this post was submitted on 11 Nov 2024
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Why have you convinced yourself that you have nothing and that you need to be in a relationship to have something?
Joining with the other sex and reproduction is literally the main purpose of all living beings, regardless of their level of intelligence or levels of consciousness of creating things like society and religions. When you don't have that as your adulthood passes you feel like a failure, regardless of what anyone else thinks.
Thats not a reason why you feel that way. It's a pseudo science excuse for it.
Dig deeper to your true feelings.
Your main purpose is whatever you make it out to be. Happiness doesn't come from a relationship or your ability to procreate. Look inwards. Ask yourself what don't you like about your life? What do you have the power to change?
What I don't like my life? The fact I'm unable to attract anyone. Change? Nothing, I'm already suffering
You won't magically be happy if you're in a relationship. Remove that expectation from yourself. Go do something you personally enjoy. Hiking, reading, games, cooking, baking, etc. Whatever it is, just enjoy it. That's what life is. Whatever you choose to make it to be.
I don't like any of what you mentioned. And I already game
Just do whatever makes you happy. And if you have anyone on your life (family, friends, etc), then reach out. You don't have to pour your heart if you don't want. Just talk to them. Ask them how their day was. What did they have to eat today. Socialize. You can always start conversations here or in other communities if you feel like you want to do that instead.
You're not unhappy because you're single. Plenty of people are in relationships and are unhappy. You saw that yourself with your parents. You need to stop making a relationship seem unachievable and having it tied to your happiness and sense of self worth.
This reductive view doesn't help you and, indeed, probably hurts your chances of getting what you so desperately want.
Drop this focus on sex and, ironically, you'll have a better chance of having it. We can generally tell when a guy wants us only for orificial insertion; that's a bigger turn-off than almost anything.
As others have said (that you didn't bother to respond to) work on yourself before you start working on getting others. And in your case I would strongly recommend getting professional evaluation for possible clinical depression before it literally kills you.
I would say that survival is the main purpose. For which reproducing is one of the available 'tools' like is eating, fighting, and running away.
Reproducing doesn't require having to join the other. I mean, gametes exchange can be done without mating (ask plants) and you also have asexual reproducing. Mating is the way human beings are doing it, like many living species but it still is just one way.
At the individual level, reproducing is not a necessity (a far less urgent one than is eating and surviving, ie get a shelter, get away from trouble,...). It's only a necessity at the species level. At least, as far as I understand it.
Many people do not have sex or have sex and do not reproduce. They are fine and not unhappy and their choice is fine at the species level — it's not like human species is on the verge of extinction because of the lack of humans: we've never been that many on teh surface of the planet (most probably even a little bit too many ;)
Edit: even among other species, reproducing is not the aim of all individuals. Just look at bees: the queen is the only one that will lay eggs (other bees are either workers/fighters/nurses, even though they can switch role during their lifetime they won't ever have a baby bee) and the males... well, the one that gets to mate the queen die just after that.
This was very interesting but I wonder whether all species or even just one actually have a (shared) purpose? As humans couldn't we all just try to find our own?
For me it would be to be a net positive to society in certain ways (that I'm not sure how to put into words and the bits I know how to could get long) before departing.
In a way we are just a very complex system that can reproduce and we are just configured to do so. Life is very good at persevering but does that make it our purpose?
Not sure to understand what you mean here? Would you care to develop?
We are.
If I were to define them, I would separate life (as the yet-to-be-understood 'force' that make some things being alive), species (all the various kind of living things, arbitrary grouped and separated in categories by science), and the individuals (be it that plant on my desk, you, or I). I don’t think they all need to have a purpose, nor that this purpose is the same.
To me, life has no purpose beside maybe being what it is. Like fire has no purpose, it simply burns and converts some types of maters into light and energy (heat). At the very least, I cannot imagine life as a 'conscious' being wanting something. It just is a state of thing/fact (being alive) that science still can’t explain or reproduce.
Species on the other hand they all share a same purpose, which is to thrive as a whole (grow in numbers, but not too much in order not to endanger the very space they need to live in). At least that's how I see it.
And then there are individuals. They may or may not have whatever purpose they fancy within a somewhat restrictive 'species limitation’.
I mean, as a butterfly I would not be able to live more than a few days no would I be able to mate with a whale, no matter how badly I would want it. And we, as humans, we may have managed to push our species limits way beyond what they were (we can fly, dive underwater, even go into space, we can also live much longer and if we still can't mate with any other non-human species we do have learned to manipulate their genome, who knows where that could lead us?) but all of that is still very fragile and very limited (flying is a thing as long as we have access to enough energy and knowledge, we live longer but we all still have to die no matter what we try). So, within those boundaries set by what our species is, I would say we're more or less free as individuals to be what we want to be. We’re less so in certain countries than others, and in certain times.
On the other hand, I have no idea what the idea of the individual could evoke in a bee's mind? Or 'personal desire'?
Imho, that is a very nice objective to pursue. No matter how you would manage to achieve that goal.
When I wrote "I wonder whether all species or even just one actually have a (shared) purpose? As humans couldn’t we all just try to find our own?" I was trying to say that I don't see a species or all species as obviously having a purpose. Basically stating that what you said in the following quote is not a given to me.
And that I see species very similarly to the way you see life here:
If it comes up again it might be best to use the same definition for 'life' I personally like the one from Wikipedia: Life is a quality that distinguishes matter that has biological processes, such as signaling and self-sustaining processes, from matter that does not.
A species is only one possible configuration of life that produces similar copies of itself. What would give a species its purpose of thriving as a whole? If you ask me it just does, just like simpler systems also try to find a balance.
I've just realized that I made an error assuming that an individual having a purpose and their species having a purpose would be mutually exclusive. Though I do find the possibility of a species wide purpose for one to fulfill slightly constraining though I suppose it can be pretty permissive.
I think we pretty much agree here.
Whether or not we have free will is something have not been able to decide for myself but it seems unlikely that it would require us to be able to control the reactions in our brains. Unless you really want to I would rather not open that whole new can of worms. Anyway I think there's nothing stopping whatever we are from being what we seem to want.
The personal desire seems impossible to answer. I'm also not sure how a bee could find its own individual purpose and I find likely that it is incapable of comprehending it. But could a beekeeper or even the bee's environment assign it an individual purpose (maybe less applicable to a bee than other species but I hope I'm making myself clear).
Thank you very much, it's nice to hear that. :)
I'm very much enjoying this back and forth so far.
Edit: Fixed formatting lol
This is an interesting take that I honestly hadn't really considered before. As someone without the human instinct to reproduce that 99% of all humans seem to experience, it has always felt a bit like I am an alien from a different planet. Or like I am born without one of the lesser senses or something. But thanks for this. It was an interesting read.
You're not. Or you're not alone.
My spouse and I (50+ year-old) have been together for 25+ years and have no children — be it by making them the good old way, or by using some medical help, or by adopting them (to remind the OP there is more than one way to 'reproduce' as human beings).
We never had any drive/urge to have and raise children, so for us it was a question we tried to answer in a calm and non-emotional way: will we or will we not have children? Also, we were still a young couple when we realized the absolute shit world they would have to live in as adults, which did indeed help us a bit in deciding to not have children.
25 years later, I don't think we ever regretted it. But, who knows, maybe people like us do indeed lack of something important? I doubt it, though.
You're more than welcome.
We are more than our instincts. But sure, I acknowledge that following some instinctual drives can give some satisfaction.
For example: I made a choice to not have children and I am happy with my choice. I don't feel like I am missing out on anything. It's actually quite the opposite. While I see my peers raising little shits, I get to stay a little shit and embrace my inner child. It's half a selfish choice because I want my life to be better, and half a compassionate choice because the world doesn't need new children for its meat grinder.
If I had little choice and was forced onto a path, that would be disheartening. So I get you.