on a reading note, I finished “Beyond Good and evil” yesterday
and I am going to start Nietzsche’s “on the Genealogy of Morals”
today…I am in the home stretch of reading all of Nietzsche’s work…
so let us understand the concept of meaning and purpose in terms
of what they actually mean and the idea of “one size fits all”…
we have various religions that hold to certain idea’s…
we have the Buddhist for example who believe that life is suffering
and we must end the cycle of suffering by the process of becoming
enlightened…
Life for a Buddhist is one of ever ongoing cycles of birth, suffering and death…
how do we end this cycle of rebirth and suffering?
the problem with the Buddhist ideology is this notion of life being
one of suffering…I don’t see life as being full of suffering…
I see the “suffering” of our becoming, becoming old, having disease
and finally dying as being part of the gig of being human…
suffering sucks, but it isn’t the decisive driver of life the Buddhists make
it out to be…
I see suffering as being just another aspect of life, like the stages of life
that all of us go through, puberty, menopause, growing older and finally the
last stage of our life which is death…
is death suffering? no, death is just another step along the way…
if you are born, you are going to die and we should be ok with that…
but we are not because we have such religions as the Christian religion which
offers us a bribe to believe, if you believe, you shall live forever…
as if living forever is some sort of paradise, no… I would rather die
a thousand deaths before I could live forever…
but religions “one size fits all” mentality won’t allow any other choice
beside the choice of the Christian nightmare of living forever…
and see the difference between the Buddhist thinking about
living forever and the Christian thinking about eternity…
life is something to escape from the Buddhist thinking, and in the
Christian thinking the goal is to live forever in heaven…
two different religions, two different approaches to life…
and who is right?
the “one size fits all” mentality of religions is a major problem for
religions… life isn’t something we try to escape from…
it is what we make of it… for some, some, life is beauty and love
and peace and all the other positive aspects of life…
and for some, some, life is anger and hate and ugliness and roughness…
the negative aspects of life… but once again, we see two distinct
different aspects or possibilities of life…
is life full of beauty and love and peace? yes and is life full of anger
and hatred and ugliness? yes…
but which possibility am I going to work for?
I have made my answer clear…
so, in a “one size fits all” understanding of the universe…
we can see the differences between beliefs and we can see
how one belief can lead one toward beauty and love and peace
another belief leads toward hate, anger and ugliness…
but a “one size all fitting universe” doesn’t allow for choice
and possibilities…
we have but one choice in a “one size fits all” universe and what if that
choice isn’t your choice?
I don’t believe in a heaven where we stand around and wonder at the
magnificence of god… forever… what a nightmare…
a “one size fits all” heaven certainly doesn’t work for me, but
what other choice am I giving by Christianity?
so, I am not a Christian because we have but one choice in
our death… believe or face eternity in hell… that is not
a choice in my mind…
and for the Buddhist’s, I don’t think living our lives is suffering…
because we do have such things as beauty and love and peace
and hope to keep us company while we live out our lives…
a “one size fits all life” isn’t worth holding to because it negates
our possibilities as human beings… we are simple put,
beings full of possibilities and the point of life is to explore
and seek out those possibilities…a “one size fits all” universe
misses the many possibilities that await a human being if we only
looked…
work, that is not about making money to put food on the table…
no, work is to explore our possibilities… to see what we are capable of…
this idea that work, working all our lives is an “one size fits all” endeavor
to simply put food on our table… misses the point about seeking
and finding our possibilities…
to find my possibilities isn’t predicated upon me working my whole life…
work simply exists to help me find and explore my possibilities…
a “one size fits all” understanding of the world, misses the enormous
possibilities that exists for us as human beings…
“what am I to do” as a Kantian proposition isn’t about what job should I hold, but
“what am I to do” is about seeking the possibilities that exists within me and
discovering those possibilities within some actions such as work or perhaps
continue to seek our possibilities outside of the business environment…
to say, life is about going to heaven and contemplating the wonders of god
for eternity is to entirely miss the vastness of the human possibilities that exists…
the point of existence isn’t, isn’t about living life via “one size fits all” mentality
of understanding…
the point of existence is to seek and explore the possibilities of human existence…
what is possible for me as a human being?
I can be a musician or a leader or a researcher or a teacher or
a worker or philosopher or a… the point of existence
is to seek out what is possible for us…
“what am I to do”? isn’t about me becoming a worker or a producer,
but about what it means to be human in seeking out our possibilities
that exists as human beings…
the meaning and purpose of the universe isn’t to find a job for which we
work at for 40 years… no, the point of existence is to find a job that
helps us explore what it means to be human, for us…
the kind of human being’s we are is far more important then finding
out what sort of job we might have…
part of the human exploration of the possibilities is to explore
our true nature of being human…
if I were to explore the beauty of the universe, that would be
of greater value to both me and the human race, and far more valuable
then any addition to the GDP that I might contribute to…
we are so limited in vision and scope of what is possible that we forget that
the point of existence isn’t to contribute to the GDP, and in fact contributing
to the GDP might lead human beings to avoid seeking the possibilities
that exists for all, all human beings…
our one track mind in believing in “one size fits all” is part, part of the
problem we face in our “modern” times…if we expand our vision to
exclude the “one size fits all” understanding of what it means to be human
and to understand what is the meaning and purpose of human existence is really
an engagement with the true understanding of what it means to be human…
which is to seek out and explore our possibilities as human beings…
as human beings, are we about love and peace and anger and hate
and charity and hope and all those other values which we human beings
have inside of us? yes, we are all of these and more… but we cannot know
what our possibilities are until we seek them out, until we explore all, ALL,
our possible values as human beings…
the possibilities of values includes such values as adventure and authenticity
and balance and compassion and community and curiosity and fairness
and justice and faith and fun and kindness and learning and poise and respect
and trustworthiness and wisdom, to name a few values which we should
be seeking and exploring instead of wasting our lives boosting the
GDP…
it is those values listed above that give our lives meaning, not work,
not putting our nose to the grindstone, not slaving away for 40 years to
end up with nothing of value in our lives…
“what am I to do?” is about seeking the possibilities of existence that is the
the point, the real point, of existence for me…our existence isn’t about
this false and phony idea of “one size fits all” but our existence is about
discovering the values that give my life its point, meaning,
purpose…
Kropotkin