Understanding Our Personalities

Understanding Our Personalities

A personality is astoundingly complex. Imagine a mixture of elements that form temperament, elements that we often know as ‘characteristics’, such as emotion/rationality, extrovert/introverted behaviours and creativity/logicality, each with their own scale that determines an element of our character. Each individual has a mixture of these elements to form a personality, meaning that the structure of a personality falls under a sort of multi-dimensional spectrum. Whilst this is hard to comprehend and measure against the power of our individuality, apparently there is an underlying structure regarding this that we can use to conjure what are known as ‘archetypes’ for our personalities. We all have such singular history, our own experience of our lives are entirely solitary; even if two people existed through the same occurrences, they would receive these happenings differently and therefore undergo a different experience. So how can there be such defined structure to our characteristics? And more importantly, how do we come to develop these characteristics?

My immediate understanding is that it’s logical for there to be a structure to our characteristics, because all of nature operates in a logical way. The universe acts as if it has purpose; it operates almost rationally with logical connections and formulaic occurrence. In a sense human decision is the most complex existential action, we can consciously think, step outside of the box and comprehend these natural occurrences; we can decide for ourselves. This will mask the idea that human nature is fully fathomable, but it’s actually untrue. Our personalities are culmination not just of our own human decision, but the action by other humans that occurs around us, formulating this environmental development. This makes for a complex process, but that’s where all the complexity lies, in the process rather than the present reality. Characteristic development when analysed in its most specific progression is unfathomable, but we can easily psychologically analyse to grasp a sense of someone’s personality. As I said, nature is logical, and there are a limited number of elements that contribute to our behaviour. We can mix a number of specific measurements of these elements to find an archetype. For example, I’m an INTJ, or ‘Turbulent Logician’, I tend to think rationally rather than emotionally, have confidence in my ideas, am open-minded, overly analytical, judgemental, struggle maintaining human relationships. I also share traits with the ISTP personality, however. These archetypes very much apply a perfect logic to one of the most chaotic natures; it’s a guide to understanding who we are. I found it somehow comforting that there’s an underlying structure to all of our traits, I feel like I own my space in this world.

So, specifically what forms our personalities? In short it’s a consequence of all of our thoughts, actions, and that of those around us. But what specifically? Its way too complex to logically explain and provide order to the explanation, and here’s why. I believe strong influences to our development are behavioural patterns. Typically, the more we do something, the more we will do it. This leads us to the question: why do we do what we do? We are influenced by our personal judgement, for example our moral compass, or rational thought. But we develop ideas of things such as moral sense, or logical judgement, from those around us and happenings around us. So we essentially develop our own sense of judgement from others’ sense of judgement, by judging the results of their judgement, and vice versa. The way we are is very much reflected in the way we perceive others and are influenced by others, which you can call ‘environmental factors’. This determines how we behave, and more so how we choose to behave. I think this at least scratches the surface in terms of environmental developments, and I’m not a psychologist so I can’t really theorise that vastly. Maybe I should read into it more, or just stop speculating about things on a blog that I truly have no idea about. At least with philosophy no one else has an idea either.

Obviously I can’t ignore genetic influence. We do have predetermined characteristics in that we share genetic traits. This very much applies to my personal life; as a twin I can really observe these patterns, what traits we share from each parent and sometimes consequently share with each other, and other traits we have developed from our behavioural development that is very much influenced by each other. As twins we were always one unit during our early development, because we were treated that way. For example, when placed in social situations as a ‘unit’, I was generally the extrovert of us two, occasionally speaking on behalf of us both, and this has affected our development. Since and even to this day, I’m now unstable in social situations as an introvert striving to be an extrovert, being sometimes too open and not knowing where to draw the line with people I’ve just met. My brother, however, reserves too many of his thoughts during conversations within social environments and is far more hesitant to contribute. He’s also more sensitive to social environments; more wary of the people he’s socialising with and will more easily find a social environment severe. He’s not necessarily uncomfortable because of this, he’s actually more comfortable observing a conversation and I feel like this tendency has given him more empathy than me or the average person because it’s a tendency to observe people and their character. I am however much less judgemental of a person I’ve just met and divert my focus to keeping that social ball rolling, making my logical judgements later on when I’m not with them, meaning my judgements are less fresh and accurate but I’m more likely to get on with a bigger variety of people (more socially versatile, I guess). But this isn’t necessarily a good thing, my brother definitely likes having his inner circle, being surrounded by people he trusts and respects, whereas my tendency to be socially overly active leads me to make connections with people I don’t genuinely care about and so I struggle to maintain these connections. All of these are very sweeping statements and of course depends on the situation, but this is generally the truth. Our genetic traits definitely influenced these early developments, because at that point we have nothing else. But I found this an interesting question that I conjured in my mind: are genetic traits predetermined traits or a matter of developing in a similar way? That I don’t know, but I’d love to ask a psychologist.

I guess my best understanding is that our personalities are defined by our experiences. Our experiences form a culmination of judgements, observations, choices, reactions and many more that determine our external behaviours and internal mentality. In this sense we are very much in control of our personalities, we exist to control ourselves and our lives, so we can condition our lives to influence our personalities. I don’t know if a conscious effort to change our personalities is actually effective, because it is conscious, personalities tend to develop subconsciously by nature. Early developments also have lasting effect and tend to determine our unchangeable traits; we can change ourselves but we can’t press the reset button. Ultimately, our lives are who we are and who we are is our lives. Our existence all encompasses ourselves.

CLIMATE CHANGE

Climate Change

The bird of prey wails in the wisp. It cries with such life as I cry for its own. It scans for its hunt in the sky soaring, hoping, and tomorrow it will look at itself and wonder why. Till the air facades the stars, we smell the smoke in satisfaction, inside of our sad little dream of self destruction - the future is black for us. The truth’s not the truth when it’s screaming, so copy me, copy me. An emission of remission granted, completed, in an incomplete world. Account for this as a cosmic failure and pray for our creation. The expense of false salvation – and failure to listen, we bargain for tomorrow. The sun will rise and the dust will hit the sand with the force of civilisation, the implosion. We are never forever now. An invasion of ill competence will devise a meaning, a warning for us all. With some ultimate possession – a spell of our ignorance with the spirit of panic, we are the victim. On our crisis day our skin is burning with our judgement, and we’re given death with none. A piece of molten rock in the headlights, beads of sweat from the Earth bleed like moral sense. This is a warning.

Philosophy: What's The Point?

Philosophy: What’s The Point?

The meaning of philosophy to all of us is subjective, but from an objective standpoint, what is the actual point in it? If we look at what philosophy is, regardless of the fun we have throwing our opinions about, it’s still essentially empty speculation about things that exist. Not only is the definition of this area of speculation pretty vague, but these speculations always seem to reach no conclusive answers. To any rational approach, there can be a typical ‘what if’ response, being that philosophy is littered with clashing improvable theories throughout history. And that’s the fuel to the fire; philosophy studies our existence, and our existence is so ancient, that so are many of these theories. There’s an omnipresent clash in philosophical study, and a mysterious nature to our existence, that disallows conclusive answers. So considering this, what is the point?

Objectively it’s hard to challenge this, but seeing as I love philosophy I’m going to give it a go. My first challenge is this: is the point of an argument to reach a conclusive answer? The academic/objective standpoint seeks a simple question to answer approach, supported with evidence, but this is not the nature of philosophy. Philosophical theories are built on argument, built on opposing ideas and bouncing opinions, and philosophy is not the only area of study to operate with this nature. History, politics, English literature, music, arts all require our personal interpretations to formulate an argument. You could then argue that these fields lack their ultimate purpose, but I disagree. This process of analysing sources and our own knowledge to formulate opinions and structure arguments is enjoyable to us. Even not on an intellectual level, us as humans by nature enjoy discussion because we value our own opinions. But this academic study without conclusive answer acts as an intellectual challenge that we not only enjoy due to this, but we can never actually dry it

out. The theoretical mobility is endless, so our intellectual feeding is endless. And our intellect, our curiosity, is a fundamental human need that needs to be satisfied, much like our sexual needs or our need to eat. We need to know, and what’s more important to reach a sense of knowing about (for our nature) than the entire existence we find ourselves in?

An objective perception isn’t necessarily how we should value things. Intrinsic point is in itself a specific label for a reason; we don’t understand ‘objective point’ immediately as a ‘point’ entirely. So we can find the value of philosophy in our own enjoyment, self development or understanding. If we didn’t discuss our political issues, decision making would be impossible. Politics is largely philosophical – it considers morality amongst other things. But we have to have a sense of direction, a sense of what we believe if we can’t know, otherwise what would be the point in anything?

As a side note, I guess we can conclude that we ultimately can’t satisfy philosophical questions, which in itself is a philosophical conclusion. Welcome to the paradox of philosophy. Carrying on…

I think when we think of philosophy as pointless, it’s because as we’ve said, there’s no answers. Academically this seems very true, at least historical interpretations are based or pre-existing facts, much like the interpretation of English literature is based on certainly existing texts. Philosophical argument is a lot emptier; it finds itself speculating about what we actually know etc. Understanding philosophy alongside these other more solid subject matters doesn’t satisfy proper understanding of philosophy, however. Fields like music and art have established theories that make our understanding, whereas the established theories of philosophy guide our understanding. Philosophical understanding is personal; many philosophers have argued that these theories stem from our characteristics, mentality and personality, much like a depressed person will sway to nihilist views, whilst other contrasting individuals would disagree for their own personal reasons. After all, our understanding of our existence links directly to our own lives, or is much the same thing, so surely our personalities cause our philosophical understanding? This is why I love philosophy, it’s a journey of self discovery and understanding – how I understand my own life and everything that is happening around me. It makes us more aware of how our person conducts itself with issues such as morals, ethics, behaviour, human nature and the self, all of which amongst many other things are very important to how we live our lives. And this could definitely be argued as an objective value of philosophy, if we even need one.

And going deeper, this leads me to think: is philosophical truth even a positive thing? The idea of us having these conclusive answers to what is right and wrong, or how human beings operate, or what consciousness is.  If philosophical understanding is founded on perceptions that are personal, wouldn’t one ultimate answer to any philosophical questions disregard – or slander millions upon millions of (not just personal thoughts, but) personalities? Our own sense of knowing is too important to us, to the point where (philosophically) actually knowing is something we’d be uncomfortable with anyway. So is philosophy even about finding true answers at all? Evidently it’s more about finding answers that are true to us. So… the only thing philosophy needs for objective value is human beings? How about that?

'Life Just Happens Then It Doesn't'

Life just happens then it doesn’t

Life just happens then it doesn’t. This was a weird realisation I had, probably at a time that I was daydreaming or trying to get to sleep. This isn’t an essay or a particularly elaborate piece of writing, just me sharing this thought.

So, what do I mean by ‘life just happens then it doesn’t’? When taken truly literally, it’s obvious. Of course life happens, life can’t not happen, because something must exist for it to happen. Sounds pretty funny when I read that out. But what I mean by this is that when we come to exist (when we are born), we don’t comprehend this consciously, and the same applies for when we die. When our lives start and stop happening, we can’t stop and think about the actuality of it as it’s happened, we can’t stand and treasure the speciality of that moment, it just sort of happens with no regard for us or how we think about it. The odd reality of our lives that we’re thrown into existence and the minute we begin to comprehend that it’s actually happening and what that means, we’re already so far in that it doesn’t matter that it’s started, because we’re so involved in the present. So it takes even longer, usually until our early adulthood, until we finally think ‘how did I get here?’ And of course as we die, we return to a state of non-existence; obviously we can’t think that we’re dead when we’re dead. We don’t ever get the chance to fully realise our existence, we just sort of do it. This isn’t particularly weird because it’s a simple reality, but it’s an interesting thought, and if anything it’s either pretty depressing or quite uplifting. When faced with these facts, we can either descend into existential crisis or accept and wholesomely embrace this natural experience that we call our lives. I’d personally naturally sway towards the first option, but this is what life is all about; learning lessons, solving our philosophical issues with our experiences, even if life is a confusing process that we can’t ever fully comprehend.

Moral Entropy: Will Humans Stop Caring About Each Other?

Moral entropy: will humans stop caring about each other?

So, what is moral entropy? It’s not actually a fully established theory, but I first heard the term from Garrett Russell from a Christian metalcore band called Silent Planet. He’s responsible for most of their lyrics and their discography is littered with weighty philosophical concepts and social matters.  He refers to moral entropy when discussing human progression and states that we seem to be naturally abandoning our morality due to our progression. What he means by our ‘progression’ is very literal; progression in human discovery, technological advancement etc. He says that we’re very much progressing for the sake of progression rather than progressing for any greater moral cause, because progression means power, status and even purpose.  He says that a by-product of this process is the weaponisation and manipulation of nature for person gain, which only acts as a catalyst in that it distances us from our (very much moral) nature.

I was going to discuss this, but I came across a far more interesting concept of moral entropy to discuss. In preparation for this, I decided to see if moral entropy was in fact an existing theory, and quickly found an article called ‘The Law of Moral Entropy’. It’s written by who I assume is a religious fundamentalist, who states that as Western society secularises its morality is slowly filtering out. His idea of moral entropy is as follows: a secular parent raises a child without what he describes as ‘moral theory’ and consequently the child has a lesser moral compass than the parent, and the cycle continues. He says that the only way the human can regain a full sense of morality in their family tree is to use what he calls a ‘tap root’ which is essentially religion. He uses the metaphor of a dying plant to describe secularism, saying that whilst the roots are now dying, we can’t fully observe what the eventual effects will be once the plant dies, but the tap root will again nourish the plant, giving us moral compass.

This sounds absurd, but he doesn’t do a terrible job in justifying this. The theory does have a logic behind it, it makes sense that religious people are much more conscious of their morality and are therefore more likely to experience things like guilt; it’s unlikely you’ll find an amoral religious person, because they do have a moral ‘theory’, an established logic behind what they believe is good and bad. However I do think this is what has led this writer to his misassumptions. He’s assumed that because a religious person can’t be amoral, a secular person can’t be moral.

To put it simply, you can’t just say that religion is fundamental to morality. That is not how morality operates. The obvious statement to disprove this guy would be that morality definitely predates any organised religion, because as conscious being we’re always going to have an idea of what’s right or wrong. Morality is something we always will have because it’s a property of our consciousness; I believe an amoral human can’t exist. The mistake of believing in amorality in humans is understandable, all we have to do is observe human behaviour to see that people don’t just do bad things, but many don’t even care that they do bad things. We can quickly assume that these people have no sense of morality, but this is incorrect as we’re not seeing the full picture. What we’re not trying to account is the introspective process that occurs when someone does something ‘bad’. They are disregarding their morality rather than being just devoid of it altogether. This is the whole reason hypocrisy exists; we know many that will openly say that they think something is bad and they will then do that thing they have said. They are disregarding their moral sense.

Whilst this is the case, it’s also true that some people just don’t care, but they are also disregarding their morality. Someone could kill someone else and not care at all, but would they want to be killed, or someone they care about killed? Whether this concerns morality or just self-interest is debatable, but their definitely still is moral sense involved. So, if we have a sense of morality, why do we disregard it? It’s because of the nature of morality and why it actually exists. As a property of consciousness, morality in turn interacts with its neighbouring properties, such as ego and emotion, in a way of balance. Much like energy, it can’t be depleted but only its properties changed, and I believe this very much applies to consciousness. Ego can overpower morality, awareness can overpower ego, and introspectiveness can overpower awareness. All of this introspective activity determines the conscious decisions we make, and whether they are moral or not depends on these activities.

So, to answer the question, no we are not losing our morality, and we’ll never lose it. We can only lose our morality if we lose our ability to think consciously, which is massively improbable. It’s possible that society could tame us to become desensitised to our own sense of morality (what a creepy concept), which in a sense is amorality, but again this doesn’t apply to the sweeping statement this religious fundamentalist has made. There are many other ridiculous assumptions and points that this person has made, and lot more to talk about in terms of moral entropy, such as Russell’s theory, so there definitely could be second write-up about this – if I’m feeling it. But what do you think?

Why Do People Believe In God?

Why do people believe in God?

We live in a mass-communicative society. There are lots of thoughts and opinions with lots of space for them to move, with platforms like Twitter. We’ve never lived in a society that forces us to interrogate our own ideas, compare ourselves to others and feel like we need to have our own say to feel a sense of validity to this extent. Amongst all these ideas, why are those that regard religion treated so differently? Well, of many reasons one really stands out to me, being that it can just be a bit of a taboo. A religious faith can be a man’s ultimate truth, essential to how they conduct their lives, essential to their mentality about so many things; lifestyle, human relationships, morals. So to bring to question the value of those beliefs is simply a touchy subject for those people and can definitely alter their mentality concerning you as an individual. Reflecting on the actuality of that just doesn’t sit right with me however. Faith is blind; you can’t see God and you can’t prove his existence, so why do so many people orientate their lives around him? Why aren’t people comfortable just saying ‘I don’t know’?

I’m about to try and conjure some answers as to why people are religious, and I’ll be speaking quite generally based off of my own observations and understanding so take what I say with a pinch of salt. One of my first thoughts when wondering about this was that whilst religion is depicted as a deeply spiritual, introspective thing (something that’s inside of you) the religious beliefs of a person are ironically often influenced by external factors. One of these factors that screams at me is cultural influences. In 2019 I’m not going to throw any nationalities out there, but let’s just say I’m definitely thinking of much more than one example, in fact it applies to pretty much all widely recognised faiths across every continent. The nature of it is simple, someone is parented by fundamentalist religious ideas and in their years of early development have these ideas embedded in their own nature. Of course when they become older they gain to ability the question to these ideas but often either don’t have the freedom to do this or don’t want to do this due to their comfort and settlement in their beliefs. This cycle will in turn repeat, and when it’s so deeply cultural, these ideas will scope across an entire family tree, making the ideas even harder to question. In these families, religion is as much a part of the lifestyle as what they eat together and their social etiquette. It quickly becomes a part of their life and then it always will be. To them, this is the natural way of life, but it’s far from it. My parents were religious, and I was exposed to these ideas rather than manipulated by them. However, these parents moulding the ideas of their children are only doing it because it was done to them. Religion is how they come to understand their own morals and way of life and by nature our responsibility as parents is to guide our children with these ideas. Religion in this sense is very much a trap. Children should be guided with as much open-mindedness as possible; you can govern a sense of morality without religion to hold your hand. But looking deeper, why is religion so deeply embedded in culture? It’s not culture specific, religion is so culturally vast and common; doesn’t this mean it’s a part of human nature, to question these ideas, questioning the idea of the deeper consciousness that made this all happen?

We sway to these ideas naturally for a reason. I believe our struggle to accept death is potentially the bigger factor, consciously or subconsciously. It’s not even a matter of not wanting to just return to a non-existent state with nothing to feel or experience, it’s an inability to fully comprehend it. A quantity of us, many I know included, just can’t accept the idea of not living and breathing. Existence is all we know and all we can understand but for us it is everything. We can only comprehend our own non-existence before we were born because it’s already happened; in the future there’s hope, the possibility of what to many truly makes sense, the continuation of our existence. Because how can we not exist? How can there be nothing? How can we go nowhere when nowhere doesn’t exist? I believe humans have a natural incomprehension of the death and use the afterlife and the idea of something other than the universe as a secure answer.

It’s also a matter of feeling purposeful. What is the point of life is there is nothing other than life. People sway to spiritual explanations to avoid the pure nihilism that they subconsciously recognise (yes that definitely does make sense) as the alternative. Due to some natural mentality, people feel like they need a logical and definite answer as to why they’re here to feel like there’s a reason for sticking around, being nice to people and actually caring about themselves and their lives. Why do you think gang culture and knife crime is so heavily on the rise? And no, it’s not because those in the gangs are non-religious (or maybe they are), it’s because that lifestyle grants them a purpose. These are often people that are socially deprived, with a lack of money and career options looking for validation; something to do and something to strive for (of course there are other linking and underlying factors, it’s a whole other debate after all). Our lives need to be fulfilled because they’re all we have. These points definitely confuse my argument slightly; so are the factors external or internal?

As much as Western society is becoming growingly secular, religion is still fundamental to societal views, people will have religious views much like we have social and political views. Again, we live in a mass-communicative society, there are so many opinions and we always feel like we have to have one of our own to feel equal to others. Religion’s relevance means that people would rather say they’re sitting on the fence, holding somewhat of a placement in the argument, than saying they just don’t care. This leads a lot of new-age Christians and others to initially regard religion and come to their answer. We live in a society where we think too much about what we think.

A lot of these new-age theists will genuinely believe introspectively however, and regard their faith as guidance in their spiritual journey, possibly helping them with any personal struggles or development. It’s a thing that genuinely concerns them as individuals and nothing more, no etiquette or weight. Without delving too deep as I might want to talk about this another time, it’s a spirituality I truly admire.

So why do people believe in God? Religion is and always has been deeply embedded in our social matters, and for this reason there will always be social influences. Whether that is an established culture, or our societal climate, there will always be those influences. But there’s a reason for this, a reason for religion’s omnipresent relevance, and I believe that’s because of our philosophical nature as human beings. We’re self conscious and we deal with this by deriving purpose from ideas we create, or vice versa. Some of us need those concrete ideas to believe regarding the reason we live through every day. Or maybe God embeds these ideas in our subconscious to meet us with his almighty presence. Nah, just kidding.

What Is The Meaning Of Life?

What is the meaning of life?

What is the meaning of life? Our lives are everything to us in a literal sense. Well, our usual perception is that the universe is everything in that the universe is what contains existence, but how can we experience existence without sight, smell and especially conscious thought (in that we as humans are able to comprehend these experiences)? Without our experience there is no existence in that we don’t perceive it, our own existence is integral to our understanding of existence. Whilst this may seem obvious, it begs other questions such as: must life and existence co-exist, or does existence exist to be experienced and if it does, why does it and why does any of it matter? Does the universe need us? Do we have a purpose?

What point am I trying to make from this? Well, this battle to comprehend these things and conjure up answers will often distract us from the true answer as to what the meaning of life actually is. In this struggle many of us will often turn to the idea of a deeper consciousness that’s responsible for our experiences, most commonly known as ‘God’ or ‘a God’, but to reach the true answer of what the meaning of our lives are, we first must disprove the existence of God logically, or at least give the idea far less credibility than is widely assumed. God as an idea isn’t inconceivable; I just consider it unlikely considering the nature of existence. If God is (and I presume he would be) concerned with our existence, whether that be by interest, sentimentality or even responsibility, why do we exist with such a separateness to him? I’m not asking God to descend from the sky to have a chat, I just wonder why we would live in a universe where we can’t access or perceive it’s most fundamental element, and more logically, why we would not coexist with this entity if they are a being that is consciously concerned with us? The general religious perception is that we live to then join our creator, but why are we not always with our creator from the beginning of our existence? Why do we live a temporary existence to then go and live eternally with our creator? It would make much more sense (in a universe with God) to live eternally with him always in his realm of existence. If we do live eternally after we die on Earth, we should logically live eternally genuinely and not experience death or birth; why should our existence start if it never ends? Shouldn’t it just always be? It should just never start, it doesn’t logically make sense.

There’s also the classic cosmological argument that questions who created God in the case that he created us. If God was also created, the question is then begged of who created that creator. By this logic something must have not been created, something must exist eternally; something must have always been there. Either there is a superior creator at the top of pyramid who was never created or the universe itself has always been there and is the whole of existence. I personally find the latter easier to believe because it’s founded on ideas we already understand. I accept that the reason the universe exists may be due to something we’re unable to understand, but why should I give myself to an idea that is more logically insecure? Well, you could also suggest that the eternal element is an eternal chain of creators, but that’s a whole other debate. So, assuming the universe is just everything eternally, there is no ultimate cosmological reason that we exist, no higher purpose granted by a higher being, no definite answer that can be given to us. This is because nothing has caused the universe and therefore there is no purpose for it or our individual lives.

So what is the reality and what does it mean for us? We are born into this universe by natural occurrence; we exist temporarily and die, returning to our state of non-existence much like before we were born. There are no sensations or experiences outside the limitations of our temporary existence. But how does this tell us the meaning of life? Shouldn’t we be further from the answer than we’ve ever been at this point? This is where I pitch the idea I formulated at a very deep 3am amongst other deep 3am’s: existential inflation. Much like money, the more that there is of it, its value decreases because it’s limitation is what keeps us striving for it. Considering this, if everyone had endless money, money would have no value, and if we all existed infinitely, would our existence truly have any value? Wouldn’t we get to point where we’ve met everyone we can meet, done everything we can or want to do? There would be no point in endless existence because we’d simply get tired of our own existence. In this sense, our temporary existence defines us in the best possible way; we arrive here, develop, think, feel, learn, experience the magic of existence and then someone else gets a go, with an entirely new mix of other people that also get a go that are involved randomly in their lives. We don’t need to mask our existence is elaborate supernatural concepts to make it seem worth it, we just need to comprehend the beautiful value of our existence that its temporary nature gives us.

The meaning of life is our own natural finite experience, without the idea of an outside entity to hold our hand through the struggle of existential comprehension. But this doesn’t bring us to an answer 100%, the fact we exist temporarily and naturally is a fact, but it isn’t really a meaning; it doesn’t tell us exactly what to do with our lives or why we’re doing these things. So here’s the answer: we self-invent our purpose. If there’s no supernatural authority or guidance to respond to, all we have is our own authority, after all, doesn’t it make sense and feel natural that we lead our own (they’re literally ours) lives? As we established right at the start, our own conscious minds are just as essential as the universe is to our experience, so why do we look deeper into the universe for answers and not into ourselves? A caterpillar or a sheep doesn’t have any inherent meaning or purpose, they just naturally exist. People (especially children) will ask if animals ‘go to heaven’ when they question God, because they struggle to comprehend that they’re that purposeful. They don’t have meaning because they can’t comprehend their own meaning, whereas we can, which gives us our meaning. There are so many common misconceptions as to why we exist just because we can think of them, so many wrong ideas just because we can think of ideas. We want purpose because we can look in the mirror and think ‘that’s me’, we can understand our existence so we want answers, but the answers are all inside. Inside you. What do you want to do with your life? Who do you want to be? What do you enjoy? Life is literally what you make of it, so go out and do that. God isn’t meaning, it just fills the gap as an answer. I hope I’ve convinced you. This is how I live my life.

We live our lives swayed to the idea that we’re here for the universe or to serve it in some way, but the ultimate truth is in fact that it is here for us.