Comment on purpose of life
This is my original commentary to an article at Medium.com about purpose of life (October 16, 2019).
I strongly disagree with the author’s conclusion - that the purpose of life is not happiness but usefulness. The question arises - usefulness for whom? The author and all those who read the article clearly did not live under totalitarian regimes. Dictators usually cannot provide just happiness for their people, but they easily can use or apply them (in their dictatorial understanding). Stalin “applied” around two tens of millions of people in Gulag and in World War 2. Hitler “applied” less. Now Putin “uses” Russian soldiers in Syria and Ukraine. They have to be very useful for him.
The right formula is universal and works under almost any circumstances. The formula proposed by the author is not.
Happiness is a very relative, subjective and fast-transitive state for any person. So far, nobody has formulated it in a short and clear way. Nevertheless, it is the notion of happiness or more precisely the “pursuit of happiness” that is laid down in the US “Declaration of Independence”. So the founding fathers of America specified the “pursuit of happiness”, but did not mention any “usefulness” which is just an attribute of happiness.
![Comment on purpose of life]()
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The author noticed the connection of some action with relative satisfaction from it and deduced a formula that happiness (satisfaction) is in being useful: "Being useful is a mindset. And like with any mindset, it starts with a decision”.
With this understanding he began to write. I must say that he is very lucky because he seems to be a writer at heart. What if he was a plumber at his heart? He would have to write, dreaming of water flowing through the pipes...
Yes, it’s better to do what you like to do, and that is a big problem. How to make such a decision, which would help you occupy yourself with your favorite work and live comfortably? How many people do you know who make their livings by what they like to do? My observations show 5 -7%. So the author is just lucky, not being entirely aware of that. He can probably talk about happiness, from which he understood only a small part though. However, he shouldn’t make the global conclusions about that.
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P.S. Dear Reader! I am very much interested in your opinion on the subject of this article. Please, write a comment or ask a question if you want to clarify something.
Yours,
Igor Chykalov
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I strongly disagree with the author’s conclusion - that the purpose of life is not happiness but usefulness. The question arises - usefulness for whom? The author and all those who read the article clearly did not live under totalitarian regimes. Dictators usually cannot provide just happiness for their people, but they easily can use or apply them (in their dictatorial understanding). Stalin “applied” around two tens of millions of people in Gulag and in World War 2. Hitler “applied” less. Now Putin “uses” Russian soldiers in Syria and Ukraine. They have to be very useful for him.
The right formula is universal and works under almost any circumstances. The formula proposed by the author is not.
Happiness is a very relative, subjective and fast-transitive state for any person. So far, nobody has formulated it in a short and clear way. Nevertheless, it is the notion of happiness or more precisely the “pursuit of happiness” that is laid down in the US “Declaration of Independence”. So the founding fathers of America specified the “pursuit of happiness”, but did not mention any “usefulness” which is just an attribute of happiness.
Image from Shutterstock
The author noticed the connection of some action with relative satisfaction from it and deduced a formula that happiness (satisfaction) is in being useful: "Being useful is a mindset. And like with any mindset, it starts with a decision”.
With this understanding he began to write. I must say that he is very lucky because he seems to be a writer at heart. What if he was a plumber at his heart? He would have to write, dreaming of water flowing through the pipes...
Yes, it’s better to do what you like to do, and that is a big problem. How to make such a decision, which would help you occupy yourself with your favorite work and live comfortably? How many people do you know who make their livings by what they like to do? My observations show 5 -7%. So the author is just lucky, not being entirely aware of that. He can probably talk about happiness, from which he understood only a small part though. However, he shouldn’t make the global conclusions about that.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
P.S. Dear Reader! I am very much interested in your opinion on the subject of this article. Please, write a comment or ask a question if you want to clarify something.
Yours,
Igor Chykalov
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