THE PURPOSE
We are biological beings, really only here to reproduce and keep the species going. But we have brains. Large brains? And here's where all the questions begin. Do we in fact serve any other purpose than this most fundamental one?
We assume we do, we build monuments and create masterpieces and conduct infinite searches within and without ourselves for answers to seemingly unanswerable questions.
We are given a lifespan with no definitive end. We are born yet do not know the exact moment of our death until it is upon us - sometimes we even die without being aware we've done so - the suddenness not registering in our consciousness?
My father's friend was on his way to fill his glass with water. A second later, he was dead. He would not have known... perhaps this being the best of deaths?
In-between birth and this conscious uncertainty of our demise, we live and what we term 'life' depends on varying factors such as time, physical location, political and cultural environment, on and on down to the two individuals who united to birth us. The spectrum is vast... the odds of our being birthed in the first place - well I spoke of those elsewhere.
So we live. Within whatever structure exists around us. But what does it mean this living? Ask one person after another and you will get a different answer everytime. Some might fall into similar categories, such as "achieving success" or "finding a soul mate" or "raising a family" or "bettering the mind" or "achieving world peace" (a favourite among Miss Something contestants)... But what do any of these mean?
The majority of us will die not only never knowing, but also never asking. Some few will seek answers in organised religions or in sciences or in philosophy. Largely though, most of us will pass never understanding why we lived. We will probably procreate and thus leave our genes behind, or build great fortunes, or gift the world things of beauty, or of significant discovery. But again, what do these mean?
Are we each born with a specific purpose? This cannot be, because a malnourished baby who dies only days old serves little purpose other than to take a series of agonising breaths? A child born into privilege who fritters the days and years and dies of a drug overdose at thirty; what was the purpose of their birth?
Perhaps there is no purpose? By this I mean we look at ourselves as links in a chain, the chain ever-growing with the passing of time? Yet even this - the creation of this chain - hints at a higher purpose, see?
I am what you'd call a thinker. I have spent so much time pursuing this 'thinking' I have barely lived, in terms of what one might call 'a normal life'. My head is therefore full of this stuff, and some of it gets vented onto pages. Most of it just sits. It just sits, and I pick one part and mull on it, then move onto another, in-between traversing the vast pool of knowledge and amassing even more 'stuff'. I am stuffed full of stuff. Sure, the mind expands, more neural networks form to accommodate the growing mass... but really, there seems no purpose to any of it?
One might counter and say there is - in that by sharing like this, I am creating awareness and understanding and instilling knowledge in other minds? So can my purpose therefore be defined as that of a conduit, amassing information, processing it then passing it on? Hardly...
If it were so, I would first use this knowledge to gain a greater understanding of myself see? I would not still be floundering, pondering, questioning, I would have at the very least attained some 'self- awareness'?
I have been conflicted for some time now. You get to be my age, there's more to look behind on and less to see ahead. Urgency surfaces odd moments. A palpable panic that I too may die - perhaps tomorrow, perhaps next week, next year - and never know why I lived?
Take 'love'. I squandered a lifetime; I wasted those best years chasing illusions. Those years when youth was boundless and beauty was not manufactured, I skimmed surfaces, when infinite depths were available. Now, I crave these depths, I look around with wise eyes and there's nothing - no one who can reciprocate - in my immediate environment. Young love is finite. When one loves later in life - having 'run the gauntlet of varied emotions within the concept' - one can truly appreciate the meaning, the depth of this oft-misused word.
Money? I never hopped on that ride. Trusting in each tomorrow taking care of itself really... Everyone around me is pedalling furiously... onward and upward. I stand and watch this peddling and wonder when the last time was they took a deep breath of air and appreciated their existence? Too busy 'working and amassing' to pause... and wonder if there is perhaps something other than the cycle of debt and mass consumptionon on offer?
We were at the doctor's yesterday and Dylan had to come along as I had both parents booked for a check-up. In the waiting room sat a forty-something bloke in a suit, hair neat and yeah - some product thing going on - and the latest IPhone in hand. Dyls sat between him and me and we began the usual giggling banter and funny commentary as he scrolled through Reddit. The man stood and moved to the far corner of the waiting area after a couple of minutes...
He didn't appreciate our jocularity it seemed... It was interrupting whatever serious thing he had going on in his screen. On the way out, we passed him at the counter. I heard the receptionist ask: "How would you like to pay?" Oh and then his voice! Such pride and arrogance: "Credit, of course."
I held one door open for mum and dad to pass through as Dylan negotiated with the other one ahead. He'd heard the conversation too.
"Credit..." Dyls said in an attempt at an upper-class Ivy-League educated voice.
"Debt slave: Ohhh I looove credit! More credit!" Yep, that's what I called out, and the man heard me and he shot daggers at me as he walked to his brand new BMW and I negotiated along with Dylan a half-blind mother and an unstable father to my banged-up Mazda SUV with the sticker 'SOB' in the rear window. Used to spell out "DISOBEY' once - but leaving it at a long term car park at the airport, someone had decided they liked SOB better see and removed the rest of the letters? I'm cool with that. Money - not so much - only if it allows me to pass it to others. That I enjoy, that fills my heart but amassing it for its own sake though... nope, I have no desire to stuff my life with affluence.
Family? I am blessed, surely, for there's immense success within it and resulting pride in terms of my brother and yeah, those two boys, my miracles... There have been tough times for all of us, sure, but we have emerged in some good place finally... And writing too I guess. All these words, shared and discussed and liked and reciprocated - there's so much gratitude for this ability and for the things it brings forth... But this is all 'leaving people and things behind' or creating/being a part of a 'legacy'. Passing on the baton, so to speak, in an unending relay? Sure there is purpose to it, but then why am I still restless, still seeking beyond?
And when I raise this restlessness, when I begin conversations... I am not understood. I am speaking a foreign tongue it seems; like my two year old nephew who stands in front of me and babbles on, full of animosity and excitement and gesturing... and I have no clue as to what he is saying, despite knowing he knows exactly what he's talking about?
Yeah, I am aware minds far grander than mine have asked this question ad infinitum. Thousands of books have resulted, squillions of words, mostly questions and theories... Yet one could examine them all, and still be where one began: Without this purpose understood?
I am often accused of 'overthinking'... As though this is something uncalled for, unnecessary, unproductive? A waste of time really? I am told I should be spending more time living life than thinking about it? But if I don't know the meaning and the purpose of this life I am supposed to live - then how exactly can I live it to its fullest? No one can answer this for me. Blank stares and head-shaking and drifting away to find easier conversations. Even politics and cricket appeal more?
I find too, as time passes, the pursuit gathers momentum? Maybe there's more alone time, more life lived, more looking back, more pondering... I am even wondering if the pursuit itself is an illusion, something to occupy my thoughts between bouts of living? See, the head hurts, just contemplating this! What exactly am I chasing so relentlessly and why is it always ahead, why is it never where I am?
I hear "He lived a good life". At yet another funeral? I do look at the life of that person those few moments of public 'celebration' and sure, I see the good things; the family, the extended circle of friends, the contribution to community and society, the 'fullness' within it, the eventual success of one kind or another... I see the tears and heartache in those left behind, and sometimes I feel this indescribable, inconsolable loss within me too.
Maybe it is as simple as this? Having left something of yourself in another? Maybe something small, maybe something grand, maybe genes, maybe love, maybe some conversations? Having touched one life or many, having entered a life and intertwined with it and caused it to be enhanced, to be 'better' for having had you in it?
We never really die. We disappear physically but always leave portions of us behind; dwelling in others through the things we did, we said, we created - and by the people we brought to being?
I have yet to her that someone lived a "bad life" at an eulogy. There is always a saving grace, some perceived goodness presented... And I wonder, did this person know, were they aware during the years lived that they indeed contained this goodness? Or did they pass neither ever asking nor lamenting they never discovered it?
All I can attest to is that I will never stop. There is no 'retiring' from this pursuit. There is however the consolation that a handful of people will indeed stand during my eulogy and nod their heads when these words are said: "She lived a good life".
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