The Pursuit Of Purpose

An Alternative Way Of Viewing Our Void For Transcendence

After a contentious conversation with a friend over the role of religion in human life, I thought I might share some of my perhaps unorthodox perspective on meaning.

Treating purpose as though it is a problem to be solved, or even a well-defined inquiry is perpetually traumatic to the most of us that engage in it. Any story about ourselves is made up and helplessly creates a mismatch between fiction and reality. What people find motivating, is the pursuit of the transcendent, excellence or enlightenment. While I used to have an imprecise definition of transcendent, almost a psuedo-spirtualistic one, I find it is the pursuit of something 10x, 100x or otherwise better than the mundane. We all wish to be the main character in a conflict or drama, not a disposable side character.

What I find to be the fundamentally motivating part of religions and their central characters, is that we organize ourselves around the emulation of something 1 trillion times better than anything we’ve ever done in our lives. While I am not religious, you can easily see why emulating a god would be inspiring. To be Christian is to attempt to be Christ-like. It is not about reaching the destination as that is explicitly presented as impossible, it is about the never-ending journey of seeking enlightenment. The messaging that you are flawed, but you can fight everyday to become better, is an incredibly moving conflict that inspires many to improve.

The problem with trying to solve purpose internally is its predication on a hollow narrative about the self. Meditation in many forms, has deepened my insight that our thoughts and the observer we refer to as “self” are far from one and the same. This may make no sense if you are “left brain only” and have never meditated, but this is not a mystical concept. Thoughts arise in the mind and sometimes we identify with them and don’t see daylight between ourselves and our thoughts and sometimes we do. To be depressed is to feel a way about your life or yourself that you wish to not, that is perpetuated at least in part by agreeing with some of the made-up narrative about yourself. The trap of depression is that we validate our inner critic, and lose grasp on the separation.

My prescription is simple- have moonshots and ditch the self-imposition of a grand narrative about yourself, as well as attempting to solve questions of purpose through laying-in-bed worries. If you are constantly becoming more successful and feel you are improving you will automatically have a sense of purpose. Money and materialism is not the point, these things are tools to access more and more interesting, needle moving experiences that make us feel alive. Purpose, happiness and peace are about being on a upward trajectory, not about arriving at a destination. The concept of ever reaching the horizon is boring because then what would be next? What I think religion captures when talking about an idea of immortality, is that humans require an immortal goal that goes beyond themselves. Humans desire something they can pass down to children and grandchildren, something that seems to shake the cosmos. In other words, don’t beat yourself up for not feeling like a hero, instead take hold of something that would be worth it even if you were homeless, dead, or if it didn’t pan out. Take hold of a moonshot and even if you miss, you might hit a star. From there you can aim at more or try something new.

As always, I hope you find some value in this and I hope you will be well.

Cheers,

FourthEye author

Orion A Webster