WHAT IS YOUR BIGGEST QUESTION IN LIFE?

And my comment was kind of a joke on that. A sarcastic comment if you like. Where I commented that since the continents move at about the same rate as the poles saying that when the poles move it would cause massive extinction is like saying that when the continents move it would cause massive extinction.

And actually the continents go several centimeters each year. It kinda depends on what continents we're talking about though because it varies.


And I did some wikipedia-ing on the pole reversal. It seems that the magnetic poles can have some kind of reversal fairly quickly (thousands of years) and that it might happen every million years or so. So I guess that stuff can have some effects. (though it's not like we've had extinction events every millionth year)

Oh, no! My leg is caught between Spain and Algeria! Guys, help me! NOO! Don't leave me here! Nooooooooooooooo.

The biggest plague on my mind is, "What is happiness?"
I used to have the answer to this. Friends, I thought.
But, it has become evident through my father and his group; and through my own group that things either change, or you change.
While some of my friends grow further apart, or apart from me, I grow apart from others who refuse to step out of the past. So if friends go away (even my best friends change with time) then what is happiness?
Money? Freedom? Love?
Those are all... Feeble. Love changes, same as friendship. Not that I've ever made it past a month. Money changes hands. Freedom? We all work for someone to make money.
Is life just a spiral of shit searching for happiness, only to ultimately lead to our end, which in turn is ironically happiness? The afterlife being an untold tale. Religious nuts or athiests be damned. No one knows what happens after death.
That aside, my mind remains on one fiction:

What is Happiness?

I got quite a few stirring responses on Facebook about my question.
The general consensus is that the Matrix was right: 'There is no spoon'.

The secret of happiness is to lower your expectations to the point where they are already met. Happiness is mediocrity. Anyone who confounds fulfillment with happiness is bound to end up unhappy.

I know this could sound weird, but could happiness be living according to your principles, in all situations, be as faithfull as possible to what you beleive in, honesty, integrity, etc?

That may sound like it would be the reason, but it doesn't feel like that.
It feels like an extra layer added onto my very own existence itself.
I don't know what to describe it really...

I'm confusing myself when trying to understand what or why it is even there.

Am I the main character/player one?

I mean, in my own personal life, I'm obviously the main character. But to me, I'm the only one who holds this perspective of being able to sense things: feel, see, smell, hear, touch. Everyone else claims they can, but they can't prove that to me. They could just be making it up. I could be making it up for them, because they're just a part of this big imagination. I could have made all of you up, and you have no real way of convincing me that you can perceive things at all. I'm the only one who I'm absolutely certain can do that. I hold the "first person" perspective that I can never be certain that anyone else actually has.

But that's not all - I'm just.. interesting like a main character. I always stand out amongst the "NPCs" and it's obvious that I'm different to them.

Reading this, you will probably consider yourself to be the main character and I'm the crazy, made-up one telling you what you already know. You just needed to hear it from your own mind, right?

I can't say the thought has never crossed my mind, but the evidence you're all real is overwhelming. For one, how would one be able to fall in love with an NPC? Second, you learn new things every day. Your mind cannot make facts up if you've never even heard of them. If you were making everything up as you go along, it'd be impossible to fail tests etc.

Here's another one: What if we were all created just five minutes ago, complete with memories etc.?

See I'm the opposite. I ask myself that same question and usually I come up with loads of reasons why I'm not the main character. I'm just an extra, or side character at best.

The existence of everyone else as a distinct self is definitely there: otherwise they'd not be as interesting as they all are. But the main characters in life are the people who are out doing things or having things thrust upon them. In every great story the important people are those who've got stuff going on, for better or for worse, and are the people who the story focuses on. As that's where the reader/viewer/player gets their morbid jollies.

And I just don't see myself as a person others could get invested in, I guess. Or that's my rationale at any rate. On the positive side, because I see myself as completely uninteresting I see everyone else in the world as very interesting and complex.