Purpose

Written July 2nd, 2019

Purposeful living is the niche whose back the self-improvement industry rests on. "Have a purpose." "Find your meaning." Vacuous statements to which the cortical pathways fire at when seen.

Having a purpose is not easy. Passion breeds purpose, and suffering breeds passion. To be passionless is to be comfortable, sitting idly as the echo of life thunders through your world, and destroys you. To have passion and purpose is to chokehold the thunder, and direct it away from your kingdom. Put at stake, will you be able to say your purpose was achieved? Did you etch yourself onto the canvas of your world, or did your days pass staring at a blank slate, in awe at the creations of other men?

My utterances and verbose streams are meaningless without proof. What proof is there that purpose is necessary?

Let us begin with a paradox.

In the discrete and unaffected state, at any moment a man has some suffering. However joyous the occasion may be, without change, there will be suffering. Imagine sitting at your desk, staring at the ceiling for the next several hours. You will be in pain. Your suffering will urge you to move, and so you move, and begin a new task. But this is not passion, this is change. Suppose you continue this cycle of making minuscule changes to void the suffering of the moment; eventually, the frame shifts, and the situation itself becomes a suffering matter. The momentum of change must increase to void the increased suffering, however, undirected changes only stray you further into suffering. You study a thousand subjects at a baseless level, only to step away further confused. No, the undirected path only breeds further, more complex suffering. You tone in on a subject, even if it is one without a grandeur of interest. You hone your skills, and etch greatness out of nothing. You master yourself. Through this journey, you lay on the brink of suffering, which only further pushes you towards creation. Hence, you form passion.

Suffering breeds passion.

Now with the utility of passion at your side, you further claw away from suffering, slowly building your kingdom. But what prized treasure is hidden behind the walls of your keep? What have you hidden so carefully from suffering? Your passion has urged you to fight for something, something that cascades your shadow in the vision of god. You are nothing to this something, and are completely embodied by it. As you build the moats and the gates to starve suffering away, you begin to find that something: your purpose.

Passion breeds purpose.

However, the suffering that first drove you to your passion has only created a stream of suffering that lapses behind you, waiting to take you into its depth. This is the paradox; we have found our purpose in effort of fending suffering, only to create the potential for further suffering.

But with purpose, you no longer cower from judgment, or stare in awe at the creations of other men. You have built something magnificent, and will fight to keep it safe. You have a reason for being; suffering will always be around the corner, but now you are equipped with the momentum to fight it.

So endure the pain of being, and accept that the simple act of being alive is shrewd with suffering; this is the chaos in which purpose is bred, in which the armor of glory is latched onto you.

Open your eyes, and let suffering drive you to your purpose.