Why are we here?

It’s not an easy question to answer. One could say that on a fundamental evolutionary level, we’re here to pass along our genes. This is why we strive for success. This is why we lust for sex. This is what keeps the species going.

But equally encoded in that evolutionary software and in our culture is another purpose, another less selfish drive: the drive for meaning. Which actually leads to a pretty simple answer to the question of why we’re here. As Temple Grandin, an autistic woman who is one of today’s leading scientists and animal behaviorists, said in an interview with The New York Times:

“The meaning of life is if something that you did made something better. Like, I get an email from a parent: Thank you so much. My kid is employed now because I read one of your books. That is a little piece of the meaning of life right there.”

“The fruit of this life,” Marcus Aurelius wrote, “is good character and acts for the common good.” Indeed, the greatest achievements in human history are unselfish ones. It’s art that gives people hope or insight. It’s a scientific breakthrough that makes things better for everyone. It’s the collective sacrifices. It’s the tackling of hard problems together.

It’s that Stoic idea that we are here for each other, that we are bees of the same hive, that we are here to make things better for others, for the next generation, that makes life meaningful and worth living. Because in doing so, we find happiness and respect for ourselves.