by D. Victor

Created on: December 15, 2008   Last Updated: October 29, 2010

Finding the purpose is life is a philosophical dilemma that has no definite or singular answer. This doesn't mean that few have tried however. Even the average guy may attempt to contemplate what the purpose of life is. Some may claim that our ultimate purpose is to be happy or to raise a family. I recall an erstwhile co-worker who unsophisticatedly opined that our reason for being is sex. His over-simplified theory was that everything we are or do is either indirectly or indirectly motivated by sex.

To compensate for such rubbish is impossible, but it represents how purposeless life seems to some people. My contemplation of life's purpose lasted for many years; since I was a teenager in fact. At one point, I decided that life was solely about meriting a desirable place in the afterlife. To many, life's purpose is inextricably linked to afterlife ambitions.

Then I attempted to think of life's purpose in a somewhat secular way. What if we imagined that there's no heaven? John Lennon suggested that it'd be easy if we try. Without the afterlife, would we have a purpose? Some atheists would feel that their lives have a purpose. However, whether such a purpose would have a higher meaning would be highly debatable.

Most of us are preoccupied with the material world in any event. Our goals are sometimes defined by gaining higher levels of comfort or pleasure. However, equating goals with purpose is not correct in philosophical terms. Those goals are merely the means to some end. The dilemma resides in the nature of that end. What we do, what we have and what we aspire to be should probably not be our sole purpose. It may imply that those who have already self-actualised have a limited purpose.

When I tried to consider life's purpose beyond religion and spiritual development, I realised that we may be "Waiting for Godot" as Samuel Beckett's play suggested. My mind was dormant on this issue for years, until my co-worker's earnest nonsense. I tried to consider that limited point of view, but the perspective is anti-reality. That some people are celibate would immediately discount such a purpose. Few (particularly spiritual persons) would accept that someone who is sex-less would have no purpose.

Life, from a secular or non-spiritual perspective would just be about survival. Sex is merely a very small aspect of that. Could it be that our existence is premised on our own survival? If that were the case, then our higher purpose should be ensuring the survival of our own

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