The cosmic joke with humanity is that those who have seek more, and those who don’t, wish they had. Life is tiered along lines of needs, and at any one point, there’s always that next goal to be accomplished or challenge to be overcome. Yet as soon as that next step is accomplished, we face up to yet another along the line. It is always a sobering moment when we look at what we still have to accomplish in this life, and how much time has elapsed. At that time, we stand back and ponder: is it all worth it? What, exactly, is our purpose in life? And where are we headed with all this hustle and bustle?
Clearly, there is no straightforward answer to these questions. The truth of the matter is that we are born, live through our short life-spans, and eventually bade daylight bye at the moment of our death. The terrible certainty of death has lead to a lot of disillusion. Many people wonder whether all the efforts made in this life are worthwhile, if death will eventually level all legends. To them, life would have made more sense if humans could live forever. And so all contemporary religions and mystic groupings hold on to the promise of an afterlife- that, at the end of our life here, we will continue to live elsewhere and so all is not lost. It is a comforting thought, but it still neglects a burning question: what’s the purpose of this life?
Buckminster Fuller was a 20th century architect and futurist. He once underwent a harrowing experience when his young daughter died in his arms. The experience changed his perceptions fundamentally. Before then, he had been living a carefree life. But afterwards, he realized just how fragile, and brief, life actually was. In his trying to come to terms with the purpose in life, he came up with the concept of precession. Precession contends that things in motion set others in motion, and the ripple effect spreads everywhere, in one form or another (Stephanie, 1998). Thus the sun heats up the oceans, the waters there rise up to form clouds, and clouds turn into rain on the mainland, and mainland life thrives. Through an indirect relationship, the sun then becomes the source of all streams and rivers on earth.
In a similar way to the sun, we humans accomplish a lot in this life. But the greatest fraction of our accomplishment is the fraction indirectly linked to our actions. Sometimes, events occur beyond our little space and time capsules through this ripple effect. We may never know the fullest significance of our actions. In fact, some of our actions may never make sense to us. But the fact of the matter is that none of our actions, however small they seem, are really a waste (Seed, 2007). If we all sat back and analyzed what each word spoken, each thought meditated upon, and each action taken portends for all inhabitants of this world – both alive and inanimate – we would realize that our purpose in life is being defined every moment that we are alive.
And that’s the crux of the matter. The purpose of life is not in the end. It is in the journey. Let’s face the reality that death is never glamorous – there are no scenic departures from this life. But we can make our existence before that ultimate end count. We can choose to live each moment as a precious miracle, experiencing each and every occurrence with the awe and marvel of a young child, and anticipating even more wondrous events in the life yet to be lived. We can get rid of all jaded perceptions, all world-weary convictions, and stare at life anew. It is then and only then that the ceaseless cycles of life will make sense to us.
References
Seed Magazine (2007) The meaning of life. Web.
Stephanie Relfe (1998) How to know what your true purpose in life is. Web.