As I sat downstairs trying to read over the din of my own thoughts I was struck hard in the face by the usual question: Why Bother to actually do anything? Why not just sit and stare at the TV or perhaps go to bed early. It made me realize that I’ve not properly laid out the reasons in my mind for actually doing any of the things I do. It seems as good a time as any since my internal dialog apparently intent on drowning out whatever it was Dickens had to relate this evening.
It would seem there is a finite and indeed VERY short list of ultimate motivations for anything a person can do. I’ll list them in order of importance as I see them and ignore (as usual) any items related to personal mythologies.
- Service to humanity, community or the universe in general. I’ll admit that I’m pretty sure that nothing I’ve ever done has touched this level. Not that I’m against that mind you but my personal sphere of influence on this planet is just about three people and those only because I tend to control their breakfasts.
- Service to family, friends and your genetic progeny. Almost everyone does this. Every time you wipe your child’s nose, you get credit in this category. Humans are very attached to their children; probably because they’re just so darn cute.
- Service to self. We all REALLY do this. Every time you buy yourself a new tie or shave or study for that big algebra final so you can get a good job when you get out of college you’re dancing in three-land.
- Merely passing the time. Every single episode of Seinfeld you’ve ever watched… yup, it’s in this basement category.
- Negative crap. This is all the stuff you do to the detriment of humanity, family, friends and yourself. Hopefully this is kept to a minimum.
Okay, so there you have it. Everything I’ve ever done falls into one of those categories. It’s almost sad to think that human endeavor is so easily reducible to just a trivial handful of basic motivations. Now, for part two of our exercise, let’s go through the items that suck time out of my life and assign them to a category. This is sure to be ultimately depressing… In general order of total time consumed…
- Work. Clearly a 2. It should be obvious that most people (myself included) wouldn’t work merely for the joys of working. But, we all do it so that our families will have the stuff they want. If it were just me kicking around here, I’d have a much less lucrative position involving some topic of greater interest if not greater importance.
- Clean house, take care of kids, etc. Again, this is clearly a 2. In fact, so clearly that it’s stupid to say anything else about it.
- Reading those damn books. I’ve tried without success to take what is a type-3 activity and promote it to something that’s actually useful. My wife has long ago tired of my random anecdotes from whatever crap I happen to be reading. I’ve even gone so far as to try to write up summaries and share some of these random tidbits online. Sadly, the results are too dull even for me to read over again. One can’t properly summarize a book without in fact writing a book of your own it would seem. (Damn the incompressibility of human knowledge.) My summary of Genesis is actually LONGER than Genesis.
One could even argue that this is not even a proper type-3 activity. While it may entertain me personally, it does nothing to improve me in the eyes of society. By the standards of my contemporaries I’m already far too filled up with irrelevant information to be approachable and my conversation is amusing but only in the same sense that Napoleon Dynamite is amusing. - Studying… well, stuff. Over the past few years I’ve studied a lot of crap. The mathematics phase wore off about a year ago and since then it’s been languages. Much like reading those damn books though, this is only a self-serving activity. While it may entertain me, it only deepens the gulf of my geekishness.
- Woodworking. In woodworking, the most normal of my activities, I find a brief reprieve from weird. I can also promote this to a happy type-2 activity as well since the vast majority of my productions have been for those yahoos who live downstairs. It is my hope that this at least will be my gift to my children and children’s children. They’ll have something to remember their great-grandfather for. Now see, that’s happy and uplifting now isn’t it?
- Write on this blog thing. Of all my activities, this is probably the one I understand the least. Its use is inconsistent and slides from soul-searching (but generally uninteresting) posts like this one to dead boring tidbits about random factual topics. In a way, it’s my vague and sad attempt to do something, anything, for the world in general. Unfortunately, my voice is too soft and my soliloquy to sleepy for anyone to notice. I am like a stone dropped into a raging rapid. But really, isn’t everyone?
And I think that’s it. That’s pretty much what I do. It’s sad to think that an entire person, the endeavors of a human soul, can be summed up so succinctly and tidily.
So what do you do?
7 comments:
I see a search for purpose - so, yes, I think we’re all doing that (I know that’s what I’m doing right now). In fact, I think that’s why you’re doing all the reading and summarizing. It’s very telling that you begin your post on the meaning of everything by leaving out “personal mythologies.”
I find it fascinating to catch a glimpse of the lens through which you see the world — it’s a lens I rather enjoy. (To avoid the type of misinterpretation all too common in our beloved electronic medium, let me clarify that I enjoy your perspective not in the sense that I find it amusing or entertaining - but rather I appreciate it, the company of a good friend).
I think that you often attempt to clearly define your reality (I think we all invest quite a bit of energy in defining our own reality). I also think that you are far too harsh. I’m all for objectivity in self-reflection, but I think you’ve moved beyond that and into a darker realm where you needn’t be.
I guess what I’m trying to say is that while there may not be a lightning bolt from the heavens pointing out your significance in the grand scheme of reality, but in my limited wisdom, I’ve learned that we must often fight to remove the emotion from the introspection if the emotion is weighing us down - and it sounds like you’re being weighed down (maybe I’m wrong). Emote less, discern more - a lofty goal for me.
I’ve also learned that it’s very easy to miss the forest for the trees. My “personal mythology” reminds me to look to the subtlety of life for meaning - often substantive meaning can be found in the most subtle of packages.
Regardless, I find myself on a similar journey. At least tonight you can find some modicum of comfort in that, at least tonight, you’ve provided a kindred spirit with some comfort and camaraderie.
Well, I don’t know if it’s a search for purpose so much. It seems clear that the four things outlined are the real and ultimate purpose. The only meaningful thing we can do here is to serve each other for the advancement of humanity. The difference lies in how direct that service is. And yes, I leave out “personal mythologies” with great intent. While I think they do a lot of type-1 things (they’re the very embodiment of type-1 things in many cases) their underlying intents are not always wholly benevolent.
My lens is rather dark, but you’re welcome to it. I wouldn’t call it negative; it’s merely realistic. At this point in my life, my positive contribution to society is whatever good my children might do. Fundamentally, this is a selfish goal I realize and given my background I should be happy to have ANYTHING to contribute at all. But, such is human nature to be insatiable.
1. If your summary is longer than the summarized work, then it's not a summary. It's an exposition.
2. You may disagree, but according to my worldview there is another purpose: Service to God. This service can take many forms. For a Christian, serving others is one way that you can serve God. Jesus told a story in Matthew 25:31-46 that explained that performing humanitarian acts is a service to him. Ephesians 6:5-6 tells us that we should do our jobs as though we are serving God and not just our earthly masters. It's a pretty common recurring theme in the New Testament. In fact, 1 Corinthians 10:31 tell us that *everything* we do should be done to the glory of God.
Hopefully you're saving a copy of the blog for your grandkids and their grandkids also.
Randy,
1. You are correct; it is no longer a summary when it’s longer than the original. The point here is that it was intended to be a summary but somehow turned into something totally different.
2. And you’re right; it’s the ‘service to God’ that I explicitly omit at the beginning of the entry. I agree that religion is THE quick and easy answer to all the nagging WHY questions. You’ll probably completely fail to believe that I actually considered religion as an answer to this quandary for myself. (Really really.) There are only several reasons why I rejected it though:
a. Which Religion to Pick? Yeah, I know, from the safe and secure harbor of a religion it’s preposterous to think that anyone could possibly have any doubt about what religion was appropriate for others. From your viewpoint as a Christian, I’m sure the answers to that are all sewn up tight. Of course the ONLY reasonable route to go would be (drum roll please): Christian! But see from the outside it’s not that easy.
I know that Christians have a process whereby they ‘shop’ for churches that match their personal beliefs and that makes good, logical sense. Luckily, the field of Christian candidates is comparatively small though so you don’t have to hunt wide and far to find a decent fit. Shopping for religion in a broader sense is a much harder thing though. There’s a lot of room between Quaker and Devil Worshiper so there are a lot of variables to consider. Not the least of which is finding a religion with a local branch office and hours that are compatible with your lifestyle.
b. Overhead. If there’s one thread that recurs throughout my blog posts it’s that of the skeptic. Despite all humanity’s best efforts, I can never accept the metaphysical overhead that’s inherent in the major world religions. I’ll buy almost everything you have to sell up to a very precise point.
Should we follow a standard and fair code of laws? Damn right!
Should we respect each other and ourselves as much as possible? Of course!
Is the Bible a good example of a set of laws by which we should live our lives? Well, not the Old Testament at least. Those people were jerks.
Should we try to live up to the example of Christ and be as much like him as possible. Better than using the average NBA player as your role model.
Is a benevolent and forgiving (or wrathful and generally pissed off) God looking down on us waiting to smite us or elevate us based on our actions and beliefs? Here, of course, is where it all begins to fall apart for me. Sure, there’s a single binding and all-encompassing force that rules the universe. Yeah, you heard me. I said it. It’s called the Laws of Physics. No, I don’t mean the Laws as Man writes them. Those are the shallow interpretations of the Real Laws as seen from our dustmite-like existence. No, I mean the REAL rules. The rules that all infinite Cosmos follows in its day-to-day business. In it’s dispassionate, detached, unemotional day-to-day business. It’s day-to-day business in which a man is no more important than a microbe. That’s the really terrifying part of my belief system. In my church, the universe cares not for you any more than it does the cow you ate for dinner. Your existence or lack thereof is balanced on the head of a pin and the only thing between you and oblivion is your own ability to stay alive. Sometimes that means fighting off a cold and sometimes that means playing nice with the other commuters so they don’t snap and shoot you as you drive down the freeway.
c. Hypocrisy. Lastly, I can’t adopt any mainstream religion at this point because, simply, it would be hypocritical. I’ve said very publicly for quite a while to anyone who would listen that the metaphysical aspects of religion make no sense whatsoever. There’s on new evidence on that front so to simply ‘change my mind’ on the subject would be the act of a hypocrite. I’d be very obviously letting myself hold a different opinion just for the sake of convenience. If there is a greater, judging power to the universe then I would expect such internal inconsistency to be one of the most mortal of sins.
So yes, Randy, I agree that for many people (heck, for 90% of the planet) there is a greater purpose than anything I’ve outlined. Despite your differences, most of you agree that any worldly concerns are trivial when compared to your service to God. Unfortunately, God isn’t exactly here for us to peel grapes for so in most cases ‘Service to God’ seems to boil down to either ‘Service to Humanity’ (My #1) or ‘Service to Church’ (God’s representatives on Earth). Service to Humanity I can live with but Churches, despite all their generally good intentions, are still just people. At their best, they serve as a conduit to help others and at their worst they simply help themselves to your money. So in the end, even ‘Service to God’ seems to boil down to ‘Service to Humanity’.
Genevieve,
You bring up a good point. I actually need to catch up printing it out... or something.
I love when you say your synopsis of genesis is longer than the original! It speaks VOLUMES about you! HA! HA!
You write the blog for your own little self..to get out from your head, that which is constantly rolling around, if only to give it an existence in the concrete form. It's a bonus if anyone reads it, let alone comments. (in my view) Many I see,serve their need to be validated by ooey gushy comments, which seems lame to me. I read them and get a slice of other peoples' lives and then see where I kind of fit in.
Maybe we don't need to search for purpose sometimes. Just "being" may be enough. In a broader world scope, what does a woman in Africa, toiling in the fields all day, barely surviving, have to say about what she is contributing to mankind? She is no less for her simplicity in life. She doesn't have the luxury of spending time thinking about it, or using technology to express her wonder.
We all fit in somewhere along the broad continuim.
(I don't have kids so I need to define my activities/worth etc. without that. It is a little more difficult, but there are still lots of reasons why I am here!)
Blog on!
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