@Fred_Snerd In my own experience, what passes for success is usually material wealth piled up because of an obsessive fear of want and inadequacy. Most people have learned to believe that wealth is a sign of success and higher intellect but I know lots of people who are smart and happy but without a lot of money in the bank. Most of the rich people I have known over they years and I dealt with a lot of very rich people including a few billionaires - these were not happy people in my estimation but people driven by a fear of inadequacy and insecurity.

@Fred_Snerd Some of these people are pretty broken and hard to love, they have invested a lifetime of piling up bodies to amass wealth because they believe that happiness is a function of money and power.
Not very lovable creatures.

@K9Kohle789 I don't think I would be happy to live in a country where I would be persecuted or marginalized for atheism or agnosticism or theism. As far as a creator, in a simple sense we must realize we came from somewhere unless we are thinking that we have just always existed. Some theists say God has always existed, no beginning and no end. Scientists similarly wonder and argue at the universe. Had the universe, the stuff that makes the universe always been there? If the universe always existed and we are made of stuff of the universe then have we just always existed? And if you have a concept of you and I as separate, than how can you be alone? You can't be alone unless someone else exists and if someone else exists you are not alone.

@K9Kohle789 Once upon a time you were given a name and taught to hold a pencil. Your vocabulary and associations of good and bad are probably heavily associated by who you know who you knew and what you experienced up to this point. The sum of all of that may be yours. That perspective may also be influenced on where you are, your environment, and your health. A good portion of that is shaped by other people. Someone paved the road for you to think on as you travel.

@K9Kohle789 sounds like you have some fond memories of playing ball and an independent attitude

@K9Kohle789 Heck do I agree with this concept and I will add since I ived in NYC I would go from Almost the Rockaways, to AMNH and the Hayden planetarium, solo. I traveled at rush hour so it was safe enough if you did as you menationed avoid strangers. A bike was total freedom. Carry lunch and water if you can and you were good to go.

I got caught a solid 3 miles from home, a real soaker of a storm moved in. I was in the street scene from Singing in the Rain, deluge, buckets and firehouse volume. SOOOO

I started Singing in the Rain. I watched it 20 times I knew the words and general moves. I started popping wheelies and generally swishing about . Adults who were running like mad to get from cars into their houses stopped and watched as I went "Singing in The Rain" .

It was very pleasant temp, I could not escape. So I just went full Hollywood Musical.

sometimes ya gotta unleash the inner child. That is why most humans like drugs. It quiets the mind enough to ignore life. Children do not need the stuff, unless they are in a bad place, by country or family, or family and their relation to the ruling party.

Then to top that off Chance brings asteroids, tornado's, tsunami , floods locusts and every other kind of disaster and calamity.

It is the only thing to do when you are agnostic/atheist. There is no point in life if there is no god. If god is an olde testiment psycho smiting everyone, (kinda greek god like, hating humans), or is a more hipster god, forgiving and both say if you do as I say you get to come here and be with me. When things go really wrong we can point to the god of your reality, there is a point to this existence. It does not matter which. And the more complicated the god is structured the easier it is.

But if you do not believe in any god, or that if there is a plan we will never know, and when we pass it is over, then life is quite depressing. Cus then we are mere rolls of the dice in a never ending reinvention of life. Eventually everything dies and gets recycled. If the energy, the underlying bios/programming that make me me transcends the mortal coil into a new entity. Perhaps there is a god.

Or as likely we are all god, or little thought bubbles in the creators mind.

But I see no way to actually believe in a specific god, there might be one, but for me God is a creator. God made it all then god metaphorically pops a cold one lights up a doob and relaxes. Enjoying his toy , the universe as it roils and churns and watched entities go from intergalactic goo, to Nuclear tyrants. God grooves as we gut each other and rape and pillage and what else we do.

To quote an old show biz thing

"Now THATS Entertainment."

@praytothemilkjug That was a very nice, thank you. I'm wringing my tshirt out and feeling quite springy now.

@K9Kohle789 well, atoms at their scale, eeanssie weenie, resemble solar systems...... so what if we are just on an electron/proton, spinning madley and if we could go smaller we get more of that structure. That is wheels, withing wheels, withing wheels, but each layer a universe. Do your mitocondria want to be liberated??

And I can say perhaps god, perhaps, really is a Puerto Rican Bathroom Attendent, or dolphines so THANKS FER ALL THE FISH!

But see it is fine if upon death we get informed what the goal was and what our part to play was. If that is crazy the team spirit/esprit de coure (splg?) of NASA was so intense, if you asked a janitor what was going on, he /she might say WE are sending a man to the moon, that is what we do here.

But no one ever comes back, and we will never know, till we die. And then it is too late to realize there is nothing better coming, no explanations, nothing. So not only could you have had that V8, you could have gotten laid, by either sex every time it was offered and nothing for you, or the infinite universe would notice.

The Gods keep you in line, so craftier shitty people can abuse you. And when you turn the other cheek the 22nd time god pops another beer relights the bong and says, "shit they're stupid" and roars in laughter!

@praytothemilkjug Only to recognize bedding everyone is still just boring, at which point you forgive yourself your pretenses. Pry the last pebble of self flogging hatred stuck inside the shoe of everyones shit stinks. Make time for sea legs on the shore.

@thinkwithme So simply enjoy the ride as one day it ends. And no one knows the next song on the Juke Box of Infinite Consciousness?