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The purpose of life is to be a nobody

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All of us thing that we are special...That we are unique..That our contributions are great...On the other hand we just a speck in the galaxy..Let us liberate ourselves from falsehood & acknowledge that we are unimportant...Won't it lead to less ego and create tons of happiness?...I guess so

[h=1]The purpose of life is to be a nobody[/h] [h=5]Share[/h]
[h=5]Written by[/h] Zat Rana
June 10, 2017

We all experience the world like we are at the center of reality.
We think and we feel in relation to how our senses absorb information and how this information mingles with our personal memories. The subjective perception created by these interactions provides the illusion of importance.
We forget that this perception only exists in our minds and that everyone near us is walking around under exactly the same psychological mindset.
In truth, we’re just one of billions, and over the course of history, everything about us is insignificant. Even people like Newton and Einstein, who we revere for their contributions to humanity, are only slightly less insignificant.
Our universe contains one septillion stars (a one followed by 24 zeroes) and a lot of these stars contain many, many more modes of dust that we call planets. If any of us ceased to exist tomorrow, little would change beyond the subjective emotional states of the people in our immediate circles.
Earth would continue its orbit, and the laws of physics would remain in tact. We’re nothing more than a fraction of a ripple in an infinite sea of entropy.
Many of us don’t like hearing this. It conflicts with the story our mind tells.
We’re brought up to think that we’re special, and we like believing it. But I don’t say any of this as a cynic or to depress you. In fact, quite the opposite. I say it because distinguishing between our subjective perception and the objective reality is the key to living a meaningful and important life.
Acknowledging unimportance liberates us from the grips of the self-centered voice in our head that’s chiefly responsible for many of life’s difficulties.
It’s the voice that compares us to people that don’t matter, it’s the same voice that convinces us that we’re entitled to a comfortable and easy life, and it’s indeed this voice that has us chasing arbitrary measures of success.
And the result?
We spend our time acquiring things we don’t want or need, we falter at the first sign of hardship and inconvenience, and one day, we wake up to a ticking clock realizing that, all this time, we’ve lived somebody else’s life.
The surest way to be unfilled is to walk around like you hold some sort of a privileged position in the universe. It’s not only a completely false and harmful illusion, but it also overlooks the fringe benefits of being a nobody.
I’d like to walk you through them.
[h=2]1. Being a nobody allows us to truly experience and appreciate the profoundness of the sublime[/h] In 1757, Edmund Burke published one of the most influential works in aesthetics. It’s a branch of philosophy that deals with the nature of beauty.
In it, he separated sensory experiences into “the beautiful” and “the sublime.”
We’re all familiar with “the beautiful.” It can be summarized by the standard definition. We see it every day in the things we find stunning and pleasant. “The sublime,” however, is different. It’s more than just visually enticing. It’s overwhelming. It makes us feel small, and it has the power to engulf us.
It’s found when we are in awe at the might of nature, it’s experienced in the emotion of love, and it’s discovered when we are compelled by a great work of art. It’s a heightened sense of existence beyond comfort and normalcy.
To fully indulge in the sublime, we have to give up a part of ourselves. We are forced to accept a degree of inferiority for a connection to something greater. The risk of vulnerability is balanced by the reward of ecstasy.
No one is immune from experiencing this wonder, but an ego and a deep sense of personal importance get in the way. They seek ecstasy without accepting vulnerability, and they then find themselves cornered with fear.
There is nothing desirable about it. It leads to a kind of paralysis that steals the potential of experiencing some of the great joys in life. It may be masked with humor or rationality, but in truth, it’s nothing more than insecurity.
Being a nobody, you don’t have this problem. You accept that you’re already naked, so you may as well put it on display to try and gain something.
More often than not, you do.
[h=2]2. Being a nobody frees us from the irrational pressures and expectations of an uncertain world[/h] We live our lives guided by labels and hierarchies. It’s how we make sense of a complex reality. That said, these labels and hierarchies aren’t absolute.
A tree isn’t a tree because a law of nature has defined it as a tree. It’s a tree because our cognitive brains have learned to understand it as such. It’s our way of translating sensory noise into a mode of organization that’s useful.
This is a crucial distinction. Our observation of reality is an approximation confined by the boundaries of language. It’s uncertain and in large part unpredictable. As the late Nobel Laureate Albert Camus noted, we live to reason with an unreasonable world and it often leads to a conflicted life.
When you bind these labels and hierarchies too closely to your identity, you anchor your expectations to things that are fundamentally fragile.
If you gain your worth from being a CEO and the fact that you wield a degree of power in the context of a business, rather than, say, from intrinsic values, then you will eventually find yourself in a position of conflict.
Life isn’t concerned with your artificial sense of importance. At some point, there will be a divergence between the story you tell yourself and the cold, hard reality. Your net worth won’t matter, and the fall will be much steeper.
When you are a nobody, however, you don’t pretend that a label—whether good or bad—is anything more than a figment of our collective imagination. You liberate yourself from many of the petty societal pressures of existence.
You may still assume a certain role with pride, but knowing that it doesn’t make you any more or less important grounds you on a firmer foundation.
It’s a small mental shift that makes a big difference.
[h=2]3. Being a nobody gives us the humility to realize that it’s our struggles that define us, not our desires[/h] When we convince ourselves that we’re more special than what the universe dictates, we tend to develop a sense of entitlement about what life owes us.
We choose to believe the surface-level stories about what happiness and success look like, and we are quick to think that they don’t cost a thing.
The harsh truth is that the universe doesn’t owe anyone anything. It’s utterly indifferent to what you or I want. It exists as it does based on the forces that act on it, and to shape an outcome in our favor, it’s on us to pick our battles.
It’s fine and well to want an amazing career, but walking around with the assumption that you deserve one won’t get you there. It’s the price that you are willing to pay that will. It’s that initial unrewarded work and those long, long hours of blood and sweat and tears with no end in sight that will.
To accept such struggles, it takes humility. It requires you to acknowledge that you’re just like everybody else that wants a great job, a wonderful relationship, and consistent happiness. Your desires aren’t unique.
It means that you accept that the difference isn’t in what you want, but in what you are willing to suffer for. It’s about the trade-offs you’re willing to endure, the beatings you’re willing to take, and it’s about knowing that in spite of all of that, the fruits of your labor may still not amount to anything.
It’s about boldly staring life in the face and having the courage to say, “I might not be much, and I know I won’t always get what I want, but it sure as hell doesn’t mean that I won’t try.”
And that, ultimately, is the purpose of life. To try and see reality in its true form and then to do what you can to shape it into what you wish it were.
You’re already a nobody, and as am I. We’re not owed anything. The sooner we realize that, the sooner we can focus on the things we can change. And there’s a lot we can change. It’s not easy, but that’s precisely why it’s valuable.
We’re each a negligible part of a vast cosmic entity, and there really is something beautiful about that if you choose to see it for what it is.

https://qz.com/987109/the-purpose-o...al&utm_source=twitter.com&utm_campaign=buffer
 
We can surely be a nobody but the problem is others expect us to be somebody for them.

But I like the concept to be a nobody..its relaxing to the mind..no need to live up to anyones expectations..free to be a saint or even a devil.

When will that day come?
 
In Bhaja Govindum stanza 19 Shankara expresses this thought very well.

sura mandira taru müla niväsaù çayyä bhütala majinaà väsaù | sarva parigraha bhoga tyägaù kasya sukhaà na karoti virägaù

Take your residence in a temple or below a tree, wear the deerskin for the dress, and sleep with mother earth as your bed. Give up all attachments and renounce all comforts. Blessed with such Vairagya, could any fail to be content?

For a sanyasi, it might be good.
But even for Shankara without fame, his sayings would not have been heard. So even he had to be somebody.
I think all this talk of being nobody is a cover up for being a failure.
Everybody needs to be somebody and for that, they have to be successful.
If you are satisfied with whatever you have achieved, then that should be enough for that individual.
Ultimately we are all egoistic to an extent.
 
The purpose of life is to evolve in intelligence further and further. Evolution will keep going always. The very question of 'purpose of life' and the answers to it is the result of evolving intelligence.

This intelligence can evolve successfully only when irrespective of 'fruits of actions or results', we are able to perform our actions with vigor, with focus, with happiness. Intelligence will evolve successfully only when we are able to learn from the results and improve our actions going forward. Intelligence will evolve successfully only when there is this continuous improvement irrespective of results being positive or negative.

But this 'not getting bogged down with result (positive or negative) and continuous improvement' comes with the mentality of being a 'nobody'.

Being Nobody means, being a spectator for yourself. Giving up a part of yourself. Disconnecting from your ego. Being a spectator (nobody) to yourself relieves us from irrational pressures and expectations. It will lead us to define ourselves by our struggles (actions) and not desires (expectation of results).

In short, the purpose of life is to evolve further and further in knowledge and intelligence. The strategy is to be able to continuously able to improve our performance without getting bogged down by result or its expectations. The method is to be a nobody or a spectator to yourself.

Learn to Enjoy. This is what I wrote for my daughter.

https://www.tamilbrahmins.com/showthread.php?t=10947

-TBT
 
We can surely be a nobody but the problem is others expect us to be somebody for them.

But I like the concept to be a nobody..its relaxing to the mind..no need to live up to anyones expectations..free to be a saint or even a devil.

When will that day come?
Woh subah kabhi to aayegi.

Listen to sahir song in ' Phir subah Hogi'
 
We can surely be a nobody but the problem is others expect us to be somebody for them.

But I like the concept to be a nobody..its relaxing to the mind..no need to live up to anyones expectations..free to be a saint or even a devil.

When will that day come?
Never, Renu. :nod:
 
we all were born nobody.

during the course of our journey of life, we imagine we are becoming somebody.

when we were born someone had to carry us, our mother had to feed us, someone had to help us walk, help us learn to talk, our parents had to admit us in school, pay fee for us till we completed our education, had to spend on us till we found a job, sustain us till we earned sufficient enough to repay them for what they did to us, someone had to train us in our job, someone had to help us motivate us and inspire us to get promotion, someone had to help us get married, beget children, raise them up, get them married, our children had to feed us after retirement, and after we died, someone had to carry our dead bodies to bury us.

but we imagine we are doing everything.

we were all always nobody throughout the course of our life. while yet we were nobody we want to become nobody by our own efforts. we want to become someone we already are.

joke!!!!!!!
 
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