what reason do we have for being?
TL;DR, neoplatonism and hermeticism are pretty based
Long version:
Okay, this is what I believe...
We are here to count, rank, and name, everything that exists as either a pattern, a symbol, a value, or an object.
That's it. That's what I believe. In plain and simple terms.
To explain a bit, if something "exists" then "it" can be measured. To measure "it" is to count, rank, or name "it" somehow (ironically, as I have already done here for example, by naming the "something" to which I have been referring so far as "it" - and now I've just referred to "it", also, as "something" here in this example.) "It" can be a pattern, in which case "it" is something like an "archetype" or a "god". "It" can also be a symbol, some kind of idea or image that seems to represent something, like a thought, a word, or a gesture, or a picture, or whatever. "It" can be a value, in which case it is a feeling, like, an appreciation for something, or a disdain for something, repulsion from "it". Or "it" can literally just be an object, plain as day, a hard pebble in my hand, a cloud in the sky, the wetness of the rain, some manifest physical event or property.
Whatever "it" is, we must name "it", and we must count "it" (that is to say, before we can even name "it", we must account for "it", we must count "it"), and we must also rank "it" (which is to say, "it" must be placed into some sort of order or hierarchy that is governed by some fixed set of rules). Furthermore, you cannot have one without the others. Names have no meaning if they cannot quantify something or qualify something - that is literally what names do. Words are names, and words are used to quantify things by declaring them, or to qualify things by describing them, you see? And you cannot count something that cannot be named or cannot be ranked. And you cannot rank something that cannot be named or counted, and so forth. It is because we are discussing three fundamental metaphysical ideas here, which are at the very basis of neoplatonim.
Cardinals. Ordinals. Nominals.
These are the three "triplicities" or "modalities" as they are also called - cardinal, fixed, mutable. Cardinal "mode" is to take account of something existing or bring something into being, fixed "mode" is ordering, structuring, preserving, ranking, and so forth, everything that has been accounted for or brought into existence already, and mutable "mode" is naming, giving meaning to, labeling, representing, arranging, everything that has been brought into being and given a structure already, so that it has something to work with already that it rearranges and "mutates" (mutable), or to put it another way "nominates" (nominal).
So, applying these then to the four elements, you get a rather air-tight (pun intended) ontological and teleological framework, if you're looking for something like that.
