On the sense of Purpose

I like to imagine sometimes that whatever bad happens, there must be a bigger picture somewhere, and there must be something good to draw out of it. I even like to think of hardship as a helpful tool to grow as a person, or that it is one of life’s tests... That there is a reason behind everything that happens, if only we can recognise what it is, which means taking the time to understand every face of a situation.

Well, since about last night, I’ve never doubted such a theory more. It almost makes more sense to think we’re all random, just as this world is despite its inherent natural balance, and it just happens that most people are rotten, and you just have to live with it or drown. You drown, you die, end of. There’s nothing more to it, and everything that seems to make sense is part of human make-belief - the need to place a meaning on things for ourselves to make the randomness of life more bearable.

So the reason we invented work, for instance, is to give ourselves the shadow of some purpose in life, really, so we have something to do while alive. If we didn’t, then we’d just get bored, I suppose. Boredom can easily lead to depression, and most people would just end up killing themselves, one way or another. Without purpose, a thinking beast becomes a time bomb. There’s no telling when or how it’ll blow. It could wipe itself out, or it could take others down as well. And all that because of a lack of purpose, whose impact on us is named depression.

When I was little, my main purpose in life was simple, albeit impossible to achieve, but then kids tend to have great dreams that are only dashed later down the line. I lived to escape into a fantasy world. Failing this, I could see myself becoming an ‘actress’, so I would keep as close to the fantasy illusion as possible, you see. Life happened, of course, and with it waltzed in a set of unpredictable changes in circumstances. I didn’t get to die when I realised I would never escape reality, so for a long while I lost all sense of purpose. I got depressed. Surprise, surprise.

Then the writing kicked in, and I found myself a new purpose in life that allowed me to cope better with this reality for a while. If I didn’t have that delusion of a purpose in mind, then what would be the point in anything? This is a very serious issue, because it questions the core of what we are, as a species in this world, and it digs into the heart of the mind.

Thinking and reason coupled with the ability to feel emotions leads to the intrinsic need for a sense of purpose. This begs the question: are we doomed to live forever in a prison of delusions?

If you need to convince yourself that what you do fills a purpose in life, then it is a delusion, but only if the premise entails that we are all here by chance, down a chain of very natural events. The whole Darwin Theory, to put it simply, here.