Re: For what to live?
My, you do enjoy putting all sorts of restrictions on things, don't you? Why, for instance, should I have a purpose? I'm an animist and a Daoist. So I'm kind of against purpose, as some sort of end in itself.
"Hui Tzu said to Chuang Tzu, "I have a big tree of the kind men call shu. Its trunk is too gnarled and bumpy to apply a measuring line to, its branches too bent and twisty to match up to a compass or square. You could stand it by the road and no carpenter would look at it twice. Your words, too, are big and useless, and so everyone alike spurns them!"
Chuang Tzu said, "Maybe you've never seen a wildcat or a weasel. It crouches down and hides, watching for something to come along. It leaps and races east and west, not hesitating to go high or low‑until it falls into the trap and dies in the net. Then again there's the yak, big as a cloud covering the sky. It certainly knows how to be big, though it doesn't know how to catch rats. Now You have this big tree and you're distressed because it's useless. Why don't you plant it in Not‑Even‑Anything Village, or the field of Broad‑and‑Boundless, relax and do nothing by its side, or lie down for a free and easy sleep under it? Axes will never shorten its life, nothing can ever harm it. If there's no use for it, how can it come to grief or pain?"
" - Zhuangzi (Chuang-Tsu), Ch. 1, Tr. Burton Watson
"11
1. Thirty spokes unite in one hub;
2. It is precisely where there is nothing, that we find the usefulness of the wheel.
3. We fire clay and make vessels;
4. It is precisely where there's no substance, that we find the usefulness of clay pots.
5. We chisel out doors and windows;
6. It is precisely in these empty spaces, that we find the usefulness of the room.
7. Therefore, we regard having something as beneficial;
8. But having nothing as useful."
Dao De Jing, Ch. 11, Tr. Robert Henricks
Now you will tell me that I haven't answered your question. But your question seems, if you'll pardon me, fairly muddy. You ask for something like a purpose, but then say, for example, that one can't live for their spouse. Why? If that is one's primary purpose, then surely that is their purpose. Similarly, you say that no one can answer that they wish to live to gain more experiences. But again, why? You seem to imply that there is no goal here, but if I say I want to live to learn, must I not gain new experiences to do so? Let's look at Zhuangzi again, and see what he has to say.
"Now let me ask you some questions. If a man sleeps in a damp place, his back aches and he ends up half paralyzed, but is this true of a loach? If he lives in a tree, he is terrified and shakes with fright, but is this true of a
monkey? Of these three creatures, then, which one knows the proper place to live? Men eat the flesh of grass‑fed and grain-fed animals, deer eat grass, centipedes find snakes tasty, and hawks and falcons relish mice. Of these four, which knows how food ought to taste? Monkeys pair with monkeys, deer go out with deer, and fish play around with fish. Men claim that Mao‑ch'iang and Lady Li were beautiful, but if fish saw them they would dive to the bottom of the stream, if birds saw them they would fly away, and if deer saw them they would break into a run. Of these four, which knows how to fix the standard of beauty for the world?"
Zhuangzi, Ch. 2
Who are you to tell me that my wanting to get drunk is wrong? That's the equivalent of your no seeking pleasure, after all. If today my purpose is to get drunk, it's not but let's say it is, and tomorrow my purpose is to play music, and the next day to make food, and over all is loving my wife, who are you to say me nay? Why are you trying to tell fish where to live, and deer what they should consider beautiful?
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