A bit of personal history: I was once a top student in my Primary school and was subsequently admitted to a Secondary school of repute. I can say that this is the heyday of my life. Things starts to get sour in my third year and confidence in my ability seemed to drain away when I failed consistently to score despite all my efforts. No matter how hard I try, I just could not get it. It is the feeling of ‘I worked so hard but got so little while others have it made for them with brighter minds. It is so unfair that anyone should have a worse genetic makeup than others’. I too was wrecked with the question of ‘what is my purpose?’ and since then, i have been trying to find an answer. It got worse when i entered High School and after reading Rousseau’s ‘A Discourse on Inequality’, a dreaded sense of futility set in. Now it seems that not only that my endevors will be futile, but also that the whole human society in all its pursuits (happiness, power, glory, honour, etc) are futile. I am now a student in college doing a course in the Arts (failing badly, failed 8 courses) and still i do not have the slightly answer to the question ‘What is my purpose?’
Thus my questions to all:
1. What is your purpose in life? How do you go about finding it? Does this sense of purpose lose its momentum often and slowly fades to nothing?
2. What is the purpose of life in general? What keeps you going on despite the futility of life?
Being alive meaning constently trying to satisfy our desires and gratifications never lasts , forcing us are back into trying to fullfill them again, an everlasting circle of futility. I believe that all that which humans desire can be reduced to happiness. People may desire glory but fundamentally, glory brings great joy. People may crave power and control but essentialy, power and control grants enormous happiness. However happiness is transient and fleeting, snowflasks in the suns.
3. Do you believe in Free-Will? Do you think that you have control of your life, able to direct it in this direction or that?
I believe that determinism is at work not only in the sciences, but also in human lifes. A casues B, B causes C, so on and so forth. Everything has a cause.
‘I am drinking water’ is caused by ‘I have the desire to drink water’ which is caused by ‘My grogginess’ which is caused by ‘lack of sleep’ which is caused by….etc. A single event is caused by a single or many factors that precedes the event and these factors themselves are again caused by other factors that precedes them. So if we continue following this path of causation into the past, everything that is happening now is already determined by the creation of this world. This means that our future has already been written even before we are born. You are who your are because of your genes. You are who you are because of the ways you are raised. You are who you are because of the various experiences you have. Where does free-will come in?
Since the future has already been written, where is our free will?!
I would greatly appreciate it if you could post your answers to these questions and share your experiences. It would be a great help to me and i am sure, to many of the souls wandering the gloom as well. Thankyou.
5 comments
Well now those are some very complex and deep questions. I guess my answer will be simple in comparison. While I agree that we are stuck genetically, I believe it is the drastic change in society and human nature that have altered, in a very bad way, the predetermined path that was long ago chosen for us. Simply put, the future was a lot brighter for young people like yourself a hundred years ago than it is now. Why? Because greed, selfishness, lack of respect (the list goes on) is so prevelent in society today that the scales have tipped way too far off kilter. You have far less opportunity to reach that happy medium place in your life than the previous generation. Throughout history man has greatly struggled to survive…then came a very brief period of time where “everyone” lived in the palace, not a peasant amoung us. (That’s how we altered the path). Everyone was led to believe they were entitled, wealthy, and all stood tall as valued, appreciated, happy residents of the castle without barely lifting a finger get there. The price of bread? Up 500% but of course no one cared. It’s all good there is plenty for everyone. Then bam, they threw 99% of us back over the wall, outside the gates, and without a safety net. So now you are expected to maintain that same level of self worth, value, and compassion. You are expected to suck it up and work till you bleed for a loaf of bread. Only now, to complicate things, there are 99% of others scratching away and fighting over that now overpriced, hard to find, loaf of bread. In short, it is not you who is failing but rather that you have been set up to fail being expected to fight an army that far outweighs you in both numbers and artillary. You must do so every day just to eek out a meager place in life. I would guess that by asking the very questions you are asking you have a strong will to survive and succeed. Keep building and drawing on that strength because you are the ones they are depending on to rebuild the castle, large enough, once again, to fit everyone, so all can live happily ever after. The harsh reality of course, is in realizing you have little control and can no longer “choose” your destiny. You must hold on and scratch, claw, push etc. to be sure you get any crumb of opportunity that somone drops in your path. In college? They are no longer interested in providing an education, only in your checkbook. Make them earn it. If you are failing, make them step up and actually earn their keep. You see it as you failing. I see it as them failing you. You gained admission, you paid your tuition. They are fat and happy, you are a peasant. Jump back over the wall and grab that crumb of education before someone else does. Make them make you succeed and get used to that way of life. Because the path of life has been altered and it’s unlikely it will get back on track anytime soon. Good luck to you!
Thanks for your reply EvenExitIsWayTooHard.
Here is my take of the soicety.
1. The period when everyone is in the castle is definately the heyday. However, humans, being humans, have insatiable desires and supply could not keep up with the damand. So sadly some people will have to be thrown out.
2. It has been argued that it is man’s desires that allowed us to innovate and to produce the supplies for our desires and thus advancing the human race. Entrepreneurs innovate and produce more supplies to satisfy their own desires and as a side-effect, the desires of the populace. Everyone is happy. I dont think so.
Desires are insatiable.
Since desires are insatiable, entrepreneurs will continue to produce more and more to satisfy our ever burgeoning insatiable desires. Eventually resourses will run out and supply dwindles and some people will have to be thrown out of the castle, forced to fight for a meager amount of supplies.
The main issue is hence human’s insatiable desire.
3. Human advancement is a strange phrase. Advance in what? Advance in technology. Advance in technology for what? For the production of more supplies to satisfy desires. So human advancement is about advancement in exploitation of resources for our desires. Resources on Earth is not unlimited. No matter how much human advance in tech, eventually resources will become limited and many of us will go without our desires satisfied.
This is the inevitable tragedy of human existence unless human advancement is not just about advancement in tech, but advancement as a species. Advancements in our thinking. Advancements in our genetic make-ups. Advancements that will allow us to shed our insatiable desires which is both a nature’s blessing and curse. A blessing when we are the haute cuisine of sabretooths but a curse now when we are the dominant specie on Earth.
Very good reasoning for sure. I would agree that man’s insatiable desire is and has been the driving force behind advancing man kind for sure. Unfortunately I think that much of that drive is very dependent on being able to “feed it” if you will. When man goes out to hunt, the results of that hunt are what drives his insatiable desire. If he comes back empty handed he will likely look for a way to make better weapons, more clever traps, and be even more determined the next time around. Why? Because he has to be successful. He will starve if not. His insatiable desire is solely driven by his will to live. He has all the rocks, trees, water and fire he needs to grow, learn and experiement. His chances of sucess are well within his grasp and he can taste the reward before he even sets out on his next hunt. I think you hit the nail on the head when you speak of resources. This same man no longer has the resources he needs to first feed his insatiable desire. They are perhaps too expensive, unavailble, illegal, socially unacceptable, not sturdy or strong enough. Perhaps he is fresh out of ideas and weakens daily with his failure to make the kill. Now he is barely surviving on the bits and pieces he can scrape up still trying daily to “get ahead”. Perhaps winter is coming soon which only serves to highten his fear and increase the stress and pressure of being successful which he has to be today, now. What effect does this have on one’s insatiable desire I wonder? He is tired, hungry, frustrated and in failing health. He is angry that despite being an exceptional hunter, he has little ability to successfully feed his insatiable desire and every day after his failed attempts he is once again forced to live on crumbs. This pretty much sums up my desire to leave this world at this time. I am strong, confident, and a fighter. I have suffered all my life and overcome. Even in the darkest hours my insatiable desire flickered lighting the way and driving me to go on. That light is now out. I see nothing more rewarding down the road, only increased fear that my crumbs will run out. I still cannot afford better resources and I see absolutely nothing on the horizon that is within my power that will make those resources attainable. A better job? Your insatiable desire squashed with “ha, you are lucky you have a job at all.” More obtainable health care and more affordable medications? Sure as long as you don’t ever need to access those resources. Your insatiable desire squashed as medical resources are available, just not to you. A better education? Sure, show us the money. Again desire squashed since once they have your check there is very little motivation to actually teach you anything. And the rewards along the road that drive us forward? Non existent. This is truley the inevitable tragedy of human existence. It worked a little better when the cost of resources was affordable to at least half of man kind. When 98% of those people struggle to feed their insatiable desire daily, eventually that desire fades as their failures mount. It doesn’t matter that they didn’t have a shot at being successful to begin with. Failure is failure. The desire light will eventually burn out only to be replaced with dispair, hoplessness and lack of desire knowing you have not shot at success. The scales are just too far out of balance right now. Which is why we have become such an insensitive, uncaring, selfish society. We are all living on crumbs with no resources to improve our situations. Many of us have played a role in making a own lives so difficult. Depression, anxiety, fear, anger, etc all eating away at our insatiable desire. One never know which one will surface when we wake up in the morning. Russian roulette with the hope that the instaitable desire to succeed will be the next blank if we don’t shoot ourselves.
The purpose of life might be just finding that purpose… if there is one.
For me the desire now is to find out what i am made for. What are my specialities? Am i a specialist in hunting Mammoths or am i naturally born to be a farmer?
This is still the basic question i dearly wish to find an answer to. What i think i am good at is actually not what anyone would say to be talented. What talents i believe i have paled against those of others with the same trait.
I do not know what my upbrings and genetic makeups allow me to do and i want to find out.
EvenExitIsWayTooHard, how do you find out what you are cut out for?