The purpose of life is entertainment

 

Figuring out the purpose of life

No one knows what is the purpose of life. Religious folks recite their dogmas. Others deduct that the purpose if life is to promote survival of the species. Everyone is entitled to a story. We are storytelling primates. No one really knows if life even has a purpose. Maybe the purpose of life is to figure out what is the purpose of life. TakeSlap suggests that the purpose of life to have productive fun. However, you are the king, queen, or queer of your own life. You decide what is the purpose of your existence. 

TakeSlap offers spicy food for thought. We put words together in stream of consciousness articles that will slap you into innovative thinking. Consume it raw at your own risk. Season it to taste. Heat it up in your brain. Be sure to disagree with whatever does not agree with your cognitive tolerance. Take it with a grain of salt as a free sample of our consulting service. Share it family style with friends and frenemies. We're all in this together. Enjoy.

Pain and Pleasure

Whatever you decide the purpose of your life is, realize that you will remain trapped by the pain / pleasure mechanism of life. Life can be seen as a binary pain / pleasure game. The constant "game" played by living organisms is to seek a "positive" (pleasurable) energy state while avoiding a "negative" (painful) one. For advanced animals, the "positive" state feels like pleasure and the "negative" state feels like pain.  

In the case of humans, we are smart enough to hack the pain / pleasure mechanism of life.  Humans can  associate physical pain with mental pleasure, and vice versa. Thus, we can "hack" the pain / pleasure mechanism of life even though we cannot escape it. Like in Hotel California, you can check out anytime you like, but you can never leave. 

The pain / pleasure mechanism of life is unavoidable, but it is also formidable. The pain / pleasure mechanism of life allows us to frame and understand human behavior. Every single chapter in human history can be explained by the pain / pleasure algorithm of life. Everything that you have done, are doing, and will do in life can be tied to the pain / pleasure binary mechanism of life.

Money

For some people, the purpose of life is making money and accumulating financial wealth. Money is a payment technology (i.e. a tool and a method for making payments). Money allows you to pay for goods and services that you need and want.  Financial wealth is having sufficient monetary resources to survive and thrive. If the purpose of life is flourishing, money is the fertilizer. 

Money is one of the most clever human inventions of all time, second to none except perhaps for the invention of god. It is not advisable to turn money into the purpose of your life. Anecdotal evidence suggests that most people who make money their primary purpose in life, end up living miserable lives.  There are many exceptions. There are many money managers, legendary investors, and business people who seem to balance well their passion for money and their passion for a balanced and productive life.  Perhaps you can be like the. You can dedicate your life to making money, and make your life worth living and worthy for everyone else. We are rooting for you. Go for it.

Be wow and profit

If money is your main drive, TakeSlap suggests the "BWOW" formula.  It stands for Build What Others Want (BWOW).  The concept is that money is made by trading with others.  Give them what they want in exchange for money.  Keep in mind also the profit formula: 

                                                V > P > C

V is Value; P is Price; and C is Cost.  The value of your products or services must exceed their price, which must exceed their cost. That is a simple formula for unit profits for a profitable enterprise.

Politics

For some people, politics is the purpose of life. Politics is the art and science of having power over people. Politicians suggest that power is better than money because power creates money. Think about Donald Trump, for example. He has money, but is obsessed with the political power that would make him even more money. See how Ivanka makes money.  Think about Biden also. A public servant salary somehow made him into a millionaire.  See how Hunter makes money.  Think also about Putin, who is the richest man alive and is also obsessed with power. 

If you think that primates like Trump, Biden, and Putin are into politics for any other reason than the mental "high" they derive from being in charge, think again.  Politicians are power junkies looking for the "high" that power provides.

Religion 

For some people the purpose of life is worshiping gods. Gods are the greatest human invention of all times. We humans are storytelling primates, and very early on in our history we created fantastic stories about gods ruling us and deciding who would be the ruler amongst us. Our gods are the sum of all human fears and desires. Their powers begin where our knowledge ends. 

If your purpose in life is religion, you may be up for a meaningful life full of wholesome joy. The majority of folks who dedicate their mortal lives to immortal causes describe a deep sense of joy.  The mental pleasure of dedicating your life to your faith is a "high" that makes you "move mountains".  Go for it.  

Love and hate

For some people, the purpose of life is to love. For others, the purpose of life is to hate. Some combine the two in loving some and hating others. Love and hate are two powerful feelings triggering the pain / pleasure mechanism of life. 

As animals and living organisms, all we humans do is to seek pleasure and avoid pain. Of course, we humans are smart enough to associate physical pain with mental pleasure, and vice versa. Therefore, human behavior at the individual level is not as easily predictable. A primate next to you may enjoy the mental pleasure of suffering. You may not be able to predict if the primate will choose physical pleasure over pain.  That does not negate the fact that we are all trapped by the pain / pleasure mechanism of life. It simply shows that we can hack the system or play with it to some extent, even if we cannot escape it altogether.

There is no altruistic reason of why you love. You do it because it gives you mental pleasure.  Loving puts us on that "positive" energy state that we are programmed to seek. To be sure, there is pain in loving and there is no real love without real pain. However, we get hooked to the "high" of love that are we are willing to withstand its pain.

There is no "evil" reason of why you hate. You hate because it gives you mental pleasure. Hate is the opposite of love, and holds a reverse electrical charge so to speak. People can get hooked to the mental pleasure of hating as easy as getting hooked to the mental pleasure of loving. Lovers and haters do so just for the mental pleasure of it. 

Learning

For some people, the purpose of life is learning. Learning gives us mental pleasure when we figure something out. As everything else in life, this is an inherited trait. Early humans who enjoyed learning had increased chances of survival than those who did not enjoy learning and stayed dumb. Since we are all descendants of the survivors, the predisposition to enjoy learning survived in us.    

If your purpose in life is learning you are in for a big treat. Learning is unlimited.  You live in an "all you can eat" learning buffet.  One of the huge problems with the church and other autocracies is that in the drive to preserve the dogmas that got them to power, they try to suppress knowledge and learning. We see this in Russia and in Southern states in the United States playing with what school textbooks can and cannot say about historical facts and circumstances.  

The information age is great for learning, but it also gets a lot of people hooked into "learning" false stories and fake news.  The pleasure of learning is not tied to the truth or falsity of the subject, but to the perception of figuring something out. Thus while we are all predisposed to enjoy learning, we don't learn the same way and we don't learn the same things. That is just part of the fun.  

Entertainment 

For some, the purpose of life is entertainment. This is living for the fun of it. Living for the mental pleasure of it. If you enjoy money, politics, religion, love, hate, learning, or whatever else, go for it.  You have one life to live. You will be always trapped by the pain / pleasure mechanism of life.  Play with it.  Have fun. Make us proud.

What do you think?