Are you pursuing for the answer to the meaning of life like many others? Having difficulties recognizing the purpose of your core existence? The answer is simpler than you think right now.
The usual nonsense
Do you spend time trying to decipher the number 42, used by Douglas Adams in his bestseller, The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, where he used the number as an Answer to Life, the Universe and Everything?
Stop doing that. You’re wasting your time.
Late Mr. Adams, according to his own testimony, picked the random number while sitting in his garden, writing the book. All he knew was that it has to be a number, that’s all.
Accidentally…
ASCII 42
In programming, an asterisk is commonly used as a sort of “whatever you want it to be” symbol. The wildcard.
ASCII language is the original way that enables computers to execute tasks. It’s the most basic computer operative software. And in it, 42 is the designation for the asterisk(*).
The GIANT COMPUTER was asked what the true meaning of life is. It answered as a computer would.
The answer? Anything you want it to be.
If you are not familiar with the title or Adam’s concept, the “giant computer” returned the number 42 as the answer and ever since, people are trying to find the pattern or the reason why this almighty computer returned that particular number. Just Google the term and you’ll see how many different “findings” or “revelations” are there.
In reality:
We can assign the meaning to every single number or even the sequence of numbers because of two interconnected reasons:
- certain geometrical regularities occurring in the cosmos (i.e. fractals);
- our innate tendency to search for patterns and make sense even in the most chaotic environment.
The true meaning of life
We used Mr. Adams as an example to show you how futile these attempts to find the answer on the question — that in reality doesn’t even exist — really are.
Here’s what’s happening in reality:
The only reason why you exist is simply because it’s possible to make another one, just like you.
Don’t’ feel bumped. As you’ll soon realize, once you accept this for a fact, life suddenly becomes easier!
Therefore, as my father-in-law said the other day, “It’s easy to live. The hard part is knowing how to enjoy the life.”
You came to life, ergo you exist, whether you’re “thinking” or not. There’s nothing spiritual in the entire deal. It’s just the natural occurrence of merging atoms into molecules, creating more complex chains.
It’s just that we become aware of our existence!
The problem
Our primitive ancestor, who hunted for a living, led seemingly relaxed life. No bills to pay. No rush hours. No endless waiting in lines. No ruthless working schedules. It seems that his lifestyle was simple and stress-free!
Old hairy bastard couldn’t care less about the “meaning of life.” All he cared for was finding the food source. With the emergence of weapons, team hunting and ability to build the fire, the entire deal became easier.
Contemporary man, on the other hand, burdened with financial obligations, imposed by our modern society, sometimes reaches the breaking point and start questioning his “purpose” or the “meaning of life.”
The usual questions are simple and straightforward:
- Is it supposed to be this hard?
- What’s the point of living anyway?
- Can I be free?
So, what is your purpose? What is the purpose of every living human being?
From the perspective of biological purpose, the point is to survive just enough to propagate and perhaps few years after to help raise the youngster(s).
After you successfully rebuild the cycle, your “purpose” is what you make it, and that’s the critical point to keep in mind!
Because, there’s another meaning of life or the purpose, many fail to realize and/or acknowledge.
Once we stood erected, something happened in our brains. Our neuronal network got upgraded with mirror neurons. Pretty soon, we ditched the hedonism and gathered into the groups.
Since then, our every action had — and still has — only one goal – to help the group.
Ask yourself:
Beside possible successful propagation of the species, what have you done so far for the benefit of the group – the humankind?
You see, this system, which we’ve built only most recently, is allowing us to live truly FREE – for the first time ever. It took over 4 million years to reach this point in evolution. No other species on this planet has the types of perks we made for ourselves.
For comparison, we can observe the similarities and differences in survival odds between the lion cub and the human baby.
We have something, a certain advantage, other species lack
Lion cub, similar to human baby, totally depends on the ability of the pride to hunt for the food. If that food source is scarce, cub will suffer – again, same as the human baby. However, if that food source ceases to exist, lion cub, along with other members of the group will inevitably die.
Human baby won’t, because we have developed means to even circumvent this most common problem. Furthermore, in more developed human communities, baby will have plenty means to grow and develop – regardless of the fact that he/she resides in the middle of the desert, such as the case in Arizona or Nevada, in States. Every other species in that environment struggles for life. Humans don’t.
And we don’t because something is forcing us to do more than just roam around and scavenge for a viable food source.
That something is a neat combination in our brains – mirror neurons and serotonin neurotransmitter.
As we have already explained in few instances, human beings live in a constant state of duality between how we see ourselves and how others are seeing us. Therefore, our every expression must be validated by the group in order for us to experience the positive effects of reward chemicals – serotonin and dopamine being the most important ones!
When some expression gets rejected, serotonin activation voids. As the result, we fall in a state of acute depression. We feel “down.”
The only way to kickstart again, is to do something that will impress people. More people we manage to impress with our solution, more benefits we are harvesting.
For instance, Bill Gates made Windows, impressing many people. His level of success and subsequent level of freedom grew proportionally. Same is currently happening with Elon Musk. More people are accepting his solutions in a field of renewable energy sources, more satisfied he gets.
It’s a simple formula where one moves up on the societal ladder, taking the leading position – the original purpose of mirror neurons and serotonin neurotransmitter, or the biochemical way to thrive as a group where we start by admiring successes of other(s) to eventually try to replicate and even surpass them, taking the prominent role within our groups.
In the same way, the lack of action causes us to drop down on that same ladder.
Now it’s clear that in order to live a “happy” life, one must achieve 2 things:
- propagate
- impress the others
Fail to do at least one and you’ll suffer the consequences, whether you’re aware of it or not.
Even in case where propagation can’t occur, just the fact that you’ve impressed the group with your achievement, has the positive effect on your state of mind.
The question is: How do you do that?
How do you impress the others now when you successfully ensured the continuation of our species by raising a young person – the new member of our society?
When the problem is observed through the prism of our current setup, we can draw the line between two points:
- A) the rule of income,
- B) overall satisfaction with life.
The rule is simple: you’ll be paid proportionally to the value you’re bringing to the market and not the penny more or less.
How that affects your level of satisfaction?
Answer the following:
What you do for a living?
Why do you do it?
Your first response — the automatic association — was MONEY.
And it’s only natural because this is the way we live now. We use the virtual value in exchange of goods. Money is buying the shelter and providing the food. It became our new tool and weapon, same as spears and bows were in the past.
Nowadays, all you need is MONEY and you can acquire almost anything you want.
Yet, there are 2 overlooked problems:
- The million dollar question of How to make money!
- Even when you start making decent money, something seems to be missing!
Making money is easy. You must sell something. That’s all. This is either selling your own labor or some type of solution.
Lately, there’s even the third option, enabled for the general population only most recently, and that’s Forex where you “predict” the trend of a currency pair (virtual value) in x amount of time and make money on a pip difference (starting and end value difference). It’s a high-risk investment, not suitable for everybody because the losses can far exceed deposited money. Yet, it doesn’t require selling of your labor nor building a solution to be sold on the open market.
We are mentioning it just to bring closer the sheer size of all these amazing advantages we’ve built for ourselves to completely remove the nature’s principal notion of the survival of the fittest. In case of our species, one can literary be completely disabled, spending time in a wheelchair, not being able to develop a solution of his own, and still become the wealthiest man on the planet, using this third option.
But, let’s get back to our two principal ways of making money. Furthermore, let’s assume that you’re doing well. Even if you don’t, you’ll realize what to do to make it happen.
What’s that thing that’s been missing?
Answer to this is in the same time the answer to your quest – the meaning of your life or the purpose after successful propagation or if no propagation had occurred, regardless of the reason. Because, that’s your problem. Kids are grown, ready to leave for good. Or there are any nor will it ever be. Now what?
Well, that’s one purpose marked as “completed” or “N/A” or “non-applicable.”
How about we move to other one now?
The problem with “jobs” or entrepreneurship that doesn’t include building things is exactly that – you don’t have the feeling that you’re making things! Your achievement doesn’t take a physical shape and as such – it seems like it doesn’t exist. Because, as a visual species, we rely on physical shapes – something we can see and touch.
Trivial and irrelevant as it may sound to you, this, my friend, is the sole reason why you sometimes experience certain anxiety or even fall in a state of depression. It’s even more emphasized in professions such as marketing and sales or software development. We are talking about any type of entrepreneurship or job that relies on intellectual abilities only.
The solution to all your current problems is simple:
- Make something with your own hands and make it applicable for more than one person!
That’s something you’ve been missing all this time and it is directly connected with your primitive program – the one that you can, in fact, bypass or overrule from time to time, yet the predominant one!
All these years you were neglecting your true purpose and that’s building stuff with your own two hands and brain potentials. Hardly anyone realizes the negative effect of years doing intellectual works only. It’s not how we are designed in the first place. At least, we, the men.
Opposable thumbs and advanced brains are here for only 3 purposes:
- Providing
- Protecting
- Building
You see, our neocortex, while it serves the purpose of advanced problem solving, still isn’t enough to keep us satisfied with our lives.
That’s the reason why you’re seeing sudden career shifts and even the general lifestyle changes of many successful CEOs. People just wake up one morning, realizing that there’s something more to life than just numbers.
Some find comfort in spiritual stuff while others set themselves to impress the masses. Yet, in many cases, not even the alternative helps. Missing factor of long-lasting happiness – building physical objects, cannot be found in spiritual or yet another intellectual. Furthermore, building something that fails to receive the validation from the others, has a short-living positive effect.
As the man, you need more if you truly want to live a happy and satisfying life, no matter how much money you make. Shit load of money does provide some men with seemingly everything.
The question is: can it be even better? Could Warren Buffet’s life be even more fulfilling than it already is? Is money truly everything?
Before we answer that, let’s reflect on something that’s been bothering you and every other man on this planet:
Is it supposed to be that hard? Isn’t there some easier solution?
In your opinion, which option seems to be the “easier” one?
- Living in a contemporary city; or
- In the wilderness, surviving on hunter-gatherer principles and early form of agriculture?
The majority naturally picks the option #1 – the cities.
Yet, they seemed repulsed by the idea in the same time. A certain dissonance occurs inside their neuronal network because as much as they appreciate the commodity of the city; everyday financial struggle, common in our contemporary society, is making them considering (daydreaming) about the option #2.
Some even detach from the matrix and head into the unknown. We have these communities of “isolationists” all over the world and they claim how they are living happy and fulfilling lives!
When all things are considered, none of the groups made it easier for themselves. In each scenario, there are hard tasks that must be executed with highest efficiency otherwise, you’re risking almost certain starvation.
Well, at least in the wilderness. If you reside in urban areas, society will ensure your survival even if you lose all means. That’s why we have social welfare.
Those who decided to detach from the modern society however, can’t really use this perk. Fail to ensure the food and heat source and you’ll lay your bones before the end of the winter. Make a simple wrong step and you’re fucked because there’s no rescue anywhere near. A simple cracked bone in your leg can be the cause of your death.
That’s the risk associated with the choice to live in isolation in wilderness because, in its essence, this “alternative” goes against the original program.
We are built for the life inside the close groups and not the isolation.
If you are isolated, you can’t possibly “impress” the others. Subsequently, the initial enthusiasm will diminish and you’ll fall into a state of chronic depression. Even if you are seemingly self-sustainable and self-adequate, you’ll turn into an aggressive being, repulsed by the very thought of having someone in your vicinity. How satisfying would that be, honestly?
It’s clear that isolation in wilderness cannot be the key.
In the same way, life in the cities and other urban areas that contain our modern perks, while seemingly great, has one serious limitation. That limitation, along with the alleged matrix we are all living in, presents a certain obstacle, causing men to keep falling in a state of dissonance (depression; anxiety).
As you will see, there’s a secret option “C.” Once you realize it, everything will make sense.
