There's different ways you can pitch this, so it's very hard to form or hold (except as an interim view) any sort of definite position as to the nature of our existence. The 'what' is tough enough to get anything beyond a tentative grip on, the 'why' is far beyond this and probably far beyond our comprehension.
Viewed from existence in physical life it can be characterised as a learning school - one in which we learn to shed ego beliefs and resulting drives to live through love.
Viewed from Spirit we as a collective part of God mind know all of this already. Trouble is we decided to try out separation, and having done so our of misplaced fear of being punished by God for this have spent many lives suppressing this knowledge and inventing individuality in what we perceive as a reality while immersing ourselves in it - in an attempt to suppress this fear.
We're consequently trying to find our way back to where we were, to escape from the mire of misperception we have created.
Both of these though are essentially dualistic views in that both are abstract representations of our situation, both from the viewpoint of an imagined self. One conceptualises Spirit as a self, and implies the view that higher existence is good, the other suggests a core purpose for what we perceive as physical existence. That's before even we inject time as another artefact of the way we perceive, rather than any absolute reality.
Neither necessarily makes mush sense. What we perceive as worldly existence seems to be the result of our belief in it, what we may even experience as higher existence we still conceptualise in dualistic and self based terms.
Perhaps in reality these are just two relative views out of the gazillions that exist (both laterally in terms of throughout space and multiple dimensions, and along the timeline) - some of which are real or in keeping with His laws, and some artefacts of our erroneous beliefs - out of which complexity Spirit/God somehow extracts what is real, and views/creates in its entirety all at once....
Even setting aside the self interested rose tinted varieties of so called 'love' the real thing can by the way can seem quite hard or tough, or cause pain in this relative reality. What in the overall picture is best for all beings may be perceived by the self as very painful...