Quote:
Originally Posted by impaul99  Simplified even further, the purpose of life becomes to live life in such a way so that your spirit learns and ascends up the scales of consciousness as much as possible, while at the same time helping others do the same as well, INSTEAD OF the purpose of life being to "be happy". |
I wanted respond to this to above quote...
Lately I've been thinking about context and meaning as well. Contemplating this, I began thinking about the existence or non-existence of god and how that would relate to my decision making. I had a revelation of sorts...god (assuming he exists) does not add any source of meaning to life, at least to me.
Any state of pervasive euphoria, pleasure, love, beauty, unity, peace transcendence, "nowness" etc. makes concern for a higher power or purpose melt away. In those states I feel temporarily complete. I've realized that meaning isn't external, it is internal. This all seems obvious in retrospect but social conditioning is sometimes a difficult thing to unravel.
The point is, is that I've come to the opposite conclusion. That the meaning of life is, basically, to be happy.
So, from that perspective why don't I just start eating junk food, doing drugs or constantly seek sexual gratification. Simple, because these things don't make you happy, only temporarily, in the long run you'll feel sick, burnt out or bored.
I think your conclusion about ascending yourself is a good one if it makes you happy. The decision to be self-actualized or to fulfill your potential is considered a need according to some theories of motivation in psychology. So, its probably something you need to do to be content anyway.