(This post is best read while stoned or drunk)

Ladies and gentlemen. I am going to do what numerous philosophers, scientists, religious nuts, movie protagonists and cats have tried to do for centuries.

I am going to uncover the meaning of life. Or if not that, at least the purpose of life. And I am going to do it in one sitting.

Calm down, now, calm down ladies, no need to cause a scene. Yes, I am available, thank you for asking.

Why?

Why? Err…’cause that’s what I do. I…solve stuff. And…uncover mysteries. Like the Famous Five. You know, those teens who went about solving mysteries? The ones Enyd Blyton wrote about?

* tumbleweed *

Well, in any case, that’s not the point. That’s a discussion for another day, ‘mkay?

The purpose of life

Like ever teenage boy spurned by a hot chick, I set out asking “Why? Why are we here? Why does she prefer that arrogant asshole over me?”. I spent long hours thinking about the meaning of life, the purpose of it, but I got nowhere. I had quit believing in a greater power, a ‘God’ some time ago, so I couldn’t just raise my eyes lovingly into the air and declare “our purpose on this Earth is to love and praise God almighty”.

I suspect that was assisted by my lingering suspicion that I might be God myself. I mean, c’mon. Have you seen me? My dog and I had long discussions about this over the summer vacations, but we couldn’t reach a conclusion. I mean, my dog didn’t say much, but would listen intently with his ears up, and I would explain my point of view. I gathered this meant that I was right, or that my dog thought I was nuts. I was never able to decide which.

Then I grew into adulthood. Actually, that’s what I have been told. I have yet to really understand what that means, but have gleaned that it’s mostly got something to do with more body hair and being able to buy booze.

In any case, I continued thinking about this question, and discussing it with my friends. Reading books didn’t help much either. The prevalent view that the only purpose of life was to transfer your genetic code to your offspring seemed somehow unsatisfactory.

Sure, nature seems to suggest so. Every living organism’s primary motivation seems to be to ensure that it produces offspring (a thoroughly enjoyable endeavor in many cases). This overrides other seemingly basic drives like survival, even. For example, consider the case of the Praying Mantis. The female initiates sex by biting off the male’s head. Ouch.

“Honey, I’m home. How about some – aargh, my hea-”

Yikes. Then there’s the case of the female spider. After her eggs hatch, the baby spiders eat their mother. That’s their first meal. I’m not even going to try and locate a reference to back that up, because it’s way too icky. Yuck.

Hold on while I go take a swig of wine to calm my nerves. I hate spiders.

Aaaanyways. The point is that you will find various examples in nature of organisms that are willing to sacrifice themselves for the sake of their offspring. This is extremely curious behavior, if you think about it.

Keeping aside sentimental retorts of “that’s love, dodo-head”, this does not make any sense. Actually, even the fact that we think that we are willing to sacrifice our lives for our loved ones does not make sense. In fact, this was one of the clues that helped me find…

THE PURPOSE OF LIFE

Oh wait…the intro credits were a bit late. My bad.

In any case, after my extensive research (read the back covers of a couple of science-y looking books), it appears that scientists believe that the sole purpose of life is to transmit your genetic information to the next generation. I am almost certainly mis-stating their actual statement, and am 89.8733% sure I have fucked up somehow. But I shall continue blundering ahead, as I am wont to do. In this way, I shall make my point, and unveil

THE PURPOSE OF LIFE

Oh shi…I did it again, didn’t I?

Do you have a point, dork?

Yes. It’s that I believe it ain’t that simple, darlin’.

While most natural phenomenon seem to suggest that they are correct, and that every living organism’s primary intention seems to be to pass on their genetic imprint – be it via sexual reproduction, splitting into two, copying themselves over (think virii), they seem to be interested only in ensuring that their genetic code (DNA) gets transferred on to the next generation. They do this even at the cost of their own survival. By dying to ensure that the next generation survives, they pass on their code.

There is no other possible purpose in life, that even comes close to being the answer:

• Survival: Nope, I just proved decisively that this cannot be the case above.
• To praise and love an everliving God: Back in the nuthouse, jackass. Oh, fer Chrissakes. How was the spider mom showing her love for God when… * runs off and barfs in the corner *
• Fun!
• Evolution: Maybe the purpose of life is to evolve? By evolving over time, organisms can…yup, back to square one.
• World domination: Again, why?
• …see why this is so confusing?

So where does that leave us? Nowhere? Not quite! Hidden in those options is the correct answer. It’s not the first one. Not the last one either. Yes, I mean….

FUN!

Settle down, people, settle down. There’ll be plenty of time for a Q & A session later (yeah, right, like I’m going to listen to somebody else’s point of view!).

It’s not as simple as that. You see, fun is not an accurate term. I can generalize it more by calling it “Contentment”. The purpose of life is Contentment.

I claim that every living organism strives for contentment. Be it a germ, a ravenous monkey, a marauding tiger, or the mighty human. We all are searching for contentment.

What the heck does that mean?

Well, different things for different organisms. For a lower organism, contentment means being able to survive and reproduce. It would be useful to pull out Maslow’s heirarchy of needs at this point.

• Self-actualization
• Esteem
• Love/Belonging
• Safety
• Physiological

Maslow, this really clever dude, felt that any human being has needs ranging from the basic to the advanced. Starting from the basic physiological needs of breathing, food, water, sex (booyah!), sleep, homeostatis (the need for a stable environment), excretion moving up to self-actualization (achieving morality, creativity, spontaneity, problem solving, yada yada).

While I haven’t bothered reading the full description of his, I think he’s on to something. It makes sense that a similar pyramid of needs can be applied to any organism. It might look like this (in order from basic to advanced, with basic at the top):

• Survival
• Survival of genes into the future
• Contentment

I further claim, that these are not necessarily at the same time. You might have an organism pursue surival and contentment at the same time. Or SG (survival of its genes, shortened, ’cause I’m lazy) and contentment. Or survival and SG. Or all 3 at the same time.

The first one if obvious. In order to fulfill any of the following needs, the organism needs to survive.

The second one is ‘Survival of genes into the future’. Creating offspring falls into this state.

The last one is contentment. This is basically a state where the organism is happy with its lot in life. Yup, that’s intentionally vague. But what’s important is that the organism is striving in earnest to achieve a state of contentment.

Now let’s apply these goals to organisms to get a better understanding of what I mean.

To begin with, let me talk about why I think scientists are wrong about propagation of genes being the only purpose of life. It might be one of the primary needs/goals, but not the only one.

Imagine a young organism. A baby spid…err…kangaroo. Let’s say it is happily grazing on grass in a meadow, when it spots a crocodile who got lost on the way to the deposit money in the river bank. Get it? Bank! Haha…err…in any case, the ‘roo’s scared shitless.

Do you think it gives a fuck about marrying a nice girl and making babies at that point? Do you? Huh? Well, don’t say that it wants to survive only to do so – I say, prove it!

To further prove my point, consider humans who don’t want babies. I’m sure scientists have thought about this, and again, there’s a 85.39893% chance I’m talking out my ass about this. But to me, it seems that these folks aren’t interested in propagating their genes.

They are, however, interested in 1 and 3. They want to survive, and they are looking for contentment. You dig?

Similarly, such folk might be willing to die for a cause they believe in – in which case they give up survival for contentment (though shortlived). An example would be somebody dying for ‘their country’ (which is another weird, fluid concept).

If propagation of genes was such a strong imperative, I don’t think it would be swept aside so easily. I mean, c’mon! We’re talking about the goddammed purpose of life here, people! You think that we would be able to sweep it aside so easily if it was ‘the prime directive’?!

Scientists say that many of our desires and actions are designed to ultimately result in reproduction, via impressing females, etc. That seems like a weak argument to me.

I would argue that the strongest imperatives would be the most obvious, and the most powerful. SG is definitely one of these, but so is survival. So is contentment, for humans, at least.

What about other organisms, you ask? Well, think about an organism that can only give birth once in life, or is unable to do so. Being unable to ensure SG, it would have no goals in life, right? But we see that this isn’t the case. Even if the need for SG was absent, the organism would continue to work towards survival, and contentment (seeking pleasure is a trait many organisms share).

I can’t say microorganisms share this need for contentment. But they do seem to strongly desire survival and SG. But I don’t think that weakens my argument. I contend that these organisms have this need absent, because they are not developed enough to seek it.

…and to conclude

I think I might be on to something. Or not. Surprisingly, I wasn’t drunk when I wrote this, though I have trouble believing this myself. Maybe I was dehydrated or something. Anyways, I’m sure somebody will come along and smack some sense into me sometime soon.

Till then I’ll just behave like this post isn’t a crock of shit, and walk around all haughty-like.