Monday, June 27, 2011

Purpose


One of my father's favorite questions, amongst his many questions, is "why are you here, what is your purpose in life?" I have been fortunate in my life to have learned early on that a key to my existence is the act of carving stone. However, what this key has provided is access to more questions. I am unable to know from my father's experience what his quest for purpose has yielded - whether he finds more questions with each discovery or if there is "a thing" to be learned. Whatever "it" is, he hunts it with the same singleness of purpose with which he imbued each of his children to seek meaning in their respective lives. Myself just now, I suspect that meaning has to do with developing a keener process. This would be be consistent with what I learned many years ago from an engineering mentor - Seven O'Clark. His reaction to my enthusiasm about locating some obscure piece of engineering data was "it's not finding it, it's remembering where you found it." On the surface this may sound like he was advocating rote learning, he was not. What Seven was saying is to look at the larger organization of knowledge - see where it is that you located your data; this same concept pertains to purpose. it is not enough to just have an objective, what is important in life is to possess a reason to be, or as the French would say "raison d'ĂȘtre."

Nor can this be simply a case of fulfilling day-to-day objectives, for if that were true there would be little difference between getting the laundry done vs helping one's child gain the ability to pursue a life rich with meaning, or in my case acquiring money vs uncovering the reason why stone carving has such pull on my internal compass. As I've stated, I have enjoyed the luxury of having a "key" to my existence, yet I also suffer from the plethora of questions this knowledge has provided. For example, what the hell do I care whether you the reader see your world in any deeper way - what possible advantage could there be to me, if you find meaning in your life? I'll be honest with you, otherwise my infirm father might rise up out of his repose and smack the snot off my face… This essay is meant to encourage - encourage you, encourage him, encourage anyone trying to understand this maze we seem to have bought our way into and cannot buy our way out of. At this juncture in my father's life, I believe it would give him great satisfaction for me to be honest, not about the day-to-day "yeah, yeah, I'm fine…" but whether I am living up to the expectations which he has assigned to me, the same as he has for every other traveler he ever encountered in his long career as a "student of mankind." Yet more importantly, possibly even a feature in his own quest for meaning might be for him to know that I have developed my own set of standards.

I have been aided by an internal direction in developing these standards - guidelines which are by no means locked down. One of these guiding principals is as Ben Harper stated nicely, "if you're causin' no harm, you're all right with me." Yet we are living in a time of remarkable harm, remarkable indifference to harm and a predictably stupid or just plain dishonest response to the potential for harm. Rather than become absorbed into a "target rich" environment, and becoming a harm fighter, I have chosen to pursue what I feel to be a constructive existence. I am going to arrange a studio somewhere on the planet in which to create. Hitherto, I have attempted to "model" behavior, as Gandhi said "be the change you want to see." I am no Gandhi, when someone doesn't give a rat's ass whether I am to be subjected to their: fill in your own blank _________, music, bullshit, boasting, graffiti, coercion… etc, than I figure they have set the rules and I am allowed any voice I choose with which to respond. Anymore, I choose not to respond, for the time that it takes to explain to someone else that their loudness is rude, or their nonsense is empty, or that graffiti is tired and coercion is for the weak, that is one less instant I have to wonder and one less moment to commune with the awe that is at the core of this mystery called life.

So here I sit struggling to develop understandable concepts that convey the importance of reason and purpose in our lives and to do so in a way that acknowledges each person's journey through this wonderland of opposing ideas. If I were to abandon any effort to contribute to someone else's capacity to find meaning in life, it would reflect a deeper malaise pertaining to my own struggle to apprehend meaning. Of the many fortunate events in my life, high on the list is having been a member of a family where public contribution was expected, even demanded. Yet it was not indentured servitude, more the belief that one's own skill and accomplishments were better described by other's happiness than by one's own declarations - a concept which is far more difficult to realize that it would appear. Nor have I always been able to understand the proper relationship of "enlightened self-interest." As it happens, what General Patton had said is true, if only in a metaphorical sense - "it's not about you giving up your life for your country, but the other guy giving up his.life for his country." The battles against oppression, cruelty, greed; cannot be waged to the exclusion of personal development or the abandonment of one's best interest. We each of us have an allotted moment in which to fulfill our respective destinies; for each us, success or failure with respect to that objective can only be measured by our individual acceptance of our own truth - existentialism.

Now full circle to the "purpose" of this essay, I can only speak for myself. Yet this existential truth does not condemn me to subservience to other's short comings or failings, anymore than it entitles me to the Buddha's wisdom because I can speak his name. My purpose is evolving, and hopefully it will continue to evolve and adapt with each new experience. My responsibility lies in those choices I make about either what I experience, or how I experience what I don't like. And just like Seven O'Clark pointing out to me when I was oh so young and barely able to hear wisdom, much less understand it, while it may be wonderful at any given moment to be full with purpose, that which is timeless in the universe embraces each us and and our unfolding purpose regardless of its shape, content or any other consideration; we are fulfilling our purpose right now wherever we are, whether we stand, sit or lie; we have arrived at our destination - the fast lane of "Going Down the Road Highway."