It is a big topic. *deep breath* Ok then:
In these question you will see a bigger picture your true answer to the question Why are we born?
Now many people give this answer life is for enjoyment ... and that They have a right to live happily so they shud live life to fullest and honestly I don't disagree people have full right to live they want to...
Essentially, yes. When you think about the people you love, what do you want for them? People being happy and enjoying life is better than the opposite, right? It seems immediately obvious. And yet when we wonder what our own lives are about, a mysterious confusion descends. But surely it's logical to view our own lives in the same way we view the lives of those around us - as aiming for happiness. The only difference is that we have an authority over our own lives which we do not have over others. That adds the possibility of self-sacrifice, and that leads into a whole long conversation about morality. But yes, it's all about enjoyment/fulfilment/happiness.
To go vague and academic about it, consider subjectivism as described by Descartes. What if everything we see and hear is an hallucination? How do we know what is real? Descartes concluded he could only be sure of his own existence, because he was able to ponder about it (I think therefore I am). However, modern neuroscience suggests that even thought is an illusion - thought may just be an experience, not something that is self-guided. If that's possible, then we can't even be sure that 'I think therefore I am'. So I take a different approach - for me, it's "I feel, therefore I am". That much is self-evident. And it goes further. We know some feelings are good and some feelings are bad. That's also self-evident. When we break a bone, or get tooth-ache, we don't need to prove that it's a bad feeling, it becomes obvious. The pain is badness itself. So we have 'good' and 'bad' sensations, and good is by definition better than bad. Seeing as happiness is the overall effect of good sensations, then happiness must be the only motive that we can know.
But I just fail to understand one thing .... How can I enjoy and live life to fullest when I know that So many innocent little children sleep hungry everyday and many die every year ... How Do I enjoy when I know women have to sell their chastity to feed them ... How Do I enjoy when I know young girls are kidnapped and how they fear for their safety ... How Do I enjoy when I know out there that in this world children are enslaved into slavery .....
Some of you may think I'm criticizing they way people think But this is not my intent it really is a question in my mind ... as is said everyone has a right to live and its not their fault if people suffer so they have every right to enjoy their lives and live it to fullest but for me question is HOW ?
Misery, I believe, (and happiness, for that matter) is a reaction between your situation and your brain. In your case, the situation is 'the state of the world', and your brain means how you perceive that. If you cannot change the situation, your only remaining strategy is to alter your perception, and decide if that will bring more happiness. The brain is always filtering information to support a particular viewpoint, and vigilance is needed to keep it in check. To that end, some things to consider:
My own life is very happy. I live in a stable and supportive marriage with a beautiful daughter. We have plenty of food, we enjoy travelling, eating out, reading books, I take Kung Fu classes every Tuesday. My life is, dare I say it, pretty good. How do you factor my life, and the millions like me, into your model of the world? It's also worth noting that the future seems better than the past. As an atheist, had I lived five hundred years ago, happiness would be impossible for me. The same is true about my social status (the bottom of the ladder). And with increasing pace, these improvements are spreading across the globe. Sooner or later, happiness in the world will outweigh misery, if it doesn't already.
As I say, it's a matter of perception.
As for "Why are we here?" This question has two meanings: 1) How did we get here? or 2) Why are we here? I'll deal with 1) first.
"Why are we here?" The answer is disappointingly simple. "Because our parents fucked."
This goes to the heart of the problem of perception.
On a factual level, yes, this is true. But there is no objective way of describing the act of sex. I could describe it as making love. I'm here because my parents shared a moment of love. I believe LinkSkywalker's choice of description attempts to cut through illusion and bias and describe the act for what it is. However, 'because our parents fucked' falls into the same language trap - it is clearly designed to cause a particular effect, and is therefore biased like any other description, and my description of making love would therefore be no more subjective than his. There is no way to describe anything for what it is. Such is the weakness of language, and the importance of perception. To move onto 2).
That's really it. The only reason this question feels like a mystery is because we want to believe that our existence has some deeper meaning, but it doesn't. There is no hidden purpose out there for us to find. Life is exactly what you see in the day-to-day. Anything more that people imagine is just an attempt to feel more cosmically important than we really are.
Agreed. To keep banging the same drum, perception once again plays a part. The problem of trying to find an objective importance for your life is that importance itself is a human concept. What exactly is 'importance'? Is it rank and position? Is it the power to affect things? When you step outside your own priorities, why would anything be more important than anything else? Importance is nothing more than a perception.
But that doesn't cheapen it. Perception is precisely what does give meaning to life (meaning is another type of perception). Meaning and importance exist in your heart. To prove that point, consider this. If you did have some objective importance, but were unaware of it, would it make you any more happy? Conversely, if there was no such thing as objective importance, but you were unaware of that fact and you felt and experienced that you WERE important, do you think that would make you happier? If the answers to these questions are the same as mine, it proves that meaning is generated within. And as I tried to express earlier with the whole 'feel therefore I am' thing, your inner experiences are no illusion - they are the only thing you can be sure is real. Thus, the experience of meaning is meaning itself.
The truth is that life has whatever purpose we give to it. Nothing more, and nothing less. And I find that beautiful and uplifting.
This. Exactly this.
So, in my way that covers suffering in the world, why are we born, what is life for, and my philosophy of life.
The other questions, such as what would I do if I were rich and what am I striving for, are a completely different topic. Happiness, perception and all that plays a part, of course, but now we get into the closer-to-earth matters of my personal tastes and preferences. For me, I take a lot of inspiration from Buddhism, Daoism and my Kung Fu instruction. For the type of person I am, there's a lot in there about relaxing and not getting worked up about things that go wrong, about compassion, about letting things go that works for me and my tastes. If I were rich, I'd probably travel more. Buy a house so that my family can be more comfortable and my daughter can have her own room. I love reading, if there were more hours in the day I would read everything going. I love music, and I miss performing on stage. I would love to be a composer. I work so that the label I co-own takes off in a big way. If I wasn't looking after the kid, I'd like to volunteer for a homeless shelter, because I've benefitted from it in the past.
... I think that's about it.
