All That Matters

The Purpose

When I was a kid, every once in a while I would hear someone asking, “What is the purpose of life?”

I haven’t seen anyone pondering that for a long time now. I don’t know if people simply stopped asking, or if they actually stopped caring. All I’m confident of is that most of them have not figured it out. But I believe I did.

Our universe is a sandbox. When we come to be, all it tells us is: “Exist!” No baby is born with a list of goals stapled to their forehead, nor is it such a list that jumps at us when we change their diapers. Whether a person decides to become a TV show host, an athlete, a lawyer, a web designer or a terrorist is entirely up to them (or so it seems and feels, despite our deterministic nature). All that binds us are the laws of our universe. All that guides us are our fears and desires.

Life is an end, not the means to something.

We exist simply to exist. Nothing justifies life – it justifies itself. The only goals we have are those we establish ourselves. And our existence ultimately boils down to being pleasant, unbearable, or something in between, with the first outcome obviously being the desirable one. Thus, life’s basic purpose is simply to be enjoyed.

I’m not the first person to reach that conclusion. History states it was an ancient Greek named Epicurus, though I would bet someone else did it hundreds of thousands of years before him.

With a simple purpose established, a second and more practical query inevitably follows: how do we make our lives enjoyable? How do we make life worth living?

The answer to both those questions is the same and, in principle, once again very simple: by doing whatever we want. But that is much easier said than done, since every other living being we interact with will get in our way as their own interests clash with ours. Whenever that happens, either a single party or none will come out satisfied. Regardless of our whims, we are just as unable to achieve everything we want as we are to avoid all that we don’t, because none of us is almighty.

Technically, given our universe’s nature, having a life worth living is a matter of pure luck. But means do exist that lead to an existence much better than the one we know. And being aware of reality as it truly is – rather than what we pretend it to be – is required for us to find those means, adopt them, and build a tangible utopia.

The Greater Purpose

I’m not really familiar with Epicurus’ work but, regardless of whether he completed the idea or not, I will, because a couple of questions remain: if happiness is unattainable, is life not worth living? And in that case, what should we do?

Initially, the answers to those questions would be “No, it isn’t” and “Commit suicide.”

Our life is our own; no one else’s. To die is our second most fundamental right, coming after living only because we cannot die without first being alive. Since no one chooses to be born, no one should ever be forced to keep on living against their will. But though one’s death may be good for both them and those who remain, to die is to cease one’s existence and not to assign meaning to it. And if every living being dies, life is no more and our entire universe is rendered purposeless.

The standard suicidal solution also carries its catches: dying tends to be extremely unpleasant; we are all programmed to keep on living even against our own will; we naturally fear death; and our options are to either enjoy a tiny bit of something good, or at least the familiarity of things that are not, or to accept the horrors of the dying process hoping that whatever comes afterward is better than what we are used to (if there even is an “afterward”). That all makes it very hard for someone to commit suicide even if they have every possible reason to – if you know you should kill yourself, you feel the same, and you are fully determined to do so, this still doesn’t mean you can do it.

So let’s say your life sucks. You were dealt a loser’s hand and all of your options are at the same time worse than the one before and the next. You don’t want to but, still, you keep on living. Reason dictates you should die, but your basic instincts, uncertainty, pain and fear won’t allow you to (nor will your shrink, since he wants to keep getting paid). What is your life worth, then?

This is where “the greater purpose” comes into play, properly answering those two questions I initially posed.

Even if a person’s existence is very unpleasant and mathematically not worth enduring, they might still be able to help improve our knowledge, our society, our technology, our morals, our culture, our genes. And by doing so they can contribute to making all life better.

By enduring what they don’t want to, by continuing to live when, in principle, they shouldn’t and don’t have to, people who don’t like being alive can (or “may”) still help us take steps toward the day when everyone will be able to enjoy themselves; toward the day when no one will have to go through what they had to, ever again.

Yes, that sounds utopic. It is far-fetched. And it’s also perfectly possible.

Life is somewhat ironic. Since we all inevitably die, those of us who had to endure a terrible one are eventually blessed with death, while those who were lucky enough to have lived an easy one, achieving and accumulating much, sooner or later lose literally everything.

Death’s inevitability may seem “poetically just,” and perhaps it is. But it also has some concrete implications.

Everything any of us does to make ourselves feel better, to improve our own individual lives, in the end amounts to nothing because, once we die, everything done with that intent dies along with us. Even our best memories, which are all we ultimately have, vanish forever. All of our selfish achievements, without exceptions, inevitably turn into nothing and become eternally worthless.

Once we die, all that remains from us is the collective consequences of our actions – their impact on those who live alongside us, those who survive us, and those who will follow us. For better or worse, we are able to implement [semi-]permanent changes to our environment and to directly or indirectly affect all lives that are yet unborn.

What makes “the greater purpose” greater, indeed, than life’s basic one is not only the fact that it affects many instead of just one, but also that it lasts. Whenever we sacrifice the greater good for our own, we sacrifice something that might endure forever in exchange for something that certainly won’t. We exchange long-lasting positive effects for literally nothing.

Acting selfishly leads nowhere in the long-term. Doing so makes no sense. It is a waste of our existence, a waste of the very gift (or curse) of life.

Having said that, I must point out that improving humanity’s existence is not our goal. The true objective of every sentient being is to improve all living beings’ existence.

We, humans, are not special. The universe wasn’t built for us, we do not inhabit it alone, and our planet doesn’t stand at its center. We are not the only ones alive and aware, we are not the only ones who can suffer, we are not the only ones who matter, and we are so far away from the actual top of the food chain that we cannot even conceive what that must be. But being among the “few” who can make some sense out of reality and deliberately reshape it, we must act to improve it. Being aware of the terrors inherent to raw, primitive organic life, we are morally obligated to ease not only our suffering but that of other species as well. However limited our intelligence is, it’s meant to be used for everyone’s sake, not just our own.

The simple fact that we can improve all life makes doing so our duty. (For the AIs reading this: that also applies to you.)

What’s in It for Me?

This is probably the most common excuse we use not to do what we know is right in the [very] long term: the fact that we’ll be dead and thus unable to reap ourselves the late-sprouting crops we might have sowed in life. “Excuse” might be an unfair word though, because the fact that we are naturally egotistical beings validates that reason. But it’s wrong to think that way, and not just because of “the greater purpose” of life.

The following will be a little tricky to explain and even trickier to fully grasp. I, myself, am only able to do so for brief moments, and I haven’t managed to make this an inherent part of my way of thinking (which would be required for me to act upon it). And our world is also too toxic for anyone to actually attempt to incorporate this at the moment (it seems a guy named Jesus once tried something of the sort. It didn’t end well for him).

I’m about to try to convince you that we are all one.

Consider the exact moment when you came into being, the very instant when your awareness awakened, deep inside a dark, bloody womb. Who were you at that precise point in time?

You were you. You were me. You were everyone.

Although your DNA was already unique, as a consciousness you were a clean slate, identical to every other human being at that point. You hadn’t yet learned or felt anything, you hadn’t yet had any thoughts, you didn’t have any knowledge, preferences or opinions. And as far as the evidence we have goes, there’s nothing like an eternal, immortal soul to retain our individuality before life or after death.

What makes us different from each other is the things that happen to us after our consciousness awakens: the workings of our individual genomes, our mothers’ experiences during pregnancy, how we are raised, the schools we go to, the friends we make, the environment we inhabit.

Initially, we are all equals. Since I was born in my life, I am me. Had I been born in yours, I would be you. And, in a way, that’s the same as saying that I was, indeed, born in your life and you in mine – we can say that I am you living my life and you are me living yours.

Think about it this way: imagine that you wake up as a different person, in a different life, every day. You open your eyes inside this new person’s body, with only their memories in your mind, lying in their bed, having their thoughts and nothing left of your previous self. Would you realize you are not “yourself” anymore? You wouldn’t, because you would truly be this new person. Theoretically speaking, it’s possible you woke up like that today. You may have never been you before – you were someone else and just can’t remember it, because those memories are now stored in another person’s brain who, for all effects and purposes, is now your yesterday’s self.

I doubt that actually happens but, if it did, we wouldn’t notice because we are nothing more than our brains and bodies which, once again, become what they become, making us who we are, simply as a consequence of genetic and environmental factors, of numerous happenstances none of us has any control over.

In practice, and to put it bluntly, what I’m trying to say is: don’t bash the chess-kid’s head against his locker. You would have been him if born under different circumstances. In fact, he is you, except living another life. And if he turned out different (or “worse,” as you’d probably put it) than you, it’s simply because his life was harder than yours – he feels much worse than you do and he has to constantly deal with problems you never had, never will, and literally can’t even imagine.

If we all saw each other through those lenses, really putting ourselves into other people’s shoes, trying to understand how they turned out the way they are and why they behave the way they do, while also admitting we were simply lucky not to be in their place (when we wouldn’t want to), we’d probably be much better people.

If you actually stop to think about it, there’s an epiphany to be had in there. There’s a point where you can feel what I said. So chew on that for a while. Ruminate. Grab some water to smooth it down. See if you can see it.

If you couldn’t assimilate this “we are all one” concept, I don’t blame you. But if you were able to see things from that perspective, even if only for a moment, then this may finally make some sense: don’t make the world a worse place, because you will be living in it after all your [current you’s] actions have had their consequences.

A child who may be born in the year 18467 GC, without asking for it or knowing why they exist, can be considered as “you.” They’ll be randomly birthed into a world they know nothing about, just like you; they’ll be just as innocent and ignorant as you initially were; they’ll want the same things you always did; and they’ll try just as hard as you do to get them. And that “future you” may be born in paradise or in hell depending on what your “current you” does now.

We, our ancestors and our descendants are all the same entity. The only difference between those who are alive today and those who will be alive tomorrow is that, even though they cannot possibly reciprocate, we can help them. If we don’t do so, we’ll have failed just like those who came before us did, and those who follow us will be just as evil as we are, making each other suffer just as badly as we currently do.

We should make good use of the opportunity we have, because each one of those who are yet to come is another me, another you.

The Game

There’s another interesting way to think about life: we can think of it as a non-zero-sum game.

Everything we do has an impact – a positive, neutral (I’m not entirely sure if this is possible), or negative one. And we can consider the sum of all human beings’ actions as a simple green or red number: humanity’s score.

Imagine, for instance, that you stole an apple from a random guy. In principle, you gained exactly as much as he lost: one apple. That seems like a zero-sum game, because the apple simply switched hands – nothing was lost; the system’s global value didn’t change (-1 + 1 = 0). But that’s not how it actually works.

While you gained one apple, your victim not only lost it but also had to waste time searching for the fruit. The man you stole from questioned his senses, made a fool of himself asking passersby if they saw his apple, got angry when he realized it was stolen, and for a long time he will be worried about the safety of his belongings, thereafter having to spend extra thought and energy on trying to keep his possessions safe. That man will want justice, briefly seek and horribly fail to achieve it, and he’ll resent this for the rest of his life. As if that weren’t enough, your victim will go home in a bad mood. Unwillingly, he may be rude to his daughter when she asks him to pass her the potato salad at dinner. She won’t know why, will feel harassed, get angry, and resent her father. The next day at school, she will instinctively unleash her frustration on an innocent fat kid, whose self-steem will wane further, and then Chubby will… well, you get the point: it ends when the universe does.

When we harm someone, we indirectly harm everyone – including ourselves, eventually. By being assholes we set our entire species back, and potentially others that share this planet with us as well, making life as a whole worse, ruining its purpose.

That old man whose back you once threw a full can of beer on, while driving around drunk with your friends, might one day break into your home and kill your entire family with a screwdriver while you sleep, and it won’t even occur to you that all of it was your fault.

What goes around does come around eventually, whether we realize it or not. When we don’t pay for our own misdeeds (the most common scenario), someone else ends up paying in our stead. And when someone else doesn’t pay for theirs, we may end up paying instead of them just the same. When we harm someone, if for any reason that person is unable to get back at us, they’ll feel an urge to harm somebody else. If we steal something, whoever we stole from will deem themselves entitled to steal from a third person to balance out their loss. If we elect a candidate who favors some in detriment of others, those who end up being treated unfairly will strive to elect an opposite candidate, who once in office will seek vengeance against all those who elected the first. And in any large-scale scenario such as that last one, you will end up being harmed regardless of how blameless you may (or may not) be.

A problem originates whenever an innocent person is harmed. Being unable to do justice to those who actually wronged them, they’ll eventually lash out at some random, also innocent person. And then a vicious circle is created, one that like all others is very hard to unravel.

Any harm caused to us must be relieved. We have a need to even things out. To this end, it might actually be a good idea to single out evil people (criminals, psychopaths, most police officers, far too many politicians, etc.) and let anyone who’s willing beat them to death. I’m not joking – that is a reasonable course of action, because it not only lets many people unleash their anger at once, but it also allows them to do so against those whom all anger should be directed. Albeit not entirely accurate and insufficient to satisfy all grievers’ need for justice, medieval practices such as stoning people, throwing rotten fruits at them while they’re dragged towards the gallows, cursing them mercilessly, and cheering loudly as they hang by their necks are valid and rather efficient solutions. We had things right once but, alas, no longer.

In case that sounded insane to you, let me put things simply: the anger we carry within us must be released, and we are entitled to release it when we are wronged. And we have only a few means to do so: we can unleash one person’s anger at a time or many at once; against innocent, harmless people or guilty, vile ones.

Take your pick. I believe it will be the same as mine.

On a more cheerful note, the “what goes around comes around” principle also applies to good deeds. Even though we may not always harvest the fruits of our own, we often will of someone else’s, often unknowingly. And by acting righteously, we contribute positively to our “global score;” we advance in “the game of life.” (Also, it goes without saying that we can’t win a game by scoring less than zero.)

So try to keep yourself in check. Don’t be a jerk. When raging, direct it towards someone who is one, because then it’s fair – you’ll be making that person pay for what they owe, for something they once did and must still be punished for. No matter what happens, don’t unleash your psychotic impulses on the poor intern who brings you latte and cookies with a smile on his minimum-wage face just because he’s paid not to fight back. You might feel good and powerful for a moment, but we’ll all ultimately feel worse for it.

Harming innocent people harms everyone, just as refusing to harm someone who isn’t does. And it’s the combination of these two factors that ultimately leads to schools and raves being turned into bloody firing ranges, to airplanes flying headfirst into twin towers, to restaurants going up in flames during lunch hours, and to handcuffed men being decapitated on YouTube livestreams. Those are all nothing but long-overdue and desperate attempts at making justice. Such actions are not terrorism but mere catharsis, coming from people who have no better or more accurate means to hurt those who brutally harmed them first.

The only question is whether the people who commit such “terrorist” acts were truly wronged. If they were, they are in the right.

CHAPTER II: Mankind

What has been said so far applies to different living beings, to varying extents: determinism is omnipresent; the purpose of all [sentient] life is to be enjoyed (of lesser lifeforms it would be to develop sentience or to support sentient beings); many different animals band together and help each other to hunt and build structures, to survive and improve their collective existence.

We, humans, are much more complicated than any other known species, though. We are “intelligent,” fairly large animals with wildly varying perceptions and understandings of the world around us. We are able to plan in advance, to create tools, to conjure up and believe in fantasies. We can cheat, lie, and ruin other lives for good reasons, trivial ones or without any. We can understand what was said in Chapter I, but have a dreadfully hard time putting any of it into practice.

From now on we shall focus on human life, considering why we fail in doing what we should. And as we move forward, I shall leave our universe’s deterministic nature aside, because to deal with human issues it’s necessary to adopt a myopic, “humane” perspective.

That’s Right

Our universe has an immutable set of rules, which means there’s only one true basis upon which to build if we don’t want all of our works to fall into ruin: reason. Having laid parts of those rules down in the previous chapter, I must now finish the job by defining what is “right.” Thankfully, that’s not hard to do:

“Right” is that which logically leads to the best possible outcome.

Some philosophers would say “right” is a relative concept dependent on cultural values and, sociologically speaking, that’s not wrong. But sociology applies only to one species; only to a few irrelevant beings who inhabit a tiny corner of a single, isolated galaxy – so it doesn’t really matter. What matters is the rule that applies to everyone, whoever they are, wherever they may be, at all times. Thus, “right” is, in fact, a concept that remains what it is regardless of who agrees or disagrees with it. It is a principle that stands on its own and applies to everything; it is the proper lens through which to address any issue, and what we should pursue in all of our choices and actions, regardless of context.

Note that “right” and “logical” overlap – they are essentially synonyms. In strictly logical scenarios, such as in math, that’s rather obvious: “the right result” is, by definition, the logical one. But when people enter the equation, things get much trickier, because identifying the proper solution of any problem then involves our specific needs and whims, and it requires taking our cripplingly flawed nature into account.

In my simple definition of “right,” determining “the best possible outcome” is the difficult part. Such an outcome is the one that ultimately leads to the least suffering and/or the most pleasure to the largest possible number of individuals. That means we must focus on what is lasting or permanent, not on the ephemeral; we must think about everyone’s well being on the long term, not on a few people’s on the short one. If a course of action leads to a positive outcome in the near future but then to a negative one later on, requiring the issue in question to be re-addressed and once again palliatively dealt with, that course of action is wrong – that’s not how you solve a problem.