I take “important” to be a human invention. Which is, like you say, not universal. Each importance is individual and at best shared by a group of people. As such I would argue it is a belief which does not relate to an ‘objective’ reality. I suspect that everyone needs a false belief in order to have a drive to live because reality puts us in a catch-22 (programmed to survive, but death is inevitable).
I am not saying we should demand a universal, objective importance. What I am saying is we must demand rationality and truth. There is nothing wrong with believing something is important, as long as you also admit it is a false belief. My problem (personally) is that once I accept it is a false belief, I can no longer believe it thus making it impossible (for me) to find importance in life.
I apologise for not making clear I was replying from a personal point of view.
Being alive is important* to me. And that is probably just my survival instinct talking. I fail to see the rationality behind the ‘urge’ to explain it any other way. If we do, don’t we go the road of religon?
*) Not sure if ‘important’ is the right word. I feel my body and mind wanting to be and remain alive. Not sure if I consciously and rationally would label it as important.
Okay. Not sure what the reason is for the negative points on my last 2 replies. I will admit my response to this article was fuelled by my own frustrations. But still I do not see where my logic fails when I say: “Life is objectively without purpose afawk. The rational thing to do is accept that.”
For the past 30 years I lived a life without meaning, purpose, passion, importance, you name it. Still, I feel no need to end it, nor does that mean I cannot enjoy things. But what that does do is make me feel lonely. I see everyone around me, everywhere, hiding behind their own self-created “purposes”.
To me, it is like everyone is digging holes and trying to find something, totally oblivious to that fact that there is a vast world above ground. It is just an -no doubt biased- observation/feeling. I didn’t respond to disagree with the article, but to see if anyone can give me a logical, rational reason to agree with it (=start digging a hole).
I failed in that. Sorry.