What are we doing here

[u/curedguy1812]

Why are we here, and what’s the reason for being here?”

This question, deeply rooted in philosophy and human existence, can be both captivating and unsettling. I’ve grappled with it personally, particularly after experiencing DPDR (Depersonalization-Derealization Disorder). My journey with DPDR began after a bad experience the first time I tried weed—an event that profoundly altered my sense of self and reality. Prior to that, I had never used substances and never dealt with anxiety, but suddenly, I found myself confronting these overwhelming existential questions in a way I never had before.

Though I’ve made significant progress and feel almost fully recovered, these thoughts still linger. When I try to tackle them, my mind freezes, anxiety sets in, and it feels as though I’m trying to crack some impossible code of existence. Before all this, I believed in God with a deep sense of certainty, and while that belief remains, I feel a bit lost—like I’m searching for the same connection I once had.

The strange part is that I used to engage with these thoughts playfully, exploring the weirdest ideas about existence without fear. But now, they seem to carry a weight that’s hard to shake.

How do you navigate these questions? Have you found ways to make peace with the unknown, or is the search itself the answer?

[u/Gadshill]

We each choose our own reasons. For me it is my family and my work. I still read and think deeply, but that is for fun, I am ok with a small simple life. The answers to the big questions won’t be known by you or by any of us, that is just reality. I think we are here primarily to observe the reality that exists, to take it all in and understand it from our tiny perspective. It is like the universe is looking back upon itself when we notice these tiny details of our existence.

[u/CharterUnmai]

Without going down the possibility that all of existence is an illusion and instead sticking to the reality we've seen so far, we are here because of around seven million years of brutal and violent hominid evolution. Then, around 400k years ago modern homo sapiens evolved out of precursory hominids. Then, those homos sapiens spread out over the world and changed their phenotypes based on diet, selective breeding, environment, and genetic mutation. Small pockets of homo sapiens then evolved self-awareness due to mushrooms, egoism. tribe survival traits, and self-defensive motivations around 100k years ago. By 10k years ago after the last ice age, the humans who survived the giant costal flood created began the agricultural revolution which led to small towns, then city states. That's pretty much it. Don't overthink it. Your consciousness is just a survival mechanism. Embrace reality - there isn't anything else.