Reg and Summer's survey: What is the purpose of your existence?

I hate being serious almost as much as I hate attempting to be funny.

and despite this I thought I’d share a very informal, poorly constructed and biased survey Summer and I conducted—in an attempt to be both serious and funny at the same time.

The question: What is the purpose of your existence?

Sample: Well, we intended to ask every 3^rd customer in line—either at the bank or the coffee place— but then we remembered that we detest people (and yes, we have jobs in customer service.) Thus we asked only people we knew. To be more specific, we only asked people we knew and saw on that particular day.

My AP Stats teacher would be so proud of our efforts…

Sorry if anyone is misquoted…I’m doing this from memory because I’ve lost the list (meaning I’ve washed the list off of my hand since I wrote it there three weeks ago…)

Tom: To be the most badass farmer in Iowa. Also to kill all the vermin

Sayuri: To help others.

Summer: To make a difference in the world.

Mark H: To raise my daughter. I mean, someone has to take care of me when I’m old. Oh, and before that it was to PARTY!

Mark’s GF: To torture Mark. But I do it as pleasantly as possible, so he won’t leave me.

Honey: To find a purpose in life.

Reg: To search for purpose in an inherently purposeless existence

My dog: To chew all the fleas off my ass.

Conclusion:  There are no numbers so…I’d rather watch a documentary on the Helvetica typeface than run a chi squared test on this shit.

I did, however, notice how uncomfortable this question made the subjects in the survey. They usually tried to ease their discomfort with a joke instead of true answer.  I, for example, know that my own answer was not intended to be taken very seriously, until I pondered it some.

Now I think I actually believe that. What would my life be if I wasn’t trying to achieve something more than what I already have? If I had everything I desired I doubt I’d be content. Happiness for me is in seeking happiness or some other elusive, poorly defined and subjective concept.

Oh, so what’s the purpose of your existence?

Your butterfly,

Reg