.

anything doesn't go.

>>6046021
You're confusing what happiness is. There's a difference between being content and fulfillment in life and ecstasy.

>>6044968
These are the rare threads that this place was made for.

>>6042600
>Tell me /lit/, is the purpose of life being happy?

There is no purpose to life. But that doesn't mean life can't be meaningful.

>>6046102
What meaning do you see in life anon?

>>6046216
That you asked that means you're a shitstained cunt

>>6046282
Why's that?

Is not the real question -- is it relevant? If there is a purpose, or even if there's not, does the identification and understanding of the purpose affect the outcome?

>>6042666
>>6042777

I am legitimately terrified that there is some divine reason for such strangely opposing odds to be presented on an imageboard in opposing dubs

"Tiger got to hunt, bird got to fly; Man got to sit and wonder, 'Why, why, why?' Tiger got to sleep, bird got to land; Man got to tell himself he understand."

>>6042600
The purpose of life is to suffer.We are what our life makes us.The endless situations we find ourselves in, the endless choices we have to make, we make them, but in the end our choices make us.There is not a single living thing that has not suffered in any way.Saying that sounds way to gloomy, but as time goes by we find that suffering more and more bearable.In the end something good comes out of it, something you wouldn't think you deserved.At the end, when all we have left is memories of that suffering we so fondly remember, death is the only release.

>>6042600
there is no purpose to life, purpose is just some word we made up. trying to think up a meaning is like trying to assign colours to numbers

>>6046734

How do you argue that suffering is the purpose? It is obviously an inevitability, but not the purpose.

>>6043262
Absurd.

>>6042640
Fine, Mr. Semantics. What is the purpose for our existence?

If you are still stuck up on the idea of the necessity of an action, which is clever, but not entirely true, then I can rephrase still:

What was purpose of our creation?

Of course asking that question makes you think I am implying a creator, but I am not, the fact that we exist points to the fact that we were created.

Personally, right now I am of the opinion that there was no creator and there is no purpose, but I am liable to change.

>>6042666
>>6042666
>>6042675
>>6042677
>>6042680
>>6042689
>>6042789
>>6042824
>>6046378

ITT: People who haven't read the bible and think the number of the beast is 666, instead of the actual 616.

>>6044403
So there is no objective purpose?

So your cliche uplifting comment is only a disguised advocation for existential nihilism?

>>6047066
How were we created if there was no creator? Why would we have the capacity to have these thoughts if there was no purpose?

You know just as well as I do that it is an absurd notion to think that there is just no reason to anything and that we just spontaneously came into existence from nothing for no purpose

>>6047066
>What was purpose of our creation?
>right now I am of the opinion that there was no creator and there is no purpose

It's not that there is or isn't meaning or purpose, it's that's both meaning and purpose exist in the semantic web we use to describe things, and not in the things we describe. There is a fine but crucial difference between saying that X has no purpose, and that we have created the concept of purpose, superimposed it onto X, then act as if there should be a purpose-ness form or essence within X to examine.

the purpose of life

Well, there's no purpose to life in that sense.
the purpose you can apply to your life is to escape suffering in the eternal round of rebirths by attempting to achieve nirvana

There is no other purpose, you might as well be a fool on the side of a path eating fruits from a tree saying "Don't know!" until you die

>>6042605

Primaly breeding. Secondary who knows. Asking questions like that maybe.

>>6047099
How did the creator come into being? Surely there must be a creator before him then.

>>6047320
That depends on if you believe the inherent state of reality is non existence rather than existence

The OP's question is the best proof and demonstration of the mental illness of the west - identified by Heinrich Himmler as 'The Poison From Sinai.'

But the Nazi - not Neo-Nazi - identification of the Semitic with all things evil is a skin deep diagnosis. And any attempt to cure the disease by removing the Jewish tumor will leave some number of cancerous cells, which will once again divide and continue to rot humanity's once fair and beautiful face.

It goes further back than that. Ironically, to the Aryans the Nazis idealized. A great mistake was made by the Aryans, which was to adopt a monotheistic worldview.

Monotheism is defined, not simply by a single god, but by the limitation to a single identity and ego. Muslim men - and let's not suggest that Islam is any different in the regard I discuss than Christianity and Judaism - are admonished to emulate Muhammad. And Muhammad lived one way. While it would be ridiculous to suggest that all Muslim men act the same, it's a fact that a uniformity of virtue exists within Islam. You won't be considered a great man within Islam unless you exemplify Muhammad.

This mono-polar compass of virtue is the definition of Aryan culture, and all descendent cultures. It causes a person to identify with one set of characteristics, and reject all other characteristics as vehement to one's self image. The sensation experienced when other characteristics are considered is pain. That which is not like you is hated, because to see it is pain.

If you think of racism, you're missing it. It's men hating women, and women hating men. The rejection of facets of your own body, family, society, biosphere, planet, universe. And it's the insistence that everything reflect you. Literally, to carve your presidents, Pharaohs and Buddhas into the face of the rock. It's the Dukka that Buddha was trying to escape.

Identify with everything. When you focus on the space contained within the head of a man, his closed eyes leave you in pitch blackness. When you focus on the space contained within the Void - which is the entire universe - what eyes are there that can be closed to darken you?

>>6047339
Why is the ubermensch always associated with superman? Is there a single similarity between the two?

>>6047339

The Aryan worldview is defined also by the belief that it's virtues are Something which came from Nothing. A finite whiteness within an infinite blackness. When this worldview is deprived of the religious notion of eternal life, the depressed life of the theist is replaced with the suicidal life of the atheist. The theist tells himself that one day, he'll unite with his virtues. The atheist tells himself that even if he obtains his virtues, all that's good - the whiteness - is destined to be eroded into blackness.

Let me propose a new worldview; that we exist within a finite Void, surrounded by an infinite non-Void. That surrounding Nothing, is a Something which is Everything at once. All things.

Within this worldview, one's virtues become polymorphous. One can be anything in the universe. You can place yourself within the head of a man, attempt to accomplish your goals, and if you fail, exit his head and enter the head of another man. When your enemies bash your suit to pieces, metaphorically you can slink away and crawl into the head of another man and continue your campaign.

There is only one mind, and one body. You experience it as your will, but this is due to the delusion of the body you focus on. Outside of 'your' body, the same will is experienced by 'others' as their will.

'Life' is a word, and so is 'purpose,' and 'happiness.' As long as you limit yourself to identifying with these words, you'll have none of the three. Not only that, but your enemies will be able to make the final judgement pertaining to your fate. Jehovah can condemn you to hell, and the state can execute you and doom you to eternal nothingness. If your mind can float from any point to any other, you have no ends or limits. Your perception becomes an endless moment, without beginning or end.

>>6047348

Because once you've overcome yourself, you lack all identity or context. At that point, you might as well create a new identity, and imagine it within context where it has ultimate power.

But such an identity has nothing to do - it can do anything. Thus, there's no purpose for such an identity to do anything at all. Or rather, put another way, if you can surmount all obstacles, you do so and find yourself at the end.

And so you slow yourself. You give up your ability to accomplish any goal in no time. You savor the journey, rather than the destination - the end. And as you repeat your script, you slow it more and more each time. So that eventually, the script takes so long that you lose yourself in each step of it.

Since you can place your perception anywhere, you take your time. You step slowly from one place to the next, and forget where you're going as you make a giant circuit that includes all points.

This is the purpose of infinite return. This is why you have to stop letting your identity and context chain your will, and allow your will to determine your identity and context.

The Overman isn't a lord of other men. He's a spider, weaving them, and pulling their strings like puppets. They do his bidding because they are him. And his bidding is to have something to struggle against - to overcome. He never lacks peaks to ascend, because as he reaches one peak, he re-imagines himself at the foot of another.

Nihilism is to give up in the face of this. To decide that without a static, universal identity and context, life is meaningless. The Christian who fears death is not a true Christian, and he fears death because his Aryan Nihilism is more fundamental to him than his eternal Christian heaven.

>>6047339
>>6047349
>>6047430
Do I have to read to understand what you just said? Nietzsche?

>>6047928

Zhuangzi.

It is impossible to be happy all the time.

Seeking only gratification in this life strengthens the fetters of attachment, aversion, and delusion, and will lead to a poorer rebirth. Seek utter disenchantment, dispassion, cessation, calm, direct knowledge, self-awakening, and Unbinding.

>>6048254
Sounds boring

>>6042729
Me in 2 years

>>6042600
Happiness is a social construct

>>6048254
This is the true nihilism right here.

>>6044547
Personal virtue.

>>6042600
it is hedonism. Nobody has single counter-argument against hedonism.

>>6047348
>>Why is the ubermensch always associated with superman?
superman lies in the opposite of the ubermensch indeed.

>>6042600
No, the purpose of life is revelling in your and others misery

>>6048497
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
This, so much this.

>>6047099
>You know just as well as I do that it is an absurd notion to think that there is just no reason to anything and that we just spontaneously came into existence from nothing for no purpose

>As far as we know that is the case
>but that's absurd!

>>6048452
>Buddhism is nihilism
Read a book.

>>6048719
Buddhism is a nihilistic philosophy, it's about the extinction of the "flame" that is the self.

>>6048721
No, it is about finding inner peace. Jedi style.

>>6048725
Buddhism is an essentially nihilistic philosophy in which the evolution of self culminates in self-annihilation. This implies that the self is a manifestation of pure nothingness which deludes itself regarding its own existence.

>>6048721
Countless Buddhist scholars have explained at length why it is NOT nihilistic. Even Alan Watts does in The Way of Zen. I suppose one might think it is if they've only read the wiki article on Buddhism, and don't really understand it.

>>6048721
No, the Buddha is clear that believing both that there is a self and that there is not a self are wrong view.

>>6048731
>This implies that the self is a manifestation of pure nothingness which deludes itself regarding its own existence
Be honest, have you ever read a single sutta in your life?

>>6048739
Do I have to have?

>>6048741
If you think that Shakyamuni taught that "the self is a manifestation of pure nothingness", yes, you probably should, because you don't know what you're talking about. For starters, he taught that what we regard as the self can be broken down into its aggregates. Believing there is no mind is an undetermined question and also a wrong view. Believing there is nothing is another wrong view. I'm not giving you textual citations, this is first week of Introduction to Buddhism level shit.

>>6048748
You sound like a weekend buddhist

>>6048753
I don't know what that means, but I'm not a Buddhist, so sure.

>>6042600
That wouldn't be a purpose, that would be a wish.
You don't look for happiness. Happiness is something that you think at one given moment. It would be too fucking easy to think happiness is brought by having a wife/husband, kids, jobs and all that.

Have you asked someone you know if they have a purpose? They'll confuse it with goals.
"My goal is that i want to live off my Art." Ok but that's not a purpose.
I think purpose is a rather religious term, like you've been assigned a task by a higher power or something.

>>6042600
mine is. you can pick your own though :3

>>6042833
> Life
> Is
> A
> Gift

*symbolic high five if this thought makes you happy for a moment*