All I want for Christmas is a sense of purpose

"A few weeks ago, I asked 10,000 people this question and got thousands of replies back. Some, of course, were funny: "A job," "Some money," and a "girlfriend." Some were predictably context-appropriate: "An unanswerable question," "Time to think," and "A deep conversation." Others were oddly mundane: "Socks," "A mug," or a "book." When Diego said "a comb," I think he was getting personal. (You can find the best of the rest over on Substack.)"

"I started to imagine the scene: My son runs over with a gilded, vibrating, and immaculately wrapped box. "Open it, daddy!" he says, with the saccharine cliché of a Hallmark movie. And so, I do. I pull at the ribbon, open the box, and peek inside. There, like some glowing magic from the end of Pulp Fiction, is PURPOSE. I stare straight at the meaning of life, the universal, categorical raison d'être. Here, among the Marvel toys and chocolate oranges, is the secret of everything."

Ten thousand people were asked what gift to buy a philosopher, yielding thousands of replies that ranged from humorous (a job, money, girlfriend) to context-appropriate (an unanswerable question, time to think, a deep conversation) to mundane (socks, a mug, a book). Many respondents suggested "purpose" or "meaning," prompting an imagined scene of receiving the literal purpose as a gift. A philosophical account of absurdity presents humans as meaning-seeking creatures confronted with a universe that cannot provide inherent meaning. That account treats much talk of cosmic meaning as misguided and analyzes different kinds of meaning-seeking.

Read at Big Think