Purpose

The basic question - what is the purpose of my life?

We've been home three months now from eagerly trekking through the American West. I could happily be there still. Maureen, however, has had that experience and is eager to resume a more conventional life: career, garden, grandchild.

The grandchild thing is seductive. They reach, hopefully, into the 22nd Century. Our children, being smarter, more pragmatic and more stable than I will impart the best of our lineage. There are no guarantees, but the hope is always there in these early days that an infant's life will be better, more important, than ours. Frail and helpless, such a massive, blank canvas carried by such a complex organism, so much opportunity for ill, such hope for good. They are facsinating.

But, this tiny infant will go on, well sheltered and supported by her parents, without me. What is the purpose of my taking up space, using resources, creating pollution in our finite world? How do I justify my continuing existence?

My father saw his purpose as caring for my mother. Theirs was a different world. She the traditional homemaker with brief forays into outside employment, he the father who stoically worked regardless of his health or dreams; providing, maintaining their home, their car, their life even when she resented his stability.

That is the basis of so many unexamined lives; caring for ourselves and the others. "Not being a burden." "Having a family." "Helping the kids." "Keeping up the house." "Paying our bills." "Taking a vacation." "Working." "Volunteering." Workers in the mundane hive. Attempting to perpetuate our view of how life should be. Promoting our beliefs while they inexorably mutate in the churn, the tumult. Creating amature art and crafts that are little more than clutter. Are these justifiable reasons to put our feet on the floor each morning and shuffle out to impose ourselves on the universe?

If we did not? What if instead we rolled into our covers and through suspension of effort let the constant assaults on our viability win, to return us to the earth? Whatever minor contributions we made to participating in the global economy would be lost. The green grocer, the barrista, the utility, the petroleum multinational, the pharmaceutical giant, the factory in China and all those from whom we consume would be diminished: microscopically to be sure, but none the less diminished.

To a greater degree, but still almost too little to notice, would be the loss to those with whom we interact. Not necessarily commerically, but as fellow sentient beings. That grocer from whom you bought produce, you confirmed his choice of goods, his pricing, his presentation. If you happen to smile or say a positive word you had an even greater impact in reinforcing his sense of worth and well being. As you left the market, that person for whom you held the door, especially if they were not more frail, especially if they were of a different ethnicity, you enhanced their life. As you drove you polluted and yet you added wear to your car, moving it microscopically toward replacement thereby contributing to all the jobs in that complex supply chain.

Is that our purpose, is that my purpose, as George W. Bush, exhorted, to shop, to consume? It is one. As he understood, a stagnant economy imperils all boats. Another purpose is to interact. To provide help and just as importantly, to accept help. No one can do good unless another needs help, accepts help. That help may be as little as a kind word, a smile or letting another driver have the parking spot, but each of those actions improves our society. There are some who email you, who text you, who, however quaintly, stop by in person to visit you. They would truly be diminished by your absence. John Donne had it right that the loss of any of us diminishes all of us because we are involved in mankind.

We are in a time of great discord, of national division. Two of the thirds of our population thinks another third is ill-informed, morally-lacking, subversive, a burden on our nation, maybe traitorous. We reassure ourselves we're right in our emotional beliefs by devouring the tribal media as if it was as essential as water to our existence. The remaining third observes, leans, ignores. Is my purpose to participate in this continuous contention? I've certainly sent my salvoes over the wall; informing, refuting and inflaming "them." And I've taken broadsides, been challenged, refuted, insulted. None of it did any good. I affirmed the beliefs of those who agree with me and was ignored by those who do not. Minds are not changed this way.

I do believe it is a valid purpose to identify fake news on any side of our many debates. Too much of it is traded as valid It poisons and subverts. Calling our lies, offering the relevant facts is a valid purpose. Others do it professionally, but lies must be called out where they are found and immediately.

But what is the positive side of this: sharing truth? As absurd as it sounds to me as I write it, we have our own truths now. Facts, like statistics, are interpreted. Facts are tranched and recombined to create complex, marketable, difficult to dismantle investments in perpetuating a story line. All of these manipulations erode our individual ability to discern the truth.That adds to confusion and frustration, a sense of futility and a tendency to withdraw from participation. I do think I have an abilty to sustain somewhat opposing points of view. That gives me the ability to, if not embrace, at least appreicate and mull opposing points of view.

Still, just putting out flat statements is of little value in closing our fissures. A valid purpose in life, for a life in these times, is listening. Not refuting, not letting the other talk while I assemble my rebuttal, but really listening, trying to understand. Letting another person be heard. In explaining, in being fully heard, we often hear inconsistencies in our own arguments. Free from external assault we often start to moderate our views, to permit that there may be some validity to a different point of view. I need to find, (create?) forums for just such dialog. That would be a valid purpose for a life at this moment. Not to debate, but to listen. And, with each interaction to somehow, however slightly, enhance the other person's experience. Smiling comes to mind.