The Entrepreneur Forum | Financial Freedom | Starting a Business | Motivation | Money | Success

Welcome to the only entrepreneur forum dedicated to building life-changing wealth.

Build a Fastlane business. Earn real financial freedom. Join free.

Join over 80,000 entrepreneurs who have rejected the paradigm of mediocrity and said "NO!" to underpaid jobs, ascetic frugality, and suffocating savings rituals— learn how to build a Fastlane business that pays both freedom and lifestyle affluence.

Free registration at the forum removes this block.

Whats the point of life?

Bertram

Silver Contributor
Read Fastlane!
Speedway Pass
User Power
Value/Post Ratio
147%
Oct 25, 2015
573
842
Virginia
people like me know why they are on earth because we are initiates

you don't know and 99 % of people don't know either because they are the energy of society not the mind

society is a giant human being with a mind ( rational masterminds ) and a body ( emotional masses )

AS ABOVE SO BELOW


human level : mind and emotions
society level : mind and emotions

View attachment 28434


by the way most people can't understand what i say because:


View attachment 28433
You always need to insult everyone @guy93777 . Why?
With 2000 visitors per day here, there should be around 20 "initiates" perusing this forum at any given moment, by your own estimate.
One percent of the people are higher beings and the 99 percent remainder are losers, eh?
How can it possible that no one here is an "initiate" besides you? Your assumption has been off for a very long time, even obvious to a mere commoner like me. How can a visionary be so mistaken?
Right, look at the numbers.
So, regarding the other nineteen "initiates" who are online here now, what do they make of your rudeness and this gigantic mistake you keep making? Insult you? They don't.

What gets me about your message is that you deploy a truly primitive take on intelligence. You think that an intelligent insight has to be understandable only to an entitled few.
In fact, wisdom is always meaningful to the many.
If you haven't pieced together this logic so far - a span of years - and you've also overlooked what 1 percent means in term of the numbers of "initiates"you might meet meet in your "life," then it seems unlikely that you could still be the official spokesman for Team Initiates.

It further appears that, based on statistics, I follow three or four of the "initiates" here and often, including at least three "initiates" on this very thread.

They're coherent and have good social skills.
But you keep confusing politeness with complicity. Another mistake!
They seem to have discernment, empathy. But now where is yours?
Ya think?
 
Dislike ads? Remove them and support the forum: Subscribe to Fastlane Insiders.
Last edited:

Bertram

Silver Contributor
Read Fastlane!
Speedway Pass
User Power
Value/Post Ratio
147%
Oct 25, 2015
573
842
Virginia
There both is an isn't a point until we can objectively prove it, but I feel you aren't seeking an answer that's deep or satirical. You seem to be searching for an answer that will push you out of feeling "stuck and lost."

(Like even if I told you the Mormon religion had all the answers, would you believe me anyway?)

I feel the real question you have is how do I not feel stuck and lost in life?

Now, I may not have the best answer, but perhaps the following exercise could help nudge you in a better direction...

Please note: This hasn't been fully tested and results may vary.

1) Get a pen & paper or open a fresh document.

2) List everything that interests you and also everything you are curious about. Everything! Yes, even the embarrassing shit you don't want people to know about. Ideally, nothing illegal though.

3) Now pat yourself on the back, you just created objectives to pursue. These objectives hold the answers you seek. But, you have to do them. So if you are curious about slap fighting, you got to try it rather than just read about it. Some stuff from your list will be more difficult and/or take time. That's okay and those objectives will have significant impact on your life if you actively pursue them.

4) You can now decide whether you wish to pursue these missions in a sequential order or draw them randomly out of a hat?

It might sound crazy, but I believe the solution to getting out of these type of slumps is action. Even if it isn't recognized at first.
What a sharp assessment. And immediately pragmatic. Brilliant.
 

IlseVdG

Bronze Contributor
Read Fastlane!
Read Unscripted!
Speedway Pass
User Power
Value/Post Ratio
152%
Jul 28, 2019
81
123
Belgium
It's a question many have wondered for centuries. Many have written volumes of books about it. So you are in good company. :)

My answer is arrived at through religious spirituality but here's the summarized non-religious version of it.

The purpose of life is to be of service to everything around you. Making things better for everyone lifts us up too. In other words "Happiness!".

This also directly follows from our business philosophy on this forum. If you create things of value for others, you make money. And by definition things of value are things which are useful, in other words "of service". Like MJ said in TMF , if you give a million people what they want, you will be a millionaire. (my paraphrasing). The world rewards people who benefit others.

So my friend, the purpose of life is to create the most value in this world. Somehow the universe conspires to benefit you if you benefit others. Now if you wonder why that is, we again get into religious / creation territory, which is a discussion for some other place and time! :)

Exactly.

It's one of the (many) reasons why I personally like MJ's books so much. :) They're not only deadly honest, straightforward and hands-on with invaluable business insights (providing a super example of value creating in itself) but they remain also, from beginning to end, grounded in the purpose of life. See for example also the parts about accountability (TMF ) and consequential thought (Unscripted ).

For people who are interested in an another example: here's a nice book where an entrepreneur at one point starts to talk about his inward journey along with his outward entrepreneurial journey, and about how these two journeys were intertwined: Live the Dream

But again: the form of the inward journey is different for everyone. It's a bit tricky to have debates about that.
 

Bertram

Silver Contributor
Read Fastlane!
Speedway Pass
User Power
Value/Post Ratio
147%
Oct 25, 2015
573
842
Virginia
28432


Emerson was quoting from the Bible. Proverbs 29:18

Walter
You insist that one percent of us are "the initiates." That means hundreds of forum members are initiates just like you then.
@Walter Hay , @MitchM , @AgainstAllOdds ,@Devampre , @Vigilante , @broswoodwork , @MJ DeMarco , @BaraQueenbee , @snowbank , and @Bearcorp are, by statistics - by your own statistics - also "initiates" and in possession of a "higher" vision which is at least equivalent to yours. They don't seem to hold any grudge against the masses.
Wisdom is awakened, not assigned. It isn't inducted, not pinned on someone like a paper tail on a donkey.
Why don't the other millions of "initiates" in America rationalize that there's something good about insulting and stereotyping people in the way that you do, @guy93777 ?
Whoever is feeding you misquotations, like the Biblical quote you thought originated with Emerson, is not highly informed about the Society than which they believe themselves to be ninety-nine percent more discerning and more wakened. Three others here immediately spotted it, but you had not.
What good news for you, @guy93777 .
 
Dislike ads? Remove them and support the forum: Subscribe to Fastlane Insiders.
Last edited:

Abrodos

Bronze Contributor
Read Unscripted!
Speedway Pass
User Power
Value/Post Ratio
139%
Sep 25, 2019
193
268
34
Barcelona, Spain
Even though I'm an atheist, I'm very transcendental, and I've been thinking about purpose for a long time.

Here are the conclusions I've reached so far:

Goodness is a thing. You can define good as something that makes beings feel better than before, and evil as the actions that make beings feel worse than before. "Beings" includes any entity that can feel pain or pleasure, regardless of its self-awareness.
Also, as we have a wider perspective of the consequences of our acts, goodness is moving the world towards a stage where there's less suffering and more happiness.


Then there's also pursuit of knowledge. Knowledge is the total amount of information an entity (a being or a society) can have at its disposal. There are many things that we don't know yet, and there might be a moment where we know everything or there might not.

Entropy is a physical law, that says everything tends to destroy itself. The appearance of life is a natural process, that creates complex things that are more destructive than simple ones, in order to increase entropy. A population expansion is a natural process as well. Life, colonising societies, extraction methods, all develop and appear as a way for the universe to increase its entropy (ie: to destroy more and more complex stuff, increasing the destroyer's complexity in the process.) This process can reach a dead-end or keep going, depending on if there's available energy. There's plenty of available-but-unreachable energy in the universe (all stars are deposits of it), so a noble objective could be trying to reach it. But also all the evidence points to the fact that there's no entity/society that has reached so far.

In between knowledge and entropy there's "stewardship". a responsibility to care for what we've been given. Ecological variety, cultural inheritance, things that have survived centuries are part of the complexity and memory of the universe, so we have to find a balance between increasing entropy (expanding as individuals or as a society) and preserving the complex entities we have.

Finally there's this kind of "illumination/ecstasy/fulfillment" feeling that is also pursued by many.
But I'm not sure if it's a made-up feeling that has no conection to real facts.

So for me, after the personal entropy goals (surviving, reproducing, having the ability to do more), there come the societal ones:
-making the world a happier, less painful place
-Preserving and caring of the existing complex structures
-Using energy to expand ourselves
-Learn about the universe

There's a quote that says that we are, essentially, a chunk of the universe that is self-aware.
 

Madame Peccato

Gold Contributor
Read Fastlane!
Read Unscripted!
Speedway Pass
User Power
Value/Post Ratio
311%
Jul 14, 2018
659
2,048
31
Morbegno, Italy
What do you mean

I was referring to the post above mine. Sorry if you thought I was dismissing your post, this thread is very interesting and I'm all for good discussion about it, it's just that the "guynumbers" poster is very...passionate about his ideas.
 

Kevin88660

Platinum Contributor
FASTLANE INSIDER
Read Unscripted!
Speedway Pass
User Power
Value/Post Ratio
118%
Feb 8, 2019
3,456
4,078
Singapore
Not a business question, so posting in Off topic. But I know this forum is filled with insightful people.

Money is modern day survival. The passageway from childhood to adulthood is being able to survive on your own. Earning money becomes your purpose when you don't have enough to sustain yourself.

What is the point of life when you have enough money to sustain yourself?

The usual reply is "just do what makes you happy"

But what is happiness exactly?

All I understand is our brains have one goal in mind: to reproduce. When we are doing actions that are inline and satisfy that, our brain creates happy chemicals to tell us "Good job keeping doing this!"

So is the point just to follow our egos and primal desires as closely as possible?

I don't mean to ask this to try and sound smart or create some debate or something. Ive genuinely been stuck and lost for the past few years as to what life is all about. Or if it is really nothing with no meaning. We happen to exist up until this point and so you just make what you want of it, but at the barebones its to have the most optimum and prolonged survival.
Good question.

Social biology the modern day pop religion may reduce human motivation to survival first then replication second. But a mere glance of human beings seems to say human is too complicated for that.

Just for instance ego seems to be a very strong driver for human actions. Yet there is very little convincing explanation from evolutionary psychology.

It is hard to answer a subjective question. Everyone has different value and different life experience. Every five years the answer might chance.

So to dumb down it at a more strategic level, life is about resource acquisition and obtaining control. Because for thousands of years that is what the elites have been doing and will continue to do. The world at its core is still governed by laws of the jungle.
 
Dislike ads? Remove them and support the forum: Subscribe to Fastlane Insiders.

Ocean Man

Life-long learner.
Read Rat-Race Escape!
Read Fastlane!
Read Unscripted!
Summit Attendee
Speedway Pass
User Power
Value/Post Ratio
222%
Sep 26, 2018
902
1,998
United States
Not a business question, so posting in Off topic. But I know this forum is filled with insightful people.

Money is modern day survival. The passageway from childhood to adulthood is being able to survive on your own. Earning money becomes your purpose when you don't have enough to sustain yourself.

What is the point of life when you have enough money to sustain yourself?

The usual reply is "just do what makes you happy"

But what is happiness exactly?

All I understand is our brains have one goal in mind: to reproduce. When we are doing actions that are inline and satisfy that, our brain creates happy chemicals to tell us "Good job keeping doing this!"

So is the point just to follow our egos and primal desires as closely as possible?

I don't mean to ask this to try and sound smart or create some debate or something. Ive genuinely been stuck and lost for the past few years as to what life is all about. Or if it is really nothing with no meaning. We happen to exist up until this point and so you just make what you want of it, but at the barebones its to have the most optimum and prolonged survival.

Dear Fastlane Liam,

I feel like the majority of us have been "stuck and lost".

Let me ask you this, isn't it weird that there are millionaires and multi-millionaires that have enough money in the world to buy whatever they want and yet, some of them end up going through depression or at worst... take their own lives. Money really only takes you so far.

The point of life is really up to you. Honestly, none of us have played this game before and everyone living today is also experiencing "life" for the first time. There's no "guide" per-say to life. And although it's cliche, life is really what you make it.

You need to find other things in life to pursue other than money. Have you been focusing on yourself physically? Is your health alright? Are you looking and feeling the way you want to? What about your relationships/friendships. Do you feel lonely or do you feel like you're surrounded by a great number of people? Are you content spiritually? Are you helping other people/giving back to the community?

There are many things you can improve on in your life, and there was another forum thread somewhere about life philosophies, but one of my philosophies is that I treat life like a game. In a third-person view, I'm controlling my character. My character is writing this message to you right now. This character looks pretty weak, could use a make-over, earn more money, fill up more of his buddy-list, and definitely make the game more fun by going on more adventures with people and helping others.

Life doesn't have to be empty, after money and having kids... you need to find your own purpose. I was reading chapter 1 of The Superior Man Today and I remember something interesting... it goes something along the lines of ideas constantly go and change. But your purpose will remain the same. You need to find some form of meditation (doesn't have to be the stereotypical one), but find some form of meditation to figure out your purpose. What will make you happy, what do you want to do.

If you die in three days... and you can do anything... think... what would you have wanted to seriously accomplish before you die. A couple of years ago, I read a book that told me about people attending my funeral and to write down on a piece of paper what I'd want people to remember me for. The type of person I was and what I did/contributed.

Imagine, there's an internal clock that just started counting down from 71H:59M:59S. I bet you're not going to be going to your job and instead, you'll try and figure out how to enjoy your life. Improve yourself, help people, build relationships, and keep on challenging yourself. Don't get to caught up in the money game as you need to enjoy your life while you're here. Another thing I heard today from the book today was that eventually, all your money you earned today will be gone. All the people you know today will be gone (excluding religious beliefs and an afterlife), the businesses you build today will be gone.

For that reason, enjoy your life. Figure out how to make yourself happy and how to help other people. Look forward to every-day of your life and stop wasting time.
 

Ocean Man

Life-long learner.
Read Rat-Race Escape!
Read Fastlane!
Read Unscripted!
Summit Attendee
Speedway Pass
User Power
Value/Post Ratio
222%
Sep 26, 2018
902
1,998
United States
Beat me to it. Solomon said it first.

This thread has been... Interesting...

Folks I don't claim to have all the answers, but I can say I am at peace. Far more peaceful peace than some of the disturbing stuff I have read here. So I'm going to make an offer.

I go to church here: https://www.thecrossing.cc/ it is in The Woodlands, Texas. I attend the 9am Sunday service and I sit upstairs. I invite you to join me and my wife. No judgement. No cares in the world. I'm just inviting you to see what has given me peace. If it isn't for you it isn't for you, but I don't want to bury what has made me a better and more effective man in both business and life in general.

We can even have breakfast together at my country club afterwards.

I am 100% serious. Take me up on it if you feel inclined.

Bookmarked, might take you up on this when I'm in America next year.
 

Black_Dragon43

Legendary Contributor
FASTLANE INSIDER
EPIC CONTRIBUTOR
Read Fastlane!
Speedway Pass
User Power
Value/Post Ratio
337%
Apr 28, 2017
2,069
6,964
‍☠️ Eastern Europe
Beat me to it. Solomon said it first.

This thread has been... Interesting...

Folks I don't claim to have all the answers, but I can say I am at peace. Far more peaceful peace than some of the disturbing stuff I have read here. So I'm going to make an offer.

I go to church here: https://www.thecrossing.cc/ it is in The Woodlands, Texas. I attend the 9am Sunday service and I sit upstairs. I invite you to join me and my wife. No judgement. No cares in the world. I'm just inviting you to see what has given me peace. If it isn't for you it isn't for you, but I don't want to bury what has made me a better and more effective man in both business and life in general.

We can even have breakfast together at my country club afterwards.

I am 100% serious. Take me up on it if you feel inclined.
@Kak Wow awesome offer, as a growing Christian I'd love to take you up on it. However I don't live in the US, so it would be hard for me. Would you have any reading recommandations to help me grow my faith and deepen my understanding of Christianity? Feel free to PM me. Would really appreciate it :) Thanks!
 
Dislike ads? Remove them and support the forum: Subscribe to Fastlane Insiders.
Last edited:

YoungPadawan

Miles to go before I sleep
Read Rat-Race Escape!
Read Fastlane!
Read Unscripted!
Speedway Pass
User Power
Value/Post Ratio
280%
Nov 7, 2015
498
1,392
30
Wow awesome offer, as a growing Christian I'd love to take you up on it. However I don't live in the US, so it would be hard for me. Would you have any reading recommandations to help me grow my faith and deepen my understanding of Christianity? Feel free to PM me. Would really appreciate it :) Thanks!
The Bible and the Catechism (if you are Catholic).
 

Bertram

Silver Contributor
Read Fastlane!
Speedway Pass
User Power
Value/Post Ratio
147%
Oct 25, 2015
573
842
Virginia
Good question.

Social biology the modern day pop religion may reduce human motivation to survival first then replication second. But a mere glance of human beings seems to say human is too complicated for that.

Just for instance ego seems to be a very strong driver for human actions. Yet there is very little convincing explanation from evolutionary psychology.

It is hard to answer a subjective question. Everyone has different value and different life experience. Every five years the answer might chance.

So to dumb down it at a more strategic level, life is about resource acquisition and obtaining control. Because for thousands of years that is what the elites have been doing and will continue to do. The world at its core is still governed by laws of the jungle.
But mammals and mammalian morality, which predate homo sapiens, did not evolve strictly in a 'jungle." Evolutionary biology demonstrates that mammalian biology is not designed solely for resource acquisition and obtaining control.
Watch a pack of dogs playing in a field. Watch a litter of puppies, how individuals may be propelled by bursts of empathy. These behaviors were always discounted by or subordinate to the Hobbesian notion that survival depended not on these actions but instead on the only scientifically measurable emotions: anger and fear.
What would a paradigm of human evolution look like without the empirialist, pro-military, Victorian bitterness of Thomas Hobbes, who described Nature as "red in tooth and claw?" What if this scientific paradigm were shown to be tainted by British ideology and history? (It was.)
 
Dislike ads? Remove them and support the forum: Subscribe to Fastlane Insiders.
Last edited:

Kevin88660

Platinum Contributor
FASTLANE INSIDER
Read Unscripted!
Speedway Pass
User Power
Value/Post Ratio
118%
Feb 8, 2019
3,456
4,078
Singapore
But mammals and mammalian morality, which predate homo sapiens, did not evolve strictly in a 'jungle." Evolutionary biology demonstrates that mammalian biology is not designed solely for resource acquisition and obtaining control.
Watch a pack of dogs playing in a field. Watch a litter of puppies, how individuals may be propelled by bursts of empathy. These behaviors were always discounted by or subordinate to to Hobbesian notion that survival depended not on these actions but instead on the only scientifically measurable emotions: anger and fear.
What would a paradigm of human evolution look like without the empirialist, pro-military, Victorian bitterness of Thomas Hobbes, who described Nature as "red in tooth and claw?" What if this scientific paradigm were shown to be tainted by British ideology and history? (It was.)
That’s very insightful. You captured the Hobbesian world view in me.

I think that human history by and large is driven by scrambling for limited resources. Another desire is to get out of control by and obtaining control in areas of interest. This is not something I conclude by some evolutionary psychology study but more of a casual observation in reading history.

Control is important because confrontation and conflict can be costly. The kings have been doing this for centuries. On a small scale small guys like us are forging our own control in business. On a bigger scale nations like U.S. and Russia are propping proxy forces in Syria. China is exerting its financial influence by being the debtors for many countries’ infrastructure projects.

Once people have money and no longer worry about security they tend to exert their influnce and wish others to listen to them. This can be either done through offering financial incentives or having mechanism to grab others by the balls. It just seems to be a pattern of human nature.
 
Dislike ads? Remove them and support the forum: Subscribe to Fastlane Insiders.

Kevin88660

Platinum Contributor
FASTLANE INSIDER
Read Unscripted!
Speedway Pass
User Power
Value/Post Ratio
118%
Feb 8, 2019
3,456
4,078
Singapore
To crush your enemies, see them driven before you, and to hear the lamentation of their women.
Definitely satisfy the commandment control. Your past life could be Ghangis Khan.

Also remind me of the movie “Fury” where U.S. soldiers offer food and cigarette in occupied Germany to have the desperate German women who surrender themselves “voluntarily”.
 

Bertram

Silver Contributor
Read Fastlane!
Speedway Pass
User Power
Value/Post Ratio
147%
Oct 25, 2015
573
842
Virginia
so maybe i can help you :

View attachment 28431



View attachment 28432




people like me know why they are on earth because we are initiates


you don't know and 99 % of people don't know either because they are the energy of society

not the mind


society is a giant human being with a mind ( rational masterminds ) and a body ( emotional masses )

AS ABOVE SO BELOW


human level : mind and emotions
society level : mind and emotions


View attachment 28434





by the way most people can't understand what i say because:




View attachment 28433
With 2000 visitors per day here, there should be around 20 "initiates" perusing this forum at any given moment.
Three initiates here immediately spotted your mistake. What good news for you, @guy93777 . Metaphysical visionaries don't post misquoted memes. You have no metaphysical destiny to be the savior to mankind any more than @broswoodwork 's cats, and frankly I'm more inclined to bet on the cats.
You're off the hook. You're free.
 
Last edited:

broswoodwork

Intermediate User of the Flying Guillotine
Read Fastlane!
Read Unscripted!
Speedway Pass
User Power
Value/Post Ratio
313%
Oct 16, 2015
890
2,790
With 2000 visitors per day here, there should be around 20 "initiates" perusing this forum at any given moment.
Three initiates here immediately spotted the error here. What good news for you, @guy93777 . Metaphysical visionaries don't post misquote memes. You have no metaphysical destiny to be the savior to mankind any more than @broswoodwork 's cats, and frankly I'm more inclined to bet on the cats.
You're off the hook. You're free.
Cats are always a safe bet. box-4.jpg
 
Dislike ads? Remove them and support the forum: Subscribe to Fastlane Insiders.

Bertram

Silver Contributor
Read Fastlane!
Speedway Pass
User Power
Value/Post Ratio
147%
Oct 25, 2015
573
842
Virginia
Even though I'm an atheist, I'm very transcendental, and I've been thinking about purpose for a long time.

Here are the conclusions I've reached so far:

Goodness is a thing. You can define good as something that makes beings feel better than before, and evil as the actions that make beings feel worse than before. "Beings" includes any entity that can feel pain or pleasure, regardless of its self-awareness.
Also, as we have a wider perspective of the consequences of our acts, goodness is moving the world towards a stage where there's less suffering and more happiness.


Then there's also pursuit of knowledge. Knowledge is the total amount of information an entity (a being or a society) can have at its disposal. There are many things that we don't know yet, and there might be a moment where we know everything or there might not.

Entropy is a physical law, that says everything tends to destroy itself. The appearance of life is a natural process, that creates complex things that are more destructive than simple ones, in order to increase entropy. A population expansion is a natural process as well. Life, colonising societies, extraction methods, all develop and appear as a way for the universe to increase its entropy (ie: to destroy more and more complex stuff, increasing the destroyer's complexity in the process.) This process can reach a dead-end or keep going, depending on if there's available energy. There's plenty of available-but-unreachable energy in the universe (all stars are deposits of it), so a noble objective could be trying to reach it. But also all the evidence points to the fact that there's no entity/society that has reached so far.

In between knowledge and entropy there's "stewardship". a responsibility to care for what we've been given. Ecological variety, cultural inheritance, things that have survived centuries are part of the complexity and memory of the universe, so we have to find a balance between increasing entropy (expanding as individuals or as a society) and preserving the complex entities we have.

Finally there's this kind of "illumination/ecstasy/fulfillment" feeling that is also pursued by many.
But I'm not sure if it's a made-up feeling that has no conection to real facts.

So for me, after the personal entropy goals (surviving, reproducing, having the ability to do more), there come the societal ones:
-making the world a happier, less painful place
-Preserving and caring of the existing complex structures
-Using energy to expand ourselves
-Learn about the universe

There's a quote that says that we are, essentially, a chunk of the universe that is self-aware.
Your philosophy is comprehensive and liberating.
As well as the force of entropy, witness the role or force of malevolence.
Although we seek life and cherish life, every single human mammal also feels ambivalence towards life. We don't know what to make of the lifespan, and even question this in childhood. Christians may call it Satan. Jung called it malevolence.
 
Last edited:

scottmsul

Bronze Contributor
FASTLANE INSIDER
Read Fastlane!
Read Unscripted!
Speedway Pass
User Power
Value/Post Ratio
302%
Apr 29, 2017
130
392
32
Boulder, CO
I'm an atheist, and I'll admit it sucks not having answers. Just because religion can offer some answers, doesn't mean those answers are correct, and I can't force myself into believing something that I don't think is true. I don't want to start a religious argument here though, I'm not anti-religion and have nothing against people who find value in it.

One thing that I've found to give meaning is helping others and providing value. I've also found that meditation can help increase awareness in that respect.
 

Bertram

Silver Contributor
Read Fastlane!
Speedway Pass
User Power
Value/Post Ratio
147%
Oct 25, 2015
573
842
Virginia
I love every response in this thread.

I wish I could read a book written by each of you on the subject.
I was thinking your cats could publish a book of philosophy. You already took the author photos.
 
Dislike ads? Remove them and support the forum: Subscribe to Fastlane Insiders.
Last edited:

Bertram

Silver Contributor
Read Fastlane!
Speedway Pass
User Power
Value/Post Ratio
147%
Oct 25, 2015
573
842
Virginia
Once people have money and no longer worry about security they tend to exert their influnce and wish others to listen to them. This can be either done through offering financial incentives or having mechanism to grab others by the balls. It just seems to be a pattern of human nature.

That’s very insightful. You captured the Hobbesian world view in me.

I think that human history by and large is driven by scrambling for limited resources. Another desire is to get out of control by and obtaining control in areas of interest. This is not something I conclude by some evolutionary psychology study but more of a casual observation in reading history.

Control is important because confrontation and conflict can be costly. The kings have been doing this for centuries. On a small scale small guys like us are forging our own control in business. On a bigger scale nations like U.S. and Russia are propping proxy forces in Syria. China is exerting its financial influence by being the debtors for many countries’ infrastructure projects.
I disagree here. There's no emprical basis for this claim in any way. Much of published history is driven by an ideological machine. Even art is infiltrated by the war machine among other elements. But you or I can find beautiful truth in the hardest hard science, or in music, or in the sacred, or altered states, or empirical experiences. Otherwise I find most everything left over is just belief after belief. We need this customary thinking to practice the habit of being ourselves.
But these habits and these everyday selves don't encompass consciousness. Their limitation is proven during altered states, which are my research focus by the way.

Something remains when the everyday self is discarded. The ahayuasca users sometimes do contact this essential transcending experience of "presence," and so does a practicing Christian. Or an agnostic, good or bad. In fact 83 percent of the general population has experienced a blissful altered state. And so would @Bearcorp if he's spritually deep. There was another thread here on ahayuasca in which he commented that he's have to pass on the altered state. In fact, the altered state can occur without administererd psychedelics. Bliss is not dependent on drug hallucinations There are specific empirical conditions in which this extreme conscious state is possible.

Hobbes never touched upon the subject of extreme joy and bliss.
 
Last edited:

broswoodwork

Intermediate User of the Flying Guillotine
Read Fastlane!
Read Unscripted!
Speedway Pass
User Power
Value/Post Ratio
313%
Oct 16, 2015
890
2,790

Suzanne Bazemore

Silver Contributor
FASTLANE INSIDER
Read Fastlane!
Read Unscripted!
Summit Attendee
Speedway Pass
User Power
Value/Post Ratio
220%
Sep 30, 2018
451
993
Spring, TX
I think purpose, not happiness, gives life meaning. Of course I want to be happy, and I want to live a long time, and I want that for everyone, but purpose is what gives me fulfillment, and that purpose sometimes doesn't make me happy at all. Easing someone's life and making the world a better place is sometimes fun and beautiful, and sometimes it is hard.
 
Dislike ads? Remove them and support the forum: Subscribe to Fastlane Insiders.

diogoatmelo

Contributor
Read Fastlane!
User Power
Value/Post Ratio
82%
Oct 30, 2019
50
41
28
Portugal
If you haven't read Viktor Frankl's Man's Search For Meaning, you should.

He argues that it's not we that should ask life "What's the meaning of life?" but that it's life that asks us what's the meaning of our lives. Something along those lines.

He says that ultimately the meaning of life is finding the correct answer for the problems that arise and fulfilling the tasks that are thrown our away.

I agree that there's no one correct answer, it's different from person to person.
 

Post New Topic

Please SEARCH before posting.
Please select the BEST category.

Post new topic

Guest post submissions offered HERE.

Latest Posts

New Topics

Fastlane Insiders

View the forum AD FREE.
Private, unindexed content
Detailed process/execution threads
Ideas needing execution, more!

Join Fastlane Insiders.

Top