You only live once. At least some people think so. Others think we had a life before and will have a life after.
Humans will do literally anything to cope with the harsh reality of life.
How did we get here? What’s my purpose? What happens when we die?
Questions every single human has had or will have. Before we can even ask these questions of ourselves we are asked them as a child.
A toddler will play some shitty notes on the piano and suddenly all the adults in the room have decided they will grow up to be a musician.
Are you a girl? A boy? Neither? Do you like girls? Boys? All of the above or no one at all?
The pressure to decide who we are, how we got here and who we will be starts as soon as we breathe in air for the first time.
The biggest coping mechanism for life is religion. Take your pick, christianity, islam, Judaism, it’s all the same.
It’s the easiest explanation. It answers all your questions. How did we get here? A magic god snapped his fingers and created heaven and earth and everything in between.
Why are we here? For this same god, to worship him, to try to do “good”, and wait to die. What happens when we die? You go to one of two places. One good, one bad depending on if you followed the right god and the right rules during your life.
Believing in god’s existence is the simplest answer. No wonder so many people believe. No wonder so many people wake up on Sunday, wrestle their kids into uncomfortable clothes and go sit in an uncomfortable chair and listen to uncomfortable messages.
This insecurity and fear of not knowing is somehow worse to most then the insecurity and fear you receive from religion. God is the easy out. They are told they are not good enough, they never were and never will be. God is the hero in the story. If they want to be saved they can follow the rules. It’s all written out, it’s simple, it’s easy. It’s a comfort to know who you’re living and dying for. It’s freeing really not only do you have a savior, you have someone to blame if you break one of his rules; the devil.
Is there a god? Probably not. However, it certainly helps cope with being a human.
One of the other big things we humans use to cope with existential dread, is drugs. Drugs and alcohol are incredible tools. You can either quite your brain or make it so damn loud you can’t hear all of life’s questions. You can also kill yourself with them. Like religion, this coping mechanism has its major downsides. Unlike religion, drugs and alcohol don’t need to provide answers. All it does is postpone the questions. And then eventually you die.
The list could go on forever. Sex, money, power, love, suicide. Humans will make up anything to feel fulfilled. To give life purpose, to give death purpose. We either find our answer or we distract ourselves.
I think the answer is far more simple and scientific than religion or relationships.
Life has no purpose.
There is no right answer. Why would there be?
How did we get here?
Chance. First of all it quite frankly does not matter. The only reason we want an answer is because we don’t know. Not knowing is scary if you focus on it. At the end of the day, whether some all powerful being snapped his fingers or a big bang exploded in space, it doesn’t matter. It doesn’t change when you were born or what your favorite color is. It doesn’t change whether you’re born in 2039 or the 1800’s. You exist and that’s enough. You HAVE to get comfortable with not knowing. It is truly the only way to survive in this world. Your parents had sex, you were born and raised and here you are. How lucky you are to have existed at all in the vastness of our universe and our universe’s universe.
Take the power out of the question and it isn’t so scary.
How did we get here? It doesn’t matter. The point is, here you are. Now what?
What is life’s purpose?
Spoiler alert, I already told you.
There is none!
Damn isn’t that freeing?
There isn’t an order of things, there isn’t a set of boxes you have to check before you’re 90 and slowly dying next to an oxygen tank.
You exist out of chance, your mission or goal or purpose is to just be. That’s it!
Don’t be a good person because an old book said you’ll go to hell if you don’t. Do it because It feels good. It’s satisfying. You know what else is satisfying? Punching a dickhead in the face. Do it! Why? Because you only live once!
“If life doesn’t have a purpose and there’s no god, why don’t you just go around raping and murdering people? If there’s no consequences it doesn’t matter”.
If you need a punishment to not be a horrible human being then you know what you are? A horrible human being. If you’re reading this, guess what? You live in a time where cops exist. So does the FBI, CIA, and the military! There are consequences to your actions even if they don’t come from a god.
The point isn’t “I can so I should”. The point is you have a choice! You can choose to never work a job in your life, live in the forest off the grid and make friends with grizzly bears. You can choose to sit in an office from 9-5 every week day, have 3 children and be buried in side by side cemetery plots with your spouse. Do what makes you happy! Try new things, eat bread and chocolate, smile at strangers. Stay inside and write and sing and play video games. Make friends or enemies. Travel or settle down. It literally doesn’t matter! There’s no wrong choice! Fall in love and get married, fall out of love and get divorced. Just do something. Just be happy, just live for Christ’s sake! That is your purpose, to live!
What happens when we die?
Honestly, I bet you can guess my take on this. I dosen’t fucking matter.
Say God’s real and so is hell. I for one would not want to spend eternity in heaven with a being who is cruel enough to send those of us good people who simply didn’t believe to burn forever.
How the fuck does that even make sense to anyone. What if God is real, but merciful. Take the Mormon god. You can practically look in his eyes and say you don’t want to be with him and he’ll still send you to spend eternity somewhere far better than earth. The point is, don’t live life in fear of the unknown and the what ifs. At the end of the day either it’s up to a big man in the sky to decide your fate with the flip of a coin, or you’re in complete control of your own life. Not where you’re born or if your dad was a drunk. But what you choose to do. Become a missionary or become a hooker. It doesn’t matter and that’s a good thing.
Can you imagine if everything we did had eternal consequences? Holy shit we’d all be fucked. I don’t care how good you pretend to be. That tantrum you threw at 4 because you couldn’t have a popsicle? You’re done for.
On average 117 people die by gunshot in the US everyday. Now that’s just gunshots. Imagine all the other ways you could get murdered. Or natural causes? Those rates are even worse. On average 14,000 people a day die in the US from natural causes. I might croak before finishing this paper. You might croak before you finish reading it and wondering “who the hell raised this idiot?”.
Any moment could be your last. You might have a life after this, you might not. Is it worth the risk? To spend your life in fear and questioning everything. Searching for answers that don’t exist. Never being good enough?
It’s not for me.
You matter, nothing matters. Life has no purpose and we all die. So go and live.
What We Don't Say 