The Purpose Of Life? Ans: Pleasure!
Every single one of us has pondered over questions like, 'What is the purpose of life?', 'What is the meaning of life?' or 'What are we doing here on Earth?', at some point of time in our lives and we have reverted to searching the answers to the purpose of life through heaps of theories and opinions offered by various philosophers, poets, spiritualists, self-help preachers and the likes. I tried doing the same too but I was not satisfied with their answers and opinions. So although it took me a while to find an definite answer to the age old million dollar question, I guess I have it figured out at least for now.
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| What is the meaning and the purpose of life, according to you? |
What Is Pleasure?
Pleasure is the unexplainable feeling of a good high accompanied by a feeling of happiness. I get pleasure from playing music, listening music, being out in nature or experiencing new things and perspectives in life. Others may get pleasure by reading books, doing charity, collecting coins, cooking or absolutely anything else in the world. So again, a copy-paste of what I said two sentences ago, pleasure is the unexplainable feeling of a good high accompanied by a feeling of happiness.The Purpose Of Life
I feel the purpose of life as well the underlying reason for most of our actions is: Pleasure. The purpose of life is the pursuit and enjoying of pleasure. If you were expecting something more complex or grand than that, then I am sorry to disappoint your expectations because that is the purpose of life for me. I did not grow up with this 'Pleasure' theory as a part of me, nor did the society tell me that the purpose of life is to seek pleasure. This is something that hit me as an insight recently after I started paying close attention to my personal behaviour patterns and started inspecting them. The purpose of life can be divided into smaller ambitions like making money, excelling in sports, love, relationships, art, music, friendships, travelling, as well as acts on the negative side of the line like murders, suicide, bombing fellow nations can be traced back and proved that its roots lie in the very concept of acquiring pleasure that I just explained. For example.
Studying➥ Helps you get a good job➥ Which in turn lets you earn money➥ So that, you can purchase stuff that fulfil desires and an access to better lifestyle➥ Which Acquires you pleasure
Many of you who are familiar with the concept of Hedonism [An argument that pleasure is the only intrinsic good. In simple terms, a hedonist strives to maximise net pleasure (pleasure minus pain), in short pleasure in the purpose of life ] would ask how my view is different from the traditional concept of hedonism. And I say its not! It is exactly what hedonism is. But generally people picture hedonism as a life overdosed with drugs, money, women and vices. A life which is overdosed to the extent that it results in self-destruction. But this is not true and this is not what hedonism or enjoying pleasures should be viewed as.
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If you do not agree that the purpose of life is to seek and enjoy pleasure, then leave a comment stating your argument against it and a reason to support it. Also state what the purpose of life is or should be according to you.