[abc123abc123]

You do, your children will live. Or, if you don't have children, your non-profit does not.

I wish people would stop using this "we all die" slogan when it comes to their financial lives, and think a bit about the people who will be left after you retire.

[inigyou]

I hate that having children is apparently the only purpose anyone has in life because I don't have children or a purpose in life and I'm pretty sure I would be even more depressed if I had children.

[abc123abc123]

Note that I am not arguing that children is the purpose in life for everyone. For some it is, for others it is not.

I believe that the majority of child bearers are "on program" driven by their biological imperatives. I believe that among the voluntary non-children people (of which I am one) there's plenty of values, goals, hopes and aspirations. In fact, for me, life is so rich that that is why I do not want children.

There's billions of people all over the planet to carry the burden for me. Sure, if we were in an extinction scenario, I might reconsider, but we're far, far from it.

So while I continue to enjoy life and full freedom, I'll let the people who are "on program" deal with the poop and worry for their offspring.

That does not, however, mean I do not have to care about people. If anything, the fact that I do not have children, gives me the opportunity to care _more_ about people in general, than the people who are busy with raising children.

Hence my idea about a non-profit, that will outlast me for some time.

[inigyou]

Yeah, I used to feel life was rich too, and then I very suddenly became aware that it was finite and anything I could possibly do is just leading towards the same fixed point ending. I think mentally healthy humans have ways to avoid thinking about this.

[applfanboysbgon]

Religion, children, and legacy are the ways people cope with this. For the vast, vast majority of human history, 99% of people believed either in an afterlife or reincarnation or something of the sort. Having children, who were molded in your image and expected to take over your life's work, doing the same work you did. Or otherwise leaving an impact in the world, hoping that your legacy would be remembered and to pass on your teachings and experiences to future generations even if not to your own children.

I think advances in scientific understanding may have unfortunately been detrimental to mental wellbeing at scale. Knowing that there is no higher power or grand purpose, knowing that our civilization is probably cooked in the near term, and knowing that even if our civilization isn't immediately cooked, Earth and eventually the universe is, are all not greatly emotionally satisfying.

[inigyou]

Why is this downvoted?

It probably doesn't help that every scientific advance gets co-opted to make the rich richer and civilization worse.

I guess the world oscillates between good times and bad times. Those who are born in bad times get to see the world improve drastically and helping that along is a purpose. Those who are unlucky enough to be born in good times get to see everything crumble. At best they can inspire the rebuilding just before dying of old age.

We shouldn't be so sure about the fate of the universe. If you were born after 1980 you probably feel more certain about the eventual fate of the universe than people born in 1940. A lot of scientific advances that enabled us to even predict the universe isn't steady-state are less than 100 years old. They may change, and our predictions accordingly, in the next 100 years. In fact they did change several times. There was the steady state, then the big crunch, then the big rip, then the heat death. We can't be sure about heat death either - dark energy adds more energy into an expanding universe, which may be exploitable forever.

[yetihehe]

Find purpose which aligns with "progress or wellbeing of our species". Making kids is one, making inventions is another, helping poor or sweeping roads fits too. If you see that your "way of living" will affect people positively, typically you will have a "good life purpose".

What happens when you have kids? You leave something that will last after your death. Then you make sure that they are properly raised and have enough resources, so that your "mark on the world" is more appreciated by other people. Ultimately all the "good life" have one thing in common. Improving life of our species.

[stasomatic]

I understand this is childish, but nobody asked me if I wanted to be on this rock hurling through space at 230K/s. Thanks, parents :)

[yetihehe]

This is not childish. It means you have no purpose in life. If you feel life is not worth living, find purpose and you will feel better. "Make more life", "make life more bearable for me" and "make life more bearable for others" are good universal ones, to have a starting point. If you don't like them, find a better one. Of course, if you DO want to be unhappy, please continue as is :), accumulated unhappiness sometimes leads to big things.

[redwood]

Many people feel they live on through their children. Or through the people they've influenced. It's all a question of how you think about things

[semiquaver]

Yeah, like having kids.

[cpburns2009]

Living only for yourself gets really boring. Children give you a life-long purpose. That and the evolutionary purpose, or drive, of life is reproduction.

[inigyou]

I wouldn't describe existential panic/despair as a form of boredom. More like a form of cosmic terror.

[cpburns2009]

There's a gradient between boredom and existential dread