What do you contribute?
What do you contribute?
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Ayahuasca

Original Poster:

27,584 posts

309 months

Friday 16th October 2020
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Proposition: most of us contribute nothing to the sum total of human existence; after we are dead and gone humanity will be no better off for our having lived. So you made people happy? You entertained them, or taught them, fixed their plumbing, or their teeth, their tax returns or their legal issues. So what? Soon all those people will be dead and your good work will mean nothing. Unless you contributed something that made a difference, lasted, and benefited generations now unborn, what will have been the point of you?



Shermanator

581 posts

105 months

Friday 16th October 2020
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Ayahuasca said:
Proposition: most of us contribute nothing to the sum total of human existence; after we are dead and gone humanity will be no better off for our having lived. So you made people happy? You entertained them, or taught them, fixed their plumbing, or their teeth, their tax returns or their legal issues. So what? Soon all those people will be dead and your good work will mean nothing. Unless you contributed something that made a difference, lasted, and benefited generations now unborn, what will have been the point of you?
Gee, thanks... That's an upbeat post... Not sure what I was expecting though.
What will have been the point of me? No clue, we'll see in the future.

abzmike

12,051 posts

136 months

Friday 16th October 2020
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Made me think I’m not contributing anything, so I might as well end it now. Farewell.

Wills2

29,722 posts

205 months

Friday 16th October 2020
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Ayahuasca said:
Proposition: most of us contribute nothing to the sum total of human existence; after we are dead and gone humanity will be no better off for our having lived. So you made people happy? You entertained them, or taught them, fixed their plumbing, or their teeth, their tax returns or their legal issues. So what? Soon all those people will be dead and your good work will mean nothing. Unless you contributed something that made a difference, lasted, and benefited generations now unborn, what will have been the point of you?
Stop questioning it and just live it the best you can don't worry about what the point of it all is, I notice you seem more concerned about the point of others peoples lives rather than your own...

Help is available, be more dog...that tooth that hurt mattered and you were grateful when they fixed it...




Hoofy

80,101 posts

312 months

Friday 16th October 2020
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biggrin

How did you expect that to go?

More importantly, what is your legacy?

I've developed a mental health system that helps people with their mindset and am training coaches and therapists in this system. By the time I die, thousands will have learnt to use this system professionally and even more will have been helped.

colin_p

4,503 posts

242 months

Friday 16th October 2020
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Hoofy said:
biggrin

How did you expect that to go?

More importantly, what is your legacy?

I've developed a mental health system that helps people with their mindset and am training coaches and therapists in this system. By the time I die, thousands will have learnt to use this system professionally and even more will have been helped.
Any insights of it you can share with us?


Back to the gloom; within three generations you are likely to be completely forgotten.

otherman

2,266 posts

195 months

Friday 16th October 2020
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I don't think there's any imperative to contribute to the sum total of progress of the world. But at least we should try to break even: to put in as much as we take out.

Second Best

6,535 posts

211 months

Friday 16th October 2020
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Think you've had enough gin mate.

If it wasn't for the forgotten Egyptian scientists, they'd have never worked out how to make mummies and pyramids.

If it wasn't for the forgotten Egyptian workers, they'd have never built the fking things in the first place.

Nobody remembers names. People remember work. Can you easily name the inventor of the Boeing 747, the Ford Model T, the humble 3-pin plug, or even the internet itself?

People go to their graves without recognition for their contributions. It's nothing new. However I'd like to think that even if I haven't changed the world, my job would make the world a better place. Perhaps I'll help make a wedding happen. Perhaps I'll manage to get some children to their terminally ill parent(s) on time. Perhaps I'll help transport something that is key to a big important public piece of tech.

I'd rather live in the hope and belief that that's what I contribute, rather than being one of the (unfortunately common) angry people, even on PH, who seem to think the world owes them something. When I'm dead and buried I won't care what happens, but it'd be nice to be remembered as "yeah, SB, he was a good egg. We miss him." rather than "SB's dead, hurrah. We're organising a group st on his grave to make sure."

shirt

25,472 posts

231 months

Friday 16th October 2020
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does it matter?

GT03ROB

14,026 posts

251 months

Friday 16th October 2020
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In the vastness and context of the universe, if you had singlehandedly solved world hunger; developed a cure for cancer & CV19; built the pyramids; cracked cold fusion; bought world happiness...... you would still be totally inconsequential.

What's the point in life? There isn't any point. Looking for it is the path to depression & unhappiness

cobra kid

5,595 posts

270 months

Friday 16th October 2020
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I contribute to the design and safety testing of railway fastenings, helping the rail infrastructures around the world operate in a safe manner with a sustainable lifecycle.

Prak

840 posts

248 months

Friday 16th October 2020
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What if you have kids, and one of those kids goes on to do something momentous? Or one of theirs, or one of theirs? Can you claim that?

rossub

5,987 posts

220 months

Friday 16th October 2020
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I feed the pigeons, I sometimes feed the sparrows too

It gives me a sense of enormous well-being

PositronicRay

29,031 posts

213 months

Friday 16th October 2020
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Leaving a legacy is vanity.

I do however plant trees, 1000s of them, along with other like minded people. I won't be remembered for it, I didn't invent it, but happy nonetheless.

djcube

548 posts

100 months

Friday 16th October 2020
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This thread reminds me of a work tearoom conversation. Would you rather be involved in the design and manufacture of what may be seen as being mundane? By mundane I mean stuff like white goods, the family car and so on. Or what is perceived to be exotic and interesting, like an F1 car or a land speed record vehicle?

Its the mundane for me. I still get a feeling of immense satisfaction when I see and hear a motorcycle pass by that I have been involved with at the design/manufacture level. I've worked on automotive projects most of my working life and a great pleasure it has been to work at what is often regarded as the less interesting end of the automotive spectrum.


Taylor James

3,111 posts

91 months

Friday 16th October 2020
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Ayahuasca said:
Proposition: most of us contribute nothing to the sum total of human existence; after we are dead and gone humanity will be no better off for our having lived. So you made people happy? You entertained them, or taught them, fixed their plumbing, or their teeth, their tax returns or their legal issues. So what? Soon all those people will be dead and your good work will mean nothing. Unless you contributed something that made a difference, lasted, and benefited generations now unborn, what will have been the point of you?
Why does there have to be a point?

sherbertdip

1,288 posts

149 months

Friday 16th October 2020
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Taylor James said:
Ayahuasca said:
Proposition: most of us contribute nothing to the sum total of human existence; after we are dead and gone humanity will be no better off for our having lived. So you made people happy? You entertained them, or taught them, fixed their plumbing, or their teeth, their tax returns or their legal issues. So what? Soon all those people will be dead and your good work will mean nothing. Unless you contributed something that made a difference, lasted, and benefited generations now unborn, what will have been the point of you?
Why does there have to be a point?
I can think of one point; the only thing that makes any living thing have a point in being here is procreation, so really if you have children you have served your purpose but think about this, no single person that has ever lived asked to be here so what's the point in that, is that a paradox?

Doofus

34,471 posts

203 months

Friday 16th October 2020
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I'm here to make the place look nice.

Mogsmex

550 posts

265 months

Friday 16th October 2020
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rossub said:
I feed the pigeons, I sometimes feed the sparrows too

It gives me a sense of enormous well-being
clap

Dan_1981

18,104 posts

229 months

Friday 16th October 2020
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Taxes.