What is our purpose in life? When this thought first occurred to me, I wasn't sure how to answer it. May be I have a lot of free time and that’s why I am thinking about such abstract topics. But slowly and unconsciously, I started to solve this puzzle. I have tried to keep influence of external information, which I believe had potential of corrupting my developing thoughts, to bare minimum. Also before reading on, remember that even though I have mentioned God at various places in this article, I am myself an Atheist (or a liberal atheist). The metaphorical God has only been used as a device for storytelling purpose.
Every living organism has just two definite purposes in life. First is to eat and the other to have sex. Said in a more formal way, food and procreation. Both are major and direct purposes of life because they are necessary for holding on to life itself. No one can surely live without food and without power of procreation (ya sex!) entire humanity will be doomed as there will be no one replace the dying generation.
But maybe God was not content with giving these direct purposes, or more probably, was afraid that Humans may not find these purposes attractive enough, or may simply refuse to follow and eventually self destruct. Maybe that’s why He invented pleasure. By giving us five powerful senses to experience this pleasure he made sure that we’ll enjoy our quest to fulfill two direct purposes (of food and sex).
But He overlooked two inevitable consequences. One was suicidal nature that this pleasure may develop. The other was the indirect purpose he gave to Humans in this process. That is the purpose to satisfy the five senses. Thus pleasure, which was supposed be an easy path to fulfillment of direct purposes, became a purpose itself. I’ll call all such purposes, to attain pleasure, secondary or indirect purposes of life. The secondary purposes serve quite a useful meaning for a person who remembers what his primary (or direct) purposes are. The desire for secondary purposes, while neglecting primary ones, may lead to dire consequences.
It seems for a long time God was satisfied by the model explained so far, for this level of abilities are found in animals as well. It took Him a while to understand that something had been left out, but when He did realize it, He created Man. And He put an additional ability in men – Ability to Reason.
Necessity of this ability must have been felt in order to strike a balance between primary and secondary purposes. But the error has a habit of creeping even into best of the intentions.
Anyway, continuing with my biblical story, most of the people would agree that it is human mind that mainly differentiates animals from human beings. Mind is the generator or the source of Ability to Reason. It has the power to imagine and discover the hidden incentives that may be unfathomable to simplistic animal brains. To elaborate, it is quite common among animals to have multiple sexual partners. Even though licentiousness is not uncommon among humans, they have the ability to think about a hidden incentive, love. Although love is considered irrational by many, but the underlying philosophy of love is very much rational. Irrational, if I dare say so, is only the process of choosing the right lover.
It may seem probable to a human being that if he can subdue his lubricious nature and loyally befriend a single person, then he stands to gain considerably from such a friendship. Under this circumstance there is an incentive for him to avoid being a philanderer. Furthermore, he may reason, that by choosing a partner of opposite sex he can fulfill his primary (or direct) purpose of life. Thus such a relationship is extremely beneficial as it promises fulfillment of all – direct and indirect – purposes of life.
Thus contrary to Vox Populi, marriage is a result of individual reasoning rather than a cultural necessity.
Every living organism has just two definite purposes in life. First is to eat and the other to have sex. Said in a more formal way, food and procreation. Both are major and direct purposes of life because they are necessary for holding on to life itself. No one can surely live without food and without power of procreation (ya sex!) entire humanity will be doomed as there will be no one replace the dying generation.
But maybe God was not content with giving these direct purposes, or more probably, was afraid that Humans may not find these purposes attractive enough, or may simply refuse to follow and eventually self destruct. Maybe that’s why He invented pleasure. By giving us five powerful senses to experience this pleasure he made sure that we’ll enjoy our quest to fulfill two direct purposes (of food and sex).
But He overlooked two inevitable consequences. One was suicidal nature that this pleasure may develop. The other was the indirect purpose he gave to Humans in this process. That is the purpose to satisfy the five senses. Thus pleasure, which was supposed be an easy path to fulfillment of direct purposes, became a purpose itself. I’ll call all such purposes, to attain pleasure, secondary or indirect purposes of life. The secondary purposes serve quite a useful meaning for a person who remembers what his primary (or direct) purposes are. The desire for secondary purposes, while neglecting primary ones, may lead to dire consequences.
It seems for a long time God was satisfied by the model explained so far, for this level of abilities are found in animals as well. It took Him a while to understand that something had been left out, but when He did realize it, He created Man. And He put an additional ability in men – Ability to Reason.
Necessity of this ability must have been felt in order to strike a balance between primary and secondary purposes. But the error has a habit of creeping even into best of the intentions.
Anyway, continuing with my biblical story, most of the people would agree that it is human mind that mainly differentiates animals from human beings. Mind is the generator or the source of Ability to Reason. It has the power to imagine and discover the hidden incentives that may be unfathomable to simplistic animal brains. To elaborate, it is quite common among animals to have multiple sexual partners. Even though licentiousness is not uncommon among humans, they have the ability to think about a hidden incentive, love. Although love is considered irrational by many, but the underlying philosophy of love is very much rational. Irrational, if I dare say so, is only the process of choosing the right lover.
It may seem probable to a human being that if he can subdue his lubricious nature and loyally befriend a single person, then he stands to gain considerably from such a friendship. Under this circumstance there is an incentive for him to avoid being a philanderer. Furthermore, he may reason, that by choosing a partner of opposite sex he can fulfill his primary (or direct) purpose of life. Thus such a relationship is extremely beneficial as it promises fulfillment of all – direct and indirect – purposes of life.
Thus contrary to Vox Populi, marriage is a result of individual reasoning rather than a cultural necessity.
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