Why am I here? What is my purpose? So simple these questions sound yet their answers are elusive to me. How might I go about answering them? What frame of reference do I use? Are there definitive answers? Let’s examine some of the possibilities.
Biologically speaking I am here to continue the cycle of life, to perpetuate my species, to pass along valuable genetic information. So I am some kind of short-term information carrier whose message is so important that a survival instinct and reproduction drive has been programmed into me. Instincts and drives I will likely succumb to. The fate of a universe placed upon my shoulders, my cosmic duty, my physical purpose. The reason I exist in four dimensions, an existence that I share with every animal on this planet. However, as a human being my existence occupies a different space, an inner reality, a capacity, it would seem, to exist independent of physical form. Now I ask myself why am I conscious? My duties as an animal are easily performed without our complex human consciousness. Why then all the abstraction in our being? Why not just eating, sleeping, mating? Why do we have the ability to think past our survival instincts? Because the survival of our species in the future will depend on our ability to go beyond the physicality of being. Consciousness is a pause in the chaos of being. The moment in history when we monkeys looked up from our meals or away from our mates long enough to actually think for the first time. This is the moment when the universe touched us and said,…
“Now figure out why you’re really here. Those reptilian minds were not a worthy receptacle for consciousness. It’s your mammalian minds that have the potential to answer the big questions. It’s your turn, take the ball and run with it.”
Each of us represents another opportunity for the universe to figure itself out. What a single consciousness could not know or see attempts to see and know by way of fragmenting itself ever smaller. Each of our minds is part of a larger consciousness that seeks to understand itself by experiencing itself as individuals. Every human has a unique perspective, a different way of seeing things. Maybe then humans are a kind of probe for a higher intelligence trying to understand four dimensional existence. We suspect consciousness may reside in part or in whole in another dimension. Perhaps our consciousness is this intelligence reaching forward through to our dimension, probing it for knowledge, trying to understand a dimension it cannot fully occupy in whole. This is not unlike what we humans do already. We’re always probing outward, inward, upward, downward, never content with just staying where we are.
So beyond my physical purpose what then is the purpose of my individual consciousness? I believe it is my duty and the duty of every conscious being, to unravel as many mysteries we can in the time we are allotted. I do not believe that any single one of us, on our own, could ever know all the answers. It has taken all of history and all the lives before us to come up with what few answers we have now. So as yet another point of view in an infinite cast,…
I am the universe’s attempt at explaining itself.
That is my purpose.
That is why I am here.
Yeah that’s me in a nutshell. Hardly a day passes when I don’t contemplate all that or some other bizarre speculative theory. The above piece speaks volumes about not only me but also the type of people I associate with. Yeah I’m deep and introspective. I’m not bragging just laying it out there. I really have no patience for people who only dwell and on the surface and never attempt to plunge deeper. To be honest though myspace really isn’t my thing. I’m mostly here so as not to get left behind by the friends I already have in the real world. I sometimes wish they’d put as much effort in maintaining their existing real world relationships as they do seeking new on-line friends. For the most part I feel as if these online communities are little more than cyber-circle jerks for people who are too afraid of mingling in the real world and who would rather create elaborate virtual personalities and remain behind the safety of their computer screens. True friendships develop by way of real world experience, experiencing people in their native and real world environments and under the stresses of reality. Many might argue that by reading through a person’s profile and chatting them up on line you can cut to the core of a person’s being by way of bypassing their physicality but unless you plan on living your life as a ghost in the machine with no spontaneity then you are hardly getting to know anyone here. This whole manner of meeting people reminds me of ready-to-order-fast-food. Type in this and that and presto! It’s all laid out at your feet. Where’s the magic, the mystery, the journey? I wonder how many of these cyber-friendships blossom into meaningful relationships like those forged in our schools, our workplaces, and by sheer happenstance. I guess I’ll find out. Truth be told I’d welcome the opportunity to meet some new people especially a band of merry pranksters to go to raves and clubs with. If my bitter attitude hasn’t turned you off completely and you actually made your way through this overly lengthy diatribe then maybe you’re just the kind of person I’d enjoy meeting in real life, too bad that likelihood is almost nil. I’m not about to put out anymore of my personal/contact info because as it is my e-mail is being bombarded by stealth marketing/spam bot “friend†invites (yet another reason I avoid these trendy communities). If you send me an invite maybe I’ll check out your profile and give you a shout especially if you happen to be biking distance of my neighborhood, or are coming to visit my area or seem like some one interesting to chat with... width="425" height="350" ..