Purpose (& the meaning of life)
"When my desires are parallel with my duties, then freedom dwells within me. Within that freedom I find my purpose of life and that makes me happy."
I discovered the above phrase in one of my many notebooks. I don’t remember writing it but that must have happened sometime during my high school years. At the time, my mind was buzzing with ideas, philosophies, words from novels and quotes by wise writers/thinkers. Thinking about it now I have to admit that I am not sure even if that statement was purely an outcome of my own thoughts or some mixture of what I had read and came to understand in one of the many books I was devouring, or it might well be some words I arranged in a way that sounded profound and smart. You see during those years I used to get a bit confused with how words sound or how things look from “outside” and often disregard the ‘inside’ of things.
Regardless of my intentions or my priorities then I am a social creature still thus I still believe that my freedom lies between my desires and what I should ought to be doing at a given time and place. That kind of freedom requires responsibility and responsibility is something I often attach to purpose or to a life with some kind of meaning, some kind of purpose. Because just think: why should I be responsible for something or someone if that something/someone means nothing or very little to me? You would perhaps say that because I don’t want to bear the consequences of my actions.
Well yes that’s true too but anyway.
As you noticed the last word of my latest question is “me” and it’s “me” because responsibility and purpose are very subjective concepts in my opinion. I am the one responsible for my purpose, I am the one who has to find it, to work on keeping my eyes on the “dot” or, as my father often says, I am the one who “should keep the enthusiasm for life alive”. Because you see by doing that I feel relevant and that makes life’s insignificance bearable and provides me with the courage and persistence to keep going even during the days I feel small and very insignificant.
I think of purpose as of love, both stay alive only if you keep working on them. They don’t need promises they need commitment and devotion.
xoxo,
Alice
“The myth of Sysyphus : The Gods had condemned Sysyphus to ceaselessly rolling a rock to the top of a mountain, whence the rock would fall back of its own weight. They had thought with some reason that there is no more dreadful punishment than futile and hopeless labour.”
I say what is the purpose of that? Where is the meaning of that? Is our purpose eternal damnation? But can that even be a purpose really? What would be the point of that? Sysyphus finds some kind of meaning in his task, it keeps him occupied and keeps him going as we say, he is definitely working on this very hard to keep his sense of purpose alive. But, of course, we see the ridiculousness and the futility of this endeavor but also of his whole existence. Is that how we appear to the gods from up top when they look at us? Humans down here like Sisyphus pushing the boulder up a mountain that keeps rolling back down. Just forget for a second about the individual purpose we are all desperate to give to ourselves and look at the totality of humanity since the beginning of time. If we each feel, we have purpose than we must have an even bigger purpose all together as humans. A combined purpose, a higher calling that each individual purpose adds on to the bigger sum of the Big Purpose. To see this Big Purpose let us look at ourselves from way on top, elevate ourselves to the highest point and look down at the whole. Way up there in the universe and skies where enlightened beings roam. What purpose is keeping us alive? Is there really a higher calling or are we just passing away the time here on earth with our little buzzing lives of gigantic proportions and just surviving? Surviving at any cost for reasons we don't really know or even feel like we will know in this life time. Just surviving.
From up there maybe it will all become clearer. Maybe then we’ll see that there really is nothing there. I know this sounds very pessimistic and scary and nihilistic, but actually maybe it is liberating. Maybe it can help us to not sweat the small stuff or the big stuff, to let it all go and be lighthearted and playful about life, maybe we’ll embrace life more because we realize that we are here by randomness and that today, right here, right now, is the only thing that really exists. There is no tomorrow so take the time to be present in all moments, enjoy/live the gift of the present moment.
xx
Salander
I am not convinced there is an up-there. I cannot closed my eyes and imagine that the sky is filled with enlightened beings roaming around happily and blissfully without giving any damn of those down under. Of course, if we are just imagining “the up-there” with the only purpose to be able to detach ourselves from the small trivial daily issues, then I have no problem with this. So let’s assume that’s why we imagine that up-there world. So now we can move on to the Big Purpose.
I believe there is Big Purpose or at least we have made on for our species. The purpose is simple; to evolve/connect more with each other, expand our brain, our heart and thus believe that anything is within our reach, and that anything has nothing to do with fulfilling just a personal craving or an individual aspiration but everything to do with relying on each other. And I am not talking about altruism here. I don’t believe that sacrificing the self brings good to the whole (each cell of the whole is important & unique for itself and for the whole).
I like to imagine a state of freedom where my individual aims/desires/goals don’t contradict with the aims/desires/goals of others and at the same time don’t suppress me or suppress the lives of others. It might sound impossible but a good goal to aim for, a great purpose to make it worth trying. Also it may seem like a pretty boring homogeneous world (if we were to reach it) but it doesn’t have to be. I like to think it is just an upgrade, a place like the one up-there where enlightened beings are roaming, only these enlightened beings are us in our improved version.
xoxo
Alice
“That God created the world and then left it to a foresaken humanity trying to address him in an echoless void”
The big question of significance comes to mind when one reads such a quote. I think the idea that we may have no significance at all to the universe and to life is obviously unbearable and incomprehensible and mostly unacceptable. This kind of harsh thinking will lead to chaos and destruction. We are only capable of building and constructing relationships or buildings or societies or systems because we believe we have significance. Not just significance but immense significance. If not, what would be the point of all this then? Imagine all the wars we have fought believing there was significance in identifying with one country or another, one color or another, one tribe or another. Because we all feel we are the “chosen” people, the significant ones. We must defend this at all cost against the others who matter less but who still have significance in the greater idea of things. Imagine all the things we would let go if suddenly God came down and looked at us and had no idea who we were ! When you think about it “religion” might be what holds us all together! Whether you believe in God or not, doesn’t matter, because the world as we know it has been formed through religion. Deep down we all somehow believe and that is what makes this society turn round and round.
xxx
Salander
“God is absence. God is the solitude of man.”
“The way is not in the sky, but in the heart.”
- Jean-Paul Sartre
Believing doesn’t always entails religion and grasping the significance of being doesn’t require the existence of an omnipotent creature that lives outside of ourselves. In other words, I don’t find it necessary to believe in a God (or whatever ones names a supreme creature) in order to find meaning in my own life. I think that when an all-powerful god enters life’s equation, the worshipers, very often, begin to forget their own responsibilities and potentialities and start relying too much on that supreme and power creature and such behavior sabotages their chance of self-improvement and emotional evolvement. Then very often interdependence turns into dependence and too much devotion blurs the clarity of mind. Believing doesn’t have to involve an almighty. The meaning of life should be self-improvement and connectivity with the world around us.
What if our meaning in life (or our purpose) comes from within? Then God becomes absence, no?
xxx
Alice