Hanlin Majewski

Professor Monroe

Phi 1010: Introduction to Philosophy

01 December 2019

I Don’t Think I Have A Purpose

I think life is something that, no matter how hard anyone tries to make it, will never make

sense. In my humble opinion, things don’t always have to make sense. Sometimes even, I prefer

if they don’t. Which is why I’ve never really chosen a worldview. Don’t get me wrong I think

about it all the time. God, The universe, my mind, the soul, brain, body, evolution, the Bible,

everything. I read books about the cosmos and World War Two and serial killers and global

economics. I paint the walls in my room and watch movies about conspiracy theories. I always

think about my life and who I am and why. Growing up I would question everything. My best

friend Tiana calls me a “question lover”. My first words were “Who’s that?”, seriously. For all

the questions I’ve had answered and all the nights I’ve stayed up until 3 in the morning

researching some new topic I’ve discovered, I don’t think anything will ever make sense to me.

Why are we here? What purpose do we have on Earth? What is the point? Are all

questions I hear and even think about myself. Is it to serve God? Or acquire knowledge? Maybe

even help people. But I don’t really believe in God. I’ve always kind of thought that religion is

really just a way to control people. If you really think about, religion has been around since the

beginning of humankind. It started back before knowledge was really even a thing. Back when

the general population was illiterate and only the government and the wealthy had access to a

sort of education. So religion was born. Now I’m not denying that Jesus wasn’t a man or that the

apostles don’t exist, I’ve seen Saint Mark’s relics in Italy. I’m just saying that if you really think
about the facts, it seems that promising people salvation and forgiveness is a great way to get

them to follow the rules. If you were a good person, you went to Heaven. If you obeyed the law

and didn’t ask questions, you were rewarded by going to Heaven. Back to the beginning of

humans, there were entire nations run by the head of the church. The pope was essentially a king.

You could even purchase “pardons” that supposedly guarantee that you would go to Heaven.

Churches pass around collection bins during the service and I always feel a weird sense of guilt

for not putting a dollar in whenever my family drags me to church on Easter or Christmas Eve.

Coincidentally however, don’t you always hear stories about priests embezzling large sums of

money? One time even, I went to P.F. Chang’s with my parents and we watched the head priest

of the Catholic school where I attended elementary school drink 6 beers and then hop into a

BMW that he valeted. He wasn’t even wearing his collar. I had a religion teacher tell the class

once that priests submit to “no pay, no say, no lay”. So why do priests molest boys and have

expensive things? Of course this is not all priests but, being in a place of religious power seems

to give people an inflated idea of authority. Maybe because over time society has conditioned not

only the general population, but also church authority that fearing God makes you better than

people who don’t.

I also believe that people believe in an afterlife because they can’t bear not to. People

don’t feel comfortable with the thought of living this complex life and then just dying and that’s

all she wrote. No one wants to think about the idea of being alone in the universe and thinking

that we’re just on a rock hurling through space with no idea why or how. It makes people feel

meaningless, and no one wants to feel like they lack purpose. But what if we really don’t have a

purpose? I mean think about the societal normalities in America. You’re born, you go to

elementary school and so on until high school. While you’re in highschool you have to make
amazing grades and study for a load of standardized tests that don’t really measure how smart

you are but just how well you study. Just so you can get into a “good college” where you then

spend your days studying and paying insane amounts of money for a piece of paper which you

then have to work even harder just to get a job that you might want. Maybe get married, start a

family, and so on. Then you die. But what’s it all for? How can that make sense? It doesn’t.

Which is why people dedicate their lives to coming up with ideas and possible answers to all of

these questions that people have. All these theories and problems that were thought up just to

answer our question of “what on God’s green one are we doing here?” It is true that humans are

curious by nature. I could sit here all day long and thought dump about what I think about the

concept of literally everything that I know exists.

Another thing to think about is what if we were never here? What if the meteor never

killed all the dinosaurs? Would we still be here? Or what if this life and this universe and

everything in-between never even begun to exist? Because realistically it doesn’t make sense that

God just came into existence somehow and then decided to fuck around and create an entire

universe. It just doesn’t make any sense that there’s some higher power that isn’t even made up

of matter (or is he? We don’t know!!!!) would just happen to come into existence. If The Big

Bang was real, there had to be matter there in the first place. Matter can be neither created nor

destroyed, only transferred. So something had to be here for everything to now be here. You’re

probably reading this and thinking “she’s got to be a nihilist” but I’m not. I don’t live to spite the

world or think that life is meaningless. I also don’t want to die. I don’t feel like I have a purpose

though, but not in a negative way, just in a way that how can there even be purpose if there’s no

real reason for any of us to even be alive? I think things have purpose because we give them

purpose, sometimes without even realising it. A sports team winning a game only matters
because we think it does, not because it’s really important. We would all still live if sports never

existed. But it gives some people a sense of purpose. People are always looking for a reason to

live without realising it’s because they just don’t know what their purpose is. Frankly, I don’t

believe anyone ever will. Maybe we’ll find out why we’re here once we die, but that’s kind of

wishful thinking. We’re all searching for meaning or a place in the world by any means

necessary. By travelling, having kids, getting married, going to parties, buying expensive things,

etc. None of these things are wrong or bad and who's to say whether that gives you purpose or

not? It seems that a lot of philosophers say what they think is right and wrong and what our mind

is and what life is, but what if they’re wrong?

Everyone wants to know the truth. I want to know the truth. I also take humanities class

and I sit there every Monday and Wednesday and listen to Professor Jahosky talk about different

religions and mythos and logos and so on, and I always wonder why. I think about history a lot

and how bizarre it really is, all things considered. I keep thinking about Spaceship Earth at

EPCOT, the big golf ball ride. You sit in a little buggy and drive through history. They go

through the time of cavemen, ancient Egypt, ancient Rome, the Renaissance, 19th century

America, the moon landing, the invention of the computer, and it all ends in “the future”. Each

little area has little snippets about things going on in that time. They talk about the ancient

Egyptians inventing writing with papyrus and the burning of the Alexandrian Library, destroying

thousands of records of knowledge. When I really think about all of that stuff I just think about

how insane it is that all these things have really happened. Sometimes, it all just doesn’t seem

real. Perhaps because it was just so long ago, but part of me has always wondered what the

reason for all of it is. Why were libraries burned and land stolen? Why do wars happen? It’s all
stuff that constantly swirls around my mind and stuff I can never seem to really wrap my head

around.

I believe everything exists for other things to start existing because of it, or perhaps

things existing because of the existence of other things is just a bizarre coincidence. People

always complain about math and why that exists, but if it didn’t we wouldn’t have any kind of

technology. Granted, we don’t need technology, people existed just fine without it for centuries.

Or maybe they didn’t. We advance as a society because we feel like if we don’t, then we aren’t

living the way we should. I think the Law of Personal Identity applies to society as a whole and

not just to individuals. We’ve experienced tremendous changes throughout time because of major

world events. This causes the society to change its ways or implement new laws. For example,

the increase in mass shootings in America have prompted more people to advocate gun control

and has made people more afraid to go to major cities, busy areas, or even the movies. It has

inspired a huge shift in society’s tone, like after September 11th.

Sitting here writing this long has made me think more than I was when I first

started writing. I think everything we believe comes from wanting to make sense of our

existence. How to digest all the things going on around us and what to think of it all. For me, I

think that discussing the meaning of life in pointless because no one will ever come up with a

“correct” answer. We may come to a conclusion that makes it easier to sleep at night, but we can

never really know if it’s true. Every new idea or thought comes with a reason why it’s probably

true or how we can test it’s truth. Every religion comes with answers to life’s wonders which is

how we know they can’t all be the truth. While multiple things can be true of one thing, it

doesn’t make everything we think correct. There’s things we will probably never know, but

people always try to figure it out. I think this is because we can’t not try to justify our existence.
Everything just kind of happened to exist the way that it does and there’s always an answer for

why. Light was invented to see and tables were invented so you don’t have to eat on the floor.

But the longer you wonder, the farther down the rabbit hole you go.

I genuinely don’t think there’s a way to find out for real what life really is. Life is

crazy and complex and senseless. It doesn’t make sense how the universe was created, afterall

The Big Bang Theory is just that, a theory. We don’t know what we’re doing here and we don’t

know what our purpose is and if we did, we wouldn’t spend our entire lives living for something

we might never achieve. I think we would maybe love more. Perhaps be more content. However,

I really can’t find a worldview that makes total sense to me. Mostly because nothing makes sense

to me. Sometimes I think that if I’m here, no matter how outlandish that idea is to me, I might as

well do the things I want to do. No matter how messed up or bizarre the world may be, it’s still a

pretty cool place to be. I think no matter how hard anyone tries, there will never be a satisfying

answer. Most philosophers philosophize up until their last breath and still never find the answers

they’re looking for. Maybe when I die I’ll find out what the hell it was all for. Maybe then it will

all make sense: but then again, maybe not.