Is There Any Purpose?

It’s very difficult to start. Anything. This comes from Newton’s first law. You want to be in the same state. Change, though inevitable, is not something that comes naturally. So you would assume that it is no different with, lets assume, writing an article. But you see, my problem is a little different. I do want to leave my inertia and want to write an article on a topic. The issue is that it is the topic itself which stares in my face and asks: “Why am I writing this article?” Interesting, you would say. There could be several answers – fame, money, self-education and so on. But this article concerns itself with raising a question and in my opinion, a very fundamentals one. The accepted trend in today’s literature is that if you raise some questions, you also try to answer them. I make no such claim for the simple reason that I feel myself totally incapable of even starting to think of an answer. Moreover, I want you to think without any biases. Coming back to the original question: “what is it that stops me from writing this article?” The answer is that I do not have or do not see any purpose in writing this article just as I do not see any purpose in anything that is going on in this world!

Cynical. Yes and it is much more that you can call me. Stop reading now. You don’t need to spend your time reading this kind of a trash, do you? But may I suggest something. Go and look yourself in a mirror and ask “What is it that you are doing in this world?” “Why are we doing what we are doing?” Most of us, after some deliberations, will think of one reason or the other why we are leading your lives the way you are doing now. Some of us would say to ourselves something like this:
1) I am leading my life because I have a family to support. I am taking care of my family.
2) I want to achieve something in my life and be well-known.
3) I want to contribute to the growth of mankind in my own humble way.
It seems that on an individual level, each one among us does seem to have some purpose. It is definitely a little easier to define purpose of existence at the individual level. But ask yourself one more time: “Does this whole scheme of things in your life make sense to you?” We go through so much pain and happiness. What is the point in all that? What do we get out of all that? Some would say, we learn new lessons about our lives. What lessons…and why? Normally speaking, we learn something so that we can apply the learnings later. Yes, during the course of our lives, we get some experience and we make use of them in the later course of life.

But what happens when we die? As an individual, we cease to exist. In my opinion, it is not as difficult as it has been made to be. Look around. Locate an object, say today's newspaper. It has a life. What happens to it once its life is over? It is thrown out, given away as scrap. Or the paper is put to some other use. Eventually, it gets burnt or gets decomposed, going back to the nature from where it originated. Is there any reason why nature should mete any different treatment to us? What happens to a piece of wood or an ant is exactly what will happen to us after we cease to exist. This is critical to understand because only when we get this straight can we start to think about the purpose of our lives or probably the pitiable lack of it. So, lets just pursue our happiness and make our miserable lives a little better while we are here. We all are just passing time. So we may as well pass it on our own terms.

Afterthought:
What is it that Buddha or Christ or Mohammad or Vivekananda came to know during their deliberations and meditations? Did they come to know anything at all?