for survival and all

I was just watching this movie (it seems I'm always 'just watching movies' but hey, I a'int gonna justify nothing) 'The Bucket List'. I'd seen it before but yeah, I was certainly in the mood for something touching like that. I liked the scene where they're sitting on the pyramids (as one does) and Carter tells Edward about that the ancient Egyptian people believed when a soul went to heaven that you are asked two questions to determine whether you get in or not: 1) did you find joy in your life and 2) did other's derive joy from your life? (this was just after telling him that the only dog in the world to ever be struck by lightning was in Egypt- zOmg...)

The first question might be easier to answer. We've all experienced joy on different levels. The second is harder for me to answer, certainly and if we reflect on it, we have to be honest and say we could have done/should do more (which we can always do). I know I should do more to bring joy to other peoples' lives anyway. I can sometimes be a bit grumpy and selfish and wrapped up in my own problems. That's natural, of course, considering human nature. But I'd like to make other people happy almost more than I want my own happiness. That makes me sound like such a goody-goody or as if I'm trying to be all super-perfect-mrs. nice (that is a thing that people say, promise) or think myself as such. This is not really what I mean. I think if you have one clear duty as a human being, stripped from all creeds, societial conditions, rules or cultures of conduct, it is to look after one another. People always use Herbert Spencer's 'survival of the fittest' theory (like Darwin's theory of 'natural selection' but applying it to human society) to justify hierarchy of the rat race or whatever. But one way of survival is to work in groups, something human beings have always done.

So, even if you're not a religious person and you debate the purpose of your existence, you know that one significant purpose in life is to help others. You know, for survival and all.