"What is your purpose" can also be rendered "What do you want your legacy to be" or "How do you want to leave the world" etc.

When skiing in Alps, everyone is there to ski and enjoy themselves. When skiing in the US, people see it as an opportunity to use a hobby to gain an advantage, to network, to talk business, to flaunt, to compare, to use an escape as a entrance.

Same analogy can be applied to the beach, sports events, playing tennis, especially golf.

A lot of American hobby infrastructure is built around catering to the business type, why else would a ski lodge need a boardroom? Or a gym need a coworking space?

I have such a hard time convincing people of this. I don't have astronomical ambitions because, unlike them, I am happy with my situation

the french, bieng french already, are only dimly aware of all this other tedious blither blather that other people get up to, and only partisipate in the greater world at all, because it reafirms the sense of how hopeless the condition of non frenchness remains. watching someone attempting to project even viruelent racism and predjudice on the french is revelatory, as they bask in noise and expeded effort, as these are the kinds of things they expect from excited animals, and makes them happy. though I have personaly managed to break through all that with my own chearfull unintentional manglement and demolition of there language, to which they will say "non, please dont, this is wrong, please no"