The idea of nobility is a synthetic preposition based on the concepts of good and evil, which I believe are meaningless except as a means of analysing the values a particular culture holds; thus, the question is meaningless. Or rather: nobility is relative to the culture in which one lives, and thus talking about nobility as though it were a universal ideal is pointless.
So how about if we just asked what, in your opinion, is the best thing a person can do with their time here? Same answer?
Whatever the hell you want it to be, really. Since all of human endeavor is ultimately pointless anyway, it doesn't make any difference whether you spend your days sitting around smoking weed and playing video games or whether you spend them changing the world bit by bit. So I guess my real answer is: whatever makes you happy.
Hmm, guess I might as well toss in my two cents now. I think the above comes closest to the way I see it at the moment. It seems that the wonderful thing about life is that it is utterly gratuitous; it has no point other than to be. If you get bored with being, if that's ever not enough for you, one can always set out to try and answer the "big questions", Who am I? What am I? What's going on here? What's true?, etc. But any discoveries made along the way won't make one any more or less of what they already are. Guess I'd just say, "To enjoy the ride."
Why are idiots (Sorry, drunk, don't mean to lash out, but seriously.) so obsessed with the idea that we must just "bide our time here". It doesn't make any difference? Are you kidding me? That's just what we say to get through rough moments in our lives, it's not a credo. Human progress isn't going to come to a standstill. I don't care if you're a teen who only cares about the latest twitter updates on the ****ing Twilight series. Eventually you're going to want more out of life. You're going to have to push yourself through work or school or both and really attempt to change something, otherwise, no one else will notice you, and pretty soon the life that you didn't give a damn about will take no notice when you're snuffed out, crushed like a bug, or worse, left to live in sickening despair. That is, of course, if you believe life can't be beaten.
What's wrong with that? No, I'm pretty sure it always ends in being snuffed out or crushed like a bug. The living in despair only lasts a little while. What's the big deal about Accomplishing Things, Changing Things? People remember you? Who's there to appreciate that fact when you're dead? You're right, human progress isn't going to come to a standstill; the species will continue to adapt, get better at surviving, as organisms are wont to do, so why make a big deal out of it? Why strive? It will happen whether you think you're making a big difference or not. If you don't invent a smaller cell phone or a new treatment for Alzheimer's, someone else will.
I actually read a book about this. How the entire "aid" system that we use does more harm than good. The book used an example of a woman with an egg stand. This woman saved money and bought two chickens whose eggs she sold. She got enough money to send her 3 kids to school and feed her family better. Until a church group came into the village and said "We're going to provide all of you with FREE EGGS!!" So, since she no longer had a business, she had to sell her chickens. A few months passed and the church stopped providing the eggs. The village was worse than before because now they didn't have any access to eggs, and the woman couldn't start selling eggs again because she had to get rid of her chickens. The book talked about a shift in aid programs that, instead of having foreign people come in and provide food and shelter and clean water, would help the local people of a region start their own businesses that could benefit themselves and the community. ...yeah that's all I really have to add.
It's like that old proverb, Build a man a fire and he'll be warm for a day. Set a man on fire and he'll be warm for the rest of his life.
