What's the point of living?

[Mitera Nikkou]

Just wondering.

[Mendi-chan]

Um... How bout... to see how much debt one can accumulate?

[Snow Dragon]

Well, since we don't get a choice in the matter, I'm not sure it has to have a point.
Same with dying, really.

[Beyond]

My philosophical answer: To make the difference.

My scientific answer: To spread it.

[Chibi MitchellTF]

To find happiness, or possibly even something beyond happiness.

Other options include gaining immortality by always being remembered, carrying on our genes, or to make the world a better place.

[Rowan]

"To exist" to put it simply.

Simply existing is one of the greatest marvels of the universe! To be sentient and alive! What a marvelous thing! To love and feel and touch and hate and experience and be aware!

[Beyond]

I find this story related to the question...

Smiling at the Sixteen Moonlit Nights

[Musashi]

I guess it depends on what you believe. There may be no point at all... just all part of some cosmic accident that resulted in various lifeforms, and we're just one of them. So we just exist, and then we die, and that's that.

Or maybe the point is as some religions say, to live as nicely as you can so that you may one day achieve ultimate peace and happiness in the afterlife. Or burn for eternity. >_>

Or maybe it's all part of some great plan, maybe to try and achieve ultimate enlightenment by living one life after another, gathering information, until we've learned everything we can.

Or perhaps we are naught but the science experiment of aliens! Or maybe like an ANT FARM! :O

[Rowan]

I can tell you one thing for sure:


I saw the topic and thought "Oh no! I'm gonna have to talk someone down! Where do I find the suicide hotline numbers!?"

You had me worried!

[Mitera Nikkou]

I was just wondering since I haven't yet found a point to it. Or, to put it another way, I haven't found any point that I care for. Besides which, you can't talk someone down when they're down already; so, no worries.

For the past three to four months I think I've spent an average of at least twenty hours in my room each day. The living room is a much more comfortable place to sit, but I've rarely had any access to it since our household had two live-ins, since they both had no homes. One of them moved into a new home this past Friday, but I'm still uncomfortable around the other guy. And he likes to watch Westerns, War movies and wrestling...

Add to that the fact that, during this whole time, I have not had the opportunity to get new manga, anime or video games. And then I overwhelmed my poor, pathetic brain with too many activities and am currently trying to wrestle it back into gear so I can focus on getting things done. The activity in the first half of April is the cause for my severe lack of activity in the latter half. Although I don't really think that anyone noticed. Boo!

So, y'know, with lots of time by myself and my disorderly thoughts, I spiraled into existentialism and wondered why I bothered with anything when everything that matters to me is a lost cause. I don't know why I'm still at MSF anymore; it's a bigger challenge for me to be social than most could realize... Well, I don't think that anyone really has an idea either way. I'm just a fish out of water, flopping around aimlessly for my element, wondering if said element even exists. I just don't want to spend the rest of my days suffocating.

[Rowan]

This I understand better than you might think.

I am not comfortable in social situations. Even little ones. I spend a lot of my time on the computer because of this. I have 3 good friends currently, all of whom I know only via computer. For all but the earliest years of my life, I have been a man at conflict with himself over almost every topic. Social vs. Nonsocial, Aggressive vs. Defensive, typically if you can think of a topic I'll be divided over it somehow; I have very few strong beliefs anymore, even my religion has fallen to the inexorable assault of my logical mind leaving me without a spiritual shelter. (Consider myself Agnostic currently.) And if strangers were living in my home, I'd rarely leave my room either.

Not knowing you or your home life I can't offer up much advice except this: If you believe that life will get better, if you take what joy you can gather from life and revel in it no matter how insignificant it may seem, if you roll with life's punches and keep moving forward, no matter how slowly, things will get better. Probably not quickly, but it will happen. I do get a very strong vibe that you're a good person, and I'm rarely wrong, so just keep trucking. The world needs more good people. Every day, if you just take one step towards your goal, you'll make some progress, and I and others will be cheering for you as you do it. If I could I'd carry you on my back and get you there myself, but this is something you need to do. But you don't need to do it alone if you don't want to.

[Tiaiel]

The point of living lies not in life itself.
We all are beings which just were thrown out in the world. We had no power about weather we wanted to be born, or not. We did't went to the world, the world "came to us". Understandable we are totally puzzled. We ask the life: Why am I here? What is my duty?
But the life never answers. It's some kind of mean, but since we are left alone with the question, we have the ultimate freedom to answer it however we want.
We are the ones who give the life and the world a sense.
We can say that a weapon is meant to murder, or we can say a weapon is meant to protect. A museum can be the source of boredom or joy. I the same way we decide, what our life is actually about.
I mysef believe life is about growing.
When I was younger I rarely talked to anybody. In the breaks in my schooltime I read books, becouse I wasn't really interested in other persons. They bullyed me a bit becouse my head was always in a book and far away from them. I thought, if they are stupid, I don't need them.
Then I grew up to like people more then before.
At least some of them.
I found out, that must of the people aren't that bad, and that there are some realy nice persons. I believed, that I had nothing to loose and just talked with them. Those demonstrated acceptance for my strangenesses became my friends.
Sometimes I lost some pieces of my pride, but I don't think, that pride is that much worth, compared to driendship.

Tose who collect their time behind the computer are often very lovable persons. Most of them are very sensitive, what is the source of their fear.
Especially here on MSF it's some kind of hard to find people who are not sweet.
Maybe we are left alone with the question of life. But we are not left alone in the life itself.
That's what I believe ^.^

[Queen Octavia]

The point in living for the moment is to advance our science and our species to the point where we can understand the point in living.

[Snow Dragon]

The point in living for the moment is to advance our science and our species to the point where we can understand the point in living.

Ooh! Ooh! I want to change my answer to what Bond said!

[Selena Aninikkou]

So, y'know, with lots of time by myself and my disorderly thoughts, I spiraled into existentialism and wondered why I bothered with anything when everything that matters to me is a lost cause. I don't know why I'm still at MSF anymore; it's a bigger challenge for me to be social than most could realize...

I ask myself the same questions every day.