To live? To live well?
We have education, research, health, defense, etc… but what are we striving for? What are we pouring our money into, and why?
Nos.
To spread throughout and civilize the universe, what other goal could there be?
Immortality would be a nice goal to shoot for as well.
Longevity, definitely. Which means spreading yourself across the universe as De’Trop stated. I’m not talking about ‘immortality’ either (although that might be nice to try for a day), i’m talking about longevity for the species as a whole. We’re going to have to become more competitive if we wish to survive as a species.
Like father, like son. We are all creations of nature and therefore have been created. So, in the likeness of our own creation we shall strive to create something set in the standards we have gleaned throughout our small and short existences. That life which we, in each of our own lives, strive to reproduce can be channelled into whatever form, but most commonly is in the form of a child or children.
We are all looking to live and live well, just as you put it. “Well” meaning that we have access to every necessity of life’s most basic needs consisting of food, shelter, and love.(consisting in itself of every subjective emtional or spiritual need) Love, being as that it has such a complicated meaning, covers a very broad range of neccesities and I’m afraid I’d exhaust myself trying to explain every circumstance of a needful or desiring person. There are, however, a few common aspects of love that I seem to have identified with. Such as the relationship between a mother and child. That is the single strongest example and probably the most prevalant example of love I have seen in my lifetime. That is why I addressed it in the first paragraph.
I’m not saying that every person wants or desires to have kids. For our goals in life are random and numerous, but they are all governed by one goal, and that is of love. In creating what we have always dreamed of, we realize our love, and that is our life’s goal. This creation could be a movie, a serious hobby, a business, a book, a song or simply and idea…but it often times it inevitably ends up being a child since we are so destined to love them considering the circumstances we put ourselves in when choosing to have one.
Life’s goal is life, and in that life, love.
It is important to find your values. Humans are born relatively helpless compared to a lot of other animals, and parents are culturally/traditionally/economically forced to raise their own children when so few of them know how. However the competition between the various child-raising practices may produce some good parenting systems.
I understand the sacrifice it takes to raise children, although i have none of my own; however, I would also say that Nature places within us the love of children for obvious reasons.
Only when we have existed on other planets for millennia and have evolved to the point where we can no longer interbreed, will the grand experiment have been complete. And if the race of men shall fail, as Aragorn says, what of it, nature will simply start again.