Does Life Have a Purpose?

This is the kind of question that non-practitioners of philosophy ask themselves, this is how they approximate the kinds of inquiries entertained by those who practice philosophy. However one may paraphrase it, the same meaning always remain: the question of the existence of reality's inner necessity.

This question is the question that is immediately revelant to their everyday lives: if everything has been for naught, then why continue living? This, too, is a paraphrase of Albert Camus's assertion of philosophy's greatest and overriding concern. For purposes of brevity, we will not elaborate on this concern in this blog entry.

This question arises when the self-certainty one upholds in their inner being cracks and crumbles under the weight of reality's infinite capacity for surprise. This question, for all its worth, bears the mark of a genuine philosophical question: the ontological status of its answer, an answer adequate to the question, is not knowable in advance. A question that is a "mystery," unlike the questions that are "problems," the questions that fall under the purview of the natural sciences.

This question is most often answered in advance by us. One could say:

We live in order to make a better world. We live so that we could see the beauty of this world. We live in order to love. We live because it is a fact of life that we, and not others, are born. We live in order to not disappoint our parents. We live in order to fulfill our purpose, whatever that is. We live in order to find our purpose, the only adventure available to modern humans. We live because we cannot afford to die. We live in order to experience the pleasures of life.

These things, and more, are just mere externalities. These things cannot hope to answer the question posed before us. For these miss the point. The question is badly posed.

In truth, the real formulation of the question lies not in answering the question, but looking past it, so that we can look at reality with clearer eyes. We contort the way reality appear before us so we can answer this question; this only extends the grip of the question in our innermost soul.

The true formulation of this question lies inside you, and only you can bring it to the light.