The meaning of life

Tonight I thought that I'd give you an answer to the question that has been plaguing mankind for ages: the meaning of life, that is. Because, you know, it just came to me one night, and I'd like to share it to y'all. Sorry about the lack of funniness in this post, but I'm sober, and the topic is kind of grandiose, so maybe it's best to approach it seriously.

The meaning of life in general

The meaning of life is to evolve and spread. As far as is understood currently, life on Earth has evolved from some kind of primordial ooze to ever more complex forms, like plants, animals and humans. At the same time life has spread from a single organism in a primordial sea to zillions of organisms all around the world. Therefore it would seem obvious that the purpose of life is to keep on evolving and expanding. Lifeforms will become more complex and better (whatever that is). Life will spread to other planets (if it isn't there already).

The meaning of life - a human

The meaning of the life of an individual human being is to support the evolution and spreading of life in general. Therefore one should aspire to educate himself/herself, aid the progress of the human kind and to reproduce. The advancement of scientific progress might be the most direct way to aid the evolution of life for a human being. However, not all of us are scientists. Even by just being a living organism you are a part of the process of evolution. Remember, evolution is a very slow process, it takes forever. Literally.

Note that when I'm talking about evolution I'm actually talking about two things here: the natural evolution of organisms and the evolution of the scientific knowledge of humans. The former just happens by itself. The latter helps the expansion of life (because we learn to use natural resources more efficiently and can migrate to other planets, so there will be more room and better living conditions for more organisms), but also, in my opinion, enables humans to evolve into different, and hopefully better, forms of life. And possibly create new lifeforms. Just think about artificial intelligence, for example.

The meaning of life - myself

But what about the meaning of your life? I don't know that. But as an example, I'll try to define what could be the meaning of my life, in order to help you defining your own meaning.

Well, the reproduction part is easy. I should have kids. I have one already and I'd like to have more. The next one could be a girl, and possibly red-haired. Also, I'll have to work in order to be able to provide adequate living conditions for my kids. And furthermore, I'll have to be a good parent and try to raise my offspring as well as possible. I'll also try to encourage my kids to get as good an education as possible.

The advancement of the progress of the human kind is slightly more difficult. It seems unlikely that I'll achieve any scientific breakthroughs in the near future. But as a software engineer, I'd like to think that maybe I can advance the development of software engineering methods and/or technology, just a little bit, during my working career. Or at least advance the development of the software profession by acting as an user and a tester of software products designed by smarter people. Think about it: nearly anything can be seen as beneficial to the scientific advancement of the human kind. By taking an aspirin I'll act as a human guinea pig for the pharmaceutical industry, and therefore aid the development of pharmaceuticals. By belching and picking my nose on the sofa I can act as a warning example to my kid, who'll then decide to do better than me and apply to the university.