I am not only a mortal creature. Given faith, belief, and experience, I have a firm expectation that I am in a stage of existence, but that existence was before what I can remember and will continue after I die.
Therefore: what is the purpose of existence?
I have heavily focused on the outcome of gaining knowledge and having experience. My answer to the purpose of life: “to learn.”
I expect there will be a time when our entire set of actions (likely many many centuries and millennia hence) will be so grand that it will require a deep understanding of every separate subject we make academic now. Biology mixed with computer science combined with mathematical chemistry mixed with educational psychology and many many more.
All of which will be purposed to create and develop ecosystems and families on world scales.
So I have to ask myself: what do I want to learn now?
I can’t just rely on “what can I learn to perfection?” Because I can’t. Human understanding of the world and natural universes is incomplete. (As a small example that doesn’t prove this, but indicates I’m at least on the right track, scientific facts change frequently: I grew up and Pluto was a planet. Now?)
Our scientific frameworks provide useful ways to investigate the world. They provide us a way to build on others’s learnings and a way to accumulate knowledge faster.
But nothing can replace experience. And if you’re thinking while you do it, experience can guide you to more permanent answers that simply reading it.
So what do I want to learn now?
I think it’s time (for a while–probably many years to come) to study ecosystems first hand. (All the while I can make observations about psychology and sociology of new groups, and combine that with my experience of marketing, computer science, building, and hospitality.)