This Is Why We Are Here

Of course, 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. Merely to subsist, to persist—what kind of existence is that?

"The fruit of this life," Marcus Aurelius wrote, "is good character and acts for the common good."