What is the core of your existence?

This is something I have been contemplating for a long time. Say, fifteen years or so. I am not talking about your political beliefs. I am talking about what drives you personally, what motivates you.

I've discovered that the core, the essence of what I am, can be pinpointed, quite eloquently, in the lyrics of an old synthi-pop hit from the eighties, Yazoo, "Only you":

"All I needed was the love you gave
all I needed for another day
and all I ever knew,
only you."

Specifically the second phrase. The only thing that has motivated me to drag myself out of bed, for the last 20 years of my life, has been the thought that out there, somewhere, is someone I love, who loves me. Without that, existence is meaningless.

I know this might be a pompous and navel-gazing thread, but I decided to start it anyway.

What about you?

Discovering new things, thinking new thoughts, going to places I haven't been before, having new ideas and reevaluating and evolving old ones.

Existence, oddly enough, is the core of my existence. Not, "I am because..." I simply am. That is sufficient.

These days, not much other than day to day survival. There's always the hope of restarting the jewelery making, but that's a lot of bucks I just don't see happening in the near future.

Some basic ethical values and spiritual considerations, maybe? Fucked if I know... too busy trying to stay off the dole and avoiding going back into dealing weed.

Beautiful song though.

My core is learning. Discovering new things. Finding stuff out. Or, as someone once said, "Question. Learn. All else is meaningless."

Freedom.
The freedom to live and let live.
The freedom to be the best I can be.
The freedom to respect the freedom of others.
The freedom to learn and grow.

My core has taken a pretty severe shock as of late that I'm trying to repair.

I was once quite content with life because I lived it on my terms. My youth was an intrical part of that and now that I've reached fifty I find myself seeking a reason beyond that, a focal point that isn't death related.
I used to enjoy woodwork. I used to enjoy the beach. I used to enjoy many, many things but today it's a day at a time to just motivate myself forward into tomorrow.

I suppose something will reawaken in me but until my obligations are met I am in a rut. I hope to get that motivation soon, as soon as I figure out what I want to do from here on out.

Self awareness.

Cash moves everything around me(cream), get the money, dollar dollar bill yalls.

And hot naked wimmens!

I guess my core desire is discovery: learning new things, going new places, having grand new experiences, exploring my own potential.

Everything I do seems to be along those lines...

1. Professionally, I'm an electronics engineer. My job is, essentially, to take someone's need, study it, and find a way to satisfy it with my own creativity.

2. My favorite passtime is travel. I've gone many places in the world now (Europe, China, India, Australia, Hawai'i, the Caribbean) and there are many more I'd like to visit.

3. A big hobby of mine is learning languages, mainly on my own. I developed some competency in Spanish (I can read simple articles and novels), a pretty good grasp of German (I read it very well and, after I loosen up a little, speak it with a decent accent), a dash of Chinese (I'll get back to it!), and now quite a lot of Russian. Will I ever be fluent in any of them? Probably not. But I love picking up a foreign-looking text and realizing that I can understand much of it.

4. I have a huge love of movies, which bring interesting and incredible experiences to me in my home.

5. I like to read, which also brings new experiences and opportunities for insightful thinking.

6. And I like creating visual arts (drawings, photography, video)...I guess because they're a way of either capturing the world or creating it.

Fast cars, rock and roll and pussy.

Quarks.

I suppose my post up there was a bit emo, but there is a lot of truth in it.

You're 100% right Paladin.

I'm still here for a reason.

I have to say I have no one to blame for the attitude/situation, and there are many things that still interest me. I've just allowed myself to become stagnant.
It is my obligation to myself and to those around me to get back on track, pull my head out of my ass and make it so, whatever it takes.

Learning, I'd spend half a lifetime in a college library/various college courses if I could. I specifically love the various social sciences/humanities, so philosophy, psychology, sociology, economics, business, political science, etc.

Still have to make a living though, so I pursue and discuss those things in my offtime, spent an hour on the phone talking with a friend about philosophy, then read about various eastern philosophies for another hour.

Can I change my answer to intermediate vector bosons?

No?

Ah, fiddlesticks.

Don't give up on you, keep trying, and you will make everything you want happen.

If you want to get to the real base of it, you're a probabilistic expression of one set of answers to various field equations describing a chaotic multi-dimensional potentiality matrix.

So the many worlds theory is just implementation of a decision tree.

Ayup, but it's a brain-meltingly big decision tree.

To spiral out and to keep going. I am a Hedonist.

I find it most improbable that the fundamental building block of corporeal expression is anything as quaint as a... 'fiddle stick.'

I don't know if I'm chanelling Uncle Albert this morning, but I can sum it up in six words:

Fuck off and leave me alone.

Hold up, it seems clear that many folks core are their political beliefs.

In the US that band is known as Yaz, guess somebody else had already picked Yazoo.

It's a good song from a good album: Upstairs at Eric's. Alison Moyet turned in solid vocal performances as the lead singer and was backed up by the under-appreciated Vince Clarke.

Well, lyrics are always subject to interpretation. Not quite the sentiment I take away from the song but hey, more power to you.

Nothing wrong with pompous navel-gazing.

I haven't a song lyric that sums up the core of my existence. The entire idea is a bit too maudlin for my taste.

Near as I can tell you're asking for a reason behind the drive to survive, the answer is simple. Every species has this innate instinct, if they didn't they wouldn't be around to gaze at their navel in the first place.

Well reasoned motivations don't play much of a part in the drive to survive.

It's like you spent a decade in our country, and know exactly how to piss us off.

Functional utility.

Batboy is Batboy.

Creating a masterpiece of self-expression. For now.

To have fun.