Comment by sbf501 | Hacker News Reader

Comment by sbf501 | Hacker News Reader

Start one level up: why do you want or need a "purpose"?

Purpose/calling is meaningless IMHO. I opted for "pushing my comfort zone". Something I learned from a woman I was dating when I was 20 (she was 9 years older and entering the Peace Corp). Now rapidly reaching the other side of 50, I seek to be content and without dissonance in my day-to-day life. I have routines I enjoy, no bucket list, and time to let my mind wander to whatever tickles my fancy.

Instead, expand your horizons as much as possible. Read. Study. Try new things. They don't have to be expensive things, this isn't about privilege. Anyone can try drawing, or writing music, or reading philosphy, or long distance running, or volunteering, or sexual experimentation, ... things that push your comfort zone and force you to see the world a new way. If you have the means, travel to foreign countries and get lost, skydive, surf, scuba dive, play in a band, take a dance class, take any class at a college that seems interesting, take a Toastmasters class and give speeches, change jobs.

The more you bend yourself (without breaking) the more you will learn about what gives your life contour.

You might never find purpose, but hopefully you will find peace and delivery from the restlessness you have expressed.

He answers your first question in the first paragraph:

> There are plenty of studies that show that having a "purpose" and working after it is correlated with higher happiness or well being.

I'm not denying that what you mention can bring happiness, but you can do all that and still benefit from having "a purpose".

Your answer can be helpful to some but it's the same as this StackOverflow meme of "How do I do A in B? Do C instead".

Shouldn't you be posing the same question to yourself though? Why do you want or need to push your comfort zone?

It's fun

Careful there, no reason to risk triggering an existential crisis on otherwise happy folks :P

I would welcome it! :P

As an aside: I'm glad I've spent years getting used to roller-coasters, because I've found aging health issues are an entirely new comfort zone challenge that I don't have control over. I've had some "prep" so to speak, but they are coming and I have to be ready to just go with the new body changes, whatever they may be.

Boredom is real. You can always decide you’ve pushed enough and slow down. But if you get lazy and lounge around for too long, you may forget how to get off your ass and do something.

“Get busy living or get busy dying.” - Ellis Boyd “Red” Redding (played by Morgan Freeman in The Shawshank Redemption)

> But if you get lazy and lounge around for too long, you may forget how to get off your ass and do something.

I've had this conversation with my own therapist, and other therapists that I know over the years. It is a form of anxiety: "oh, no, I'll forget to be productive."

According to them, it is VERY common in engineers, apparently. Perhaps because of technology's rapid pace? Personally, I was able to control this little demon of a thought by looking at my entire life OUTSIDE of work, and how I simply can't stop learning: I do it constantly, I'm always picking up new things to try when I'm bored, and I revisit the same things at larger epicycles (know how many times I've picked up a big C++ project since the 90's, just for fun?)

Ah, excellent question!

Words are funny things, they have different meanings, and in the case of words with such broad opportunity it is my responsibility to clarify myself. That's why philosophy books always start out defining terms.

I put "purpose" and "calling" (and "mission") into a category of fixed, one-dimensional, outcomes. "My calling is thing X, that is all I do."

Same thing with "meaning". It is too big to be meaningful, ironically.

For me, what gives life value is experiencing peace of mind and detachment from suffering: it is what it is, along with novelty so that it doesn't get boring.

There is no "meaining" in there, no "purpose", no "calling", in this world-view.

I'm trying to steer OP away from a certain fixity, which in my experience (both in myself and in observing others, and in reading) only leads to more anxiety.

Interesting thoughts, thanks for the reply! I am very much in agreement with you on some of these points. I think you're absolutely right that people can think in a way that is too existentially broad and disconnected from concrete reality in a way that actually magnifies their suffering, rather than reducing it.

That said, I think "value" can be just as broad/general and, in some uses, might actually be being used as synonymous with "purpose." I don't think people generally have in mind the Aristotelian "final cause" (the end, that for the sake of which a thing is done) when they use the word "purpose". OP may have been, I don't know.

The way I think about it — and I think what most have in mind when they ask such questions, although, not necessarily OP, I acknowledge — is a feeling that you are using your time in a way that is worthwhile. Or, perhaps, in psycho-physiological terms, experiencing a signaling that says "there aren't more important things you I could be occupying myself with" (not at every moment, but generally).

Jordan Peterson was once asked about meaning and the way he articulated it gave me a lot of food for thought. He said: "To me, meaning is implication for action for reorganization of the perceptual frames that frame action." I think this is very useful and sort of responds to some of your points/concerns in that it anchors the question of meaning in action.

thanks for sharing!

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