Nietzsche had one tragic life indeed, and some obscur ideas but some things he says are pure wisdom as the title of this article shows.
What is the purpose of life? No one is noticing me in the world, so why should I still live? What is the point? The troubles of becoming more intelligent, come with a blindness to absurdity. The very fact that humans, in the West, need to seek purpose, and encouragement to live and be satisfied is by all evolutionary means absurd. We live, eat, love, reproduce, and suffer. That’s it to life, and that’s all it needs to be. So why is it that people in the West, with enough food, housing, and resources to be satisfied, tend to have higher suicide rates? Why, as humans, who stand at the top of the species hierarchy, are committing more suicide than any other animal on earth?
Life used to be a challenge. To eat, we needed to hunt. We needed to stick together. Everyone took their share of duty. Nowadays with the ease of our lives, the lack of utility we have for others and the lack of hardships to overcome can be more challenging than hardship itself.
I have been there, down the road to nihilism, until I started to write, and help others with similar thoughts see the absurdity of our complaints. Why do you need encouragement to live? You live and you have so much to offer, even if all you have is your two legs and arms. To take local responsibility, be a parent or a mentor, all that can give us a meaningful role in the lives of others, which is what most of us strive for. In the end, we can’t deny nature. Christmas is over now and I saw some lonely souls on the Internet complaining that they went to the gym on Christmas Eve because they had no family, no partner to celebrate with and it makes them deeply unhappy that they have to be alone on the holiday that is supposed to be a family day. I understand. But here’s what you could’ve done: There are probably quite many homeless people in your city who are freezing. If Christian or not, sometimes your local church or some organization might offer some program to go out on the street on Christmas Eve and give blankets, jackets, and cookies to the homeless people. And if there is no such project in your local community, perhaps there is another one and if there isn’t, then why don’t you start one?
As this article of CNBC quoting a Harvard Health study states:
“It turns out that people who are more socially connected to family, to friends, to community are happier, they’re physically healthier and they live longer than people who are less well connected,”
You don’t need encouragement to live but have to go back to our evolutionary roots, because as introverted as some of us might be, we can’t deny nature. The good news is that communities are everywhere. You should start looking locally at your local church, university groups, sports groups, etc. Then you can consider joining a national or International group like a political party or NGO that affiliates you with other people who share your values, which makes a community. That is life. That is nature, and more encouragement is not what you need.
