On Matters of Purpose

To blog or not to blog? That is the question! Or, at least, it has been for the past week and a half as boredom paralleled perhaps only by loneliness dropped anchor on my time off work forcing me to dredge my way through what might best be described as my annual bereave. You see , lately, I’ve been overwhelmed by an urge to become “rich and famous”- I use that phrase because I can think of no other but it occurred to me today that neither of those attributes are actually my real aim in life. To paraphrase Gervais, if I wanted to become famous then I could do so overnight by doing a terrible job of murdering a prostitute and, as for money, I think it is verging on the side of axiomatic to state that it cannot buy you happiness. Evidently then what I seek is recognition from those around me- not in terms of praise necessarily but by way of intelligent discussion and reasoned rebuttals as I tackle some of the bigger philosophical, moral and societal questions facing humanity in what, invariably, has to be a godless universe.

At least, that is what I intend to do via the medium of blogs but it may turn out to be the case that each instalment is tantamount to me standing sheepishly in front of my Year 5 peers, ready to take them on the white knuckle ride that is “What I did this Summer”. In those situations, as the rapids subsided and my classmates prepared to disembark from their canoes, I’d always anti-climax the whole paper by ending with something like “…and then I woke up and it was all a dream”. At the time, the main reason I did it was to stop the awkward questions about the exact location of the loch ness monster, what the moon actually tastes like and why I didn’t just wish for more wishes but, looking back, I think it indicates a will to create utter disappointment- something which I have become a master of in my adult life. But I digress…In allowing a wider audience to view and comment on my opinions, I aim to escape from my own head. That is the ultimate intention of me blogging and this is the first step on that journey.

So, depending on who you are, you may be wondering who I am apart from some jumped up twat who knows how to use the thesaurus function on Microsoft Word. Well, in as many senses of the word as you care to imagine, I am nobody- to you, these should just be taken as words on a page organised in such a way to express an opinion which you can then choose to either adopt or refute as you see fit. In truth, in life, I have no great story to tell, no noteworthy accolades to my name and no identifiable talents. I work a bog standard 9-5er and call an attic room my home. My general outlook on life and all its gritty details is one of great scepticism and cynicism and yet I would define myself as an optimist because, although I believe there are no extraneous purposes TO any of our lives as defined by some absent supernatural being or power, I believe that we can (and must) create purposes IN our own lives and thereafter use our finite time on earth to shape our lives in order to achieve what we deem to be success. For example, the main aim in my life is to make a lasting and positive impression on as many people as I possibly can and to do this by making them laugh, smile and, in the case of this blog, think. An equally pertinent example would be that of the plastic surgeon- leaving the money issue aside, their aim in life would appear to be to improve the quality of other people’s lives by messing about with the cards that they were dealt (replacing the 3 of clubs with the 32DD of jugs or the Queen of Hearts with the Queen of Arse, if you will) and their success is measured by the infrequency of the lawsuits brought against them.

I commit so much of my time to gratifying the nonessential needs of others because, in truth, I do not like myself. They have not yet invented an “Eternal Sunshine…” style technique of removing unwanted information from the mind (but when they even come close to it, please put my name down for clinical trials!) and as such, I am forced to live with certain memories, neurosis and experiences which I will never come to peace with. It is unfortunate that existence dictates that the mind is 100% of who we are- after all, the rest of the body is just a framework of attachments and tools which we use in order to satisfy the aforementioned purposes, goals and aims that the mind has cooked up. Personally, I am not waylaid by matters of appearance as I know my body and my face will not bring me happiness or, at least, reconciliation with my own mind, as they are not key factors in the achievement of my personal goals. I now reject the idea of love as I did experience what I felt must have been it once with the girl I must have meant to have been with but it did not work out and thereafter, to love and be loved was removed from my set of purposes in life. It is ironic really then that the mind which, by my own admission, I do not get along with, is, in fact, the main tool which I have at my disposal to achieve my idea of success- a laugh, a smile or a thought provocation from those around me.

Given that it is incredibly likely that we are not here for a specific purpose, that we are not characters in some epic narrative created and perpetuated by an unseen deity and that there is no afterlife, what would you say your purposes in life are? What tools are you currently using to achieve your goals and how are you measuring success? Such is the nature of life and society that we cannot all be saving lives all the time but equally it is important not to become a drone to political and economic doctrines, leaving the bigger goals to someone with a greater chance of success. On an individualistic level, all goals are equally as important as each other no matter how small they may seem on a holistic level. For example, your goal in life maybe to create a family whereas your next door neighbours might be to cure cancer. Whilst a cure for cancer would benefit humanity in unimaginable ways, ultimately both you and your next door neighbour will be following the same indistinct path to success, using the tools around you to achieve what you feel to be the desired outcome. As selfish as it may seem, the fact that life is all we have and that life is finite and that there is almost certainly no eternal salvation at the end of it means that true happiness can only be achieved by creating and then completing our own goals. And don’t forget that you may have hundreds of these goals throughout your life time and that some may be short term and some may be long term. For instance, wanting to be entertained can, for me, easily be arranged by turning the television on but wanting to be the entertainer is something which I continue to endeavour to do through various mean- most recently, this blog.

I don’t really know where this rant came from or what the purpose of it was other than to introduce myself and the reasons why I have turned to blogging. To conclude, today I saw a single mother pushing her child around in a device which she’d fashioned by placing a clear plastic storage crate on top of a rusty old pram frame (place of acquisition: unknown). Such is my nature, I was incredibly judgemental at the time but I guess, in the context of this blog, she was just trying to achieve her goal of doing the best for her child by using the tools (albeit ones most probably sourced from the local rubbish tip) available to her. She must have felt on top of the world. In closing and in true to style fashion, if the content of the blog hasn’t quite disappointed you enough then you’ll be happy to know that….I woke up and it was all a dream.