Purpose:

Reasons to Live and to Try

Fulfillment requires purpose.
There are countless to live and to aspire to something and it is very important to have
5such purposes for if there is no purpose to life then there is no significant purpose to anything we
do at all. Purpose can be separated into two varieties, ultimate purpose and relative or temporal
purpose.
Everyone has some relative purpose as it is a constantly fluctuating and dynamic thing
closely related to motivation and can be a very influential force upon our motivations and can
10even be the same things as our motivations in certain circumstances. Relative purposes are short-
sighted purposes such as the reason(s) we get up in the morning, why we continue to go to work
day after day and, indeed, why we do any of the trivial day to day tasks not governed by habit.
Relative purpose can even be your purpose through someone else’s perspective. We all have
purpose on some relative level.
15 More important then is Ultimate Purpose which governs our relative purposes and
influences everything we do from cognitive thoughts to habitual actions. This greater purpose is
much more stable than our relative purposes but it is not permanent or definite either although
society at large would have you believe otherwise by charging others whose opinions change and
develop as ‘flip-floppers’. Ultimate purpose is simply much more deeply seated into our minds
20and requires much more effort to change. Concepts, ideas and beliefs make up this higher form
of purpose rather than the ‘reasons’ and rationalizations of relative purpose. Things like Karma,
Heaven, Hell, reincarnation, love, and virtues are the typical assortment of concepts used to
define our individual ultimate purpose(s).
It is easy to have a strong and resolute purpose for those who believe in God as a
25conscious and merciful, yet just, individual. This segment is not for those people.
If everyone has a purpose why do so many feel as if they do not? This is usually the case
because people fail to realize the value of purpose itself, especially adolescents and petty adults.
It isn’t that people feel they have no purpose, it is that their purpose is insignificant and
unimportant by their own perceptions and beliefs. For atheists I am sorry, but in these
30circumstances I have no advice for you just yet. For agnostics and everyone else however, you
have an edge because you can believe in God. Whether you understand him/it/them does not

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 matter for the sake of purpose an, indeed, thinking that you understand may only hinder your
purpose.
Let’s start with ‘I believe there could possibly be something called ‘God’. Ok, great. So
35what are some of the advantages in not believing in God. . . hmm, good question. I suppose you
would have a good image and reputation with the atheist crowd but that’s about it. What about
the advantages for believing in God? Well, depending upon which form of God you decide is
right or true it can vary infinitely but let’s start with some of the best advantages.
Belief in God can constitute eternal justice and because of this those who believe do not
40have to worry about keeping track of who has offended them. It allows them to not be slaves to
grudges, ill-will, anger and hatred and even makes forgiveness of others possible. This alone
ought to encourage a belief in God because it frees up your mind and energy from obsessing over
‘justice’ of the mortal sort and enables us to focus on more important things. Believing in God
also has the ultimate benefit of enabling us to live by nearly any purpose imaginable and when
45life has purpose we don’t generally have the time to feel lost, self-pitying, or guilty.
In all fairness let me resume from a godless perspective, so we are scientific atheists
again. What point is there in life? Honestly, there may not be one on the ultimate level. But as
purely rational people how do we keep plugging along each day? Why isn’t the suicide rate
higher? Why do we not kill, steal and lie? Without God or souls we have to rely upon provable
50facts to develop respect for the universe and its inhabitants around us and even for the faithless it
can be done in spite of the added degree of difficulty.
The faithless live for one reason only, themselves. Some may claim ‘for the betterment of
mankind’ but why does mankind matter if you die and it’s all over? This can only be justified by
irrational ideas and concepts such as love or being ‘morally right’ which may as well be faith in
55God from the truly empirical standpoint of observable proof. So getting back to living for solely
selfish reasons that one can observe as proofs as an individual. . .
If you find yourself completely unable to stomach the concept of God it is still possible to
find life relatively purposeful and enjoyable. Perhaps you find serving others or helping others to
be worth living for because it makes you feel good. Perhaps you live to seek thrills and
60adventures to share with others because their admiration makes you satisfied. Or maybe you live
to seek political, social or financial acumen above that of others so that you can feel superior,
accomplished and important. These can all give you purposes to live but what would you do

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 without others to help, to admire you, to how power over, to grant you your satisfaction?
Personally if I am doing these things for myself (since living for others’ benefit is ultimately
65irrational) I would feel like I had a rather shallow life, always dependent upon everyone else for
my self-satisfaction. If it were simply about feeling good our atheist friends would simply
indulge in a constant fog of drugs until death do they part and, shy of the death part, I have been
there and can assure you there are better things to live for. Crime in general can be satisfying
since, without God, there is no definite right or wrong but you only have to be caught once or
70twice in felonious acts to realize that the odds are against you and it is not worth the gamble,
again speaking from experience. I feel that it is quite safe to say life cannot be based upon
feeling good alone and that satisfaction must also be found in other areas.
Personally,, I find it difficult to have purpose without irrational thoughts and if
irrationality is going to be allowed it may as well be God but the best purpose I ever did find in
75my faithless days was to live as much life as possible. To seek knowledge and experience
develops wisdom which is very satisfying to the self although when it comes right down to it
wisdom and knowledge are also things outside of the self which, according to the empirical
atheist, end with us at death.
So, you see, all ultimate purposes are irrational as they are based upon, hope, love, faith
80and fear which are directly irrational or else lust, greed and vengeance which are indirectly
irrational as they will ultimately lead to one’s own destruction through the hate, malice and envy
of others. The only purpose(s) that the purely rational person can have are of the relative type
and this is only by negligence of thought about ultimate purpose. Relative purposes eventually
lead to irrational purposes anyway; I get out of bed in the morning so I can go to work, be on
85time and not get fired; I need to not get fired so I can feed myself, pay my bills and not die.
Unfortunately without a higher purpose of irrational ilk I cannot explain why I need to not die so
my relative purposes don’t much matter anyhow. Fear is irrational. Love is irrational. And yet in
all of the rational logic in the world it can’t seem to explain why rational logic itself matters one
bit ultimately but if we neglect to think about ultimate purpose at all relative purpose can be
90temporarily quite satisfying.
This is the point where one might expect me to say, “So let us move on now to the
irrational or non-empirical atheist.” Sorry to disappoint but I am not going to bother there. Logic
and being rational are very black and white things in a world of an infinite number of shades of

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 grey. If one is allowed an exception to logic for the purpose of having an ultimate purpose
95wouldn’t that make one ultimately irrational? In the world of logic, yes. In our grey world,
however, this is not necessarily the case and one of man’s greatest challenges, and perhaps even
purposes, is to simply know when it is ‘right’ or ‘true’ to be either rational or irrational.
Now that we have established that even our rational, menial, relative purposes inevitably
lead to an ultimate purpose that is irrational if pursued, we can really start to play.
100 Purposes can now be irrational ‘rationalizations’ and justifications of any sort! We can
continue to live our lives happily because the green and blue pixies that live on the moon have
told us the secret to the absurdity of the duck-billed platypus or because these pixies haven’t ever
been seen or heard and we must prove their existence! How utterly absurd! How ridiculously
ludicrous! And yet how much more fun and inspiring than moping about depressed and morose
105about the pointlessness of life. Which is truly more absurd?
Unfortunately most of the civilized world seems to share the attitude that ‘I just can’t
bring myself to believe. . .’ The world has become so fearful of being taken advantage of or
deceived that most are unwilling to even sit and relax enough to enjoy a ridiculous tale, which
the teller believes whole-heartedly, because so many of us think that we are being intentionally
110deceived or being made the fool of. The inhabitants of the world have become very distrustful
and have come to taking and making everything personal. We have become a world in which
pranksters and bards are criminals and frauds. We have become a world of guilty until proven
innocent and all of this distrust, faithlessness and uptightness has instilled fear in the hearts of
those who would believe in the absurd or create the absurd to believe in. We have largely come
115to live in an artless, drab existence of disclaimers, lawsuits and criminal charges because of our
social dysfunctions and mass paranoia.
Blessed are they that have not seen, and yet have believed. These words may have been
assimilated by religion but the original context is likely to apply far more broadly. Blessed are
the naïve, after all, how many of us would give nearly anything to be cluelessly innocent and
120happily living in the world of our imaginings again as a child? I would consider it a blessing
indeed.
To be so naïve is the ultimate purpose of not needing any purpose at all but to live simply
because living is so fantastically joyous and vivid, magnificently alive! Unfortunately most of us
have responsibilities which preclude naïveté so instead may we live to inspire the miraculous and

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125absurd, to inspire wisdom, love, honor and such things that will allow the naïve to remain so for
as long as is safely possible. May childhood not be sold for knowledge, education, image,
conformity, tradition, or for the sakes of money, productivity or ‘success’. Allow others and
yourself to live for whatever ridiculous notion it is that might inspire greatness in the world. Life
is too wonderful to taint it with the unpleasantness of courts, accusations and of taking offense to
130the minutest of harms. Live for your own purpose(s) and no one elses.

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