The Point – part 7

I had two conversations recently that each, in their own way, sparked a chain of thoughts related to this series of ramblings. In the one conversation, the idea came up that humanity itself does not have a purpose. The idea that we, just like any other living thing on the planet, don’t necessarily have an overall purpose for our existence. We simply exist. But, at the same time, each individual person has not only the capacity, but also the responsibility to give themselves a purpose, and to define the meaning for their own life.

This idea fascinated me, because it addressed a question that I asked in a previous post about why human beings are special in that they have a purpose and other animals do not? What if we aren’t? What if we have no more purpose in the universe than the squirrel that eats all your birdseed? Or a random fish swimming in the river? And that what makes us different is the ability to assign a purpose to ourselves? And that if we feel that our lives do not have purpose, it’s because we haven’t fulfilled that responsibility to ourselves?

I thought a great deal about all this, and had come to the conclusion that if I had to assign a purpose to myself and my life, that purpose would be to learn things and to help others. I mentioned this to a friend of mine last night while sitting by a campfire. (Completely amazing thing to do, by the way, and highly recommended for those who are big on introspection and reflection!) He thought for a moment, and then said, “Well, I think that’s sorta everyone’s purpose. People in general want to help other people, and they learn things to be able to do that better. Some people are better at it than others, but yeah. I think that applies to everyone.”

That makes sense. There are schools of thought that say that we are all essentially beings of energy (our souls) that simply inhabit human form to gain that experience. Gonna throw in some relevant TOOL lyrics here, interestingly enough, from a song called Third Eye — “Today a young man on acid realized that all matter is merely energy condensed to a slow vibration, that we are all one consciousness experiencing itself subjectively. There is no such thing as death, life is only a dream, and we’re the imagination of ourselves.” So, what if that actually is the case? What if the reason we are here is to learn – be that a specific thing or simply as much as we can – and to assist other people (souls) on their journey to do the same?