Purpose

 

It all boils down to the purpose of life. Why am I here? What am I supposed to do with my life? A lot of people think the purpose of life is to get a big name. Papa kehte hai bada naam karega. And the way to do is to be better than everyone else. Be the best at something. 

I have been reading this popular book called “Sapiens”. It has put things into perspective for me to the next level. The bottom-line is billions of humans have walked the earth for millions of years. All of them are forgotten in a short span of time. Even the exceptional ones. The concept of legacy is a myth. Why do we care what people think about us and what they will remember us by after we die? The simple but harsh truth is oblivion is inevitable. Albeit, oblivion is not a bad thing.  

Everyone wants to be extra-ordinary. Everyone wants to be one in the million. No one wants to be just one of the billions. But no matter how much we deny and resist, it will always remain a scientific fact that we are one of the billions. What’s so bad about being one of the billions? But no, we spend the entire life being better than everyone around us. My family is better than yours. My caste is better than yours. My god is better than yours. My country is better than yours. Ergo, I am better than you. 

I was watching this interesting documentary on Netflix called “The game point”. It’s about tennis. People take tennis so seriously, they spend their entire life to win a grand slam, to beat the world no. 1, to get the world champion title. People go through extreme stress and pressure that is beyond human capability. For what? I don’t understand. Imagine, tomorrow, tennis vanishes from the planet. If for some mysterious reason, people stopped playing tennis, it will make zero difference to humanity all over. You will not even notice tennis is gone unless the press reports it. It will not make any difference to the quality of my life or your life, will it? Now imagine, tomorrow for some reason, all the plumbing systems stopped working all over the world and all the plumbers vanished, will you notice? I bet you would, immediately.

So, the point is a plumber contributes more and leaves behind a bigger legacy to the humanity than Novak Djokovic. Then what’s so much fuss about legacy? 

I learned about the purpose of life in my early 20’s. It took a while to assimilate it and I am still in the process of assimilating it. But the point is, I know the purpose of life.

Basically, the purpose of life is to play. Play the game of life. Live your life to the fullest. As simple as that. No need to take life so seriously. It’s like a game of chess. You wouldn’t cry if your rook or bishop dies, would you? Because you were playing a game. Even if you lost, you’d setup the board and play again. No stakes. I know this sounds nihilistic but if you think about it, most things in life are not worth crying for. Most things in life are mind over matter. If you don’t mind, it doesn’t matter.   

We have chronic control issues. We want to control the outcome at every step of life. That’s the mother of all disappointments in life. When you fathom the enormity of the universe and the chaotic order it has, you’d know that trying to control life is a fool’s pursuit. The more you try to control, the more disappointed you are bound to be. Your life is as delicate as the house of cards. Then just play it, instead of trying to control it.

Now the big question is what’s the point of even trying? The point is to play the game. You’re on the field and you have to play. If you don’t, you’re a party-pooper.

While playing the game, you need to remember the rules. The rules are simple. The most important rule is to understand what’s real and what’s imagined.

Evolution is real. Religion is imagined.

Sex is real. Marriage is imagined.

Hunger is real. Corporations are imagined.

Pain is real. Laws are imagined.

Survival is real. Stardom is imagined.

Most of the things we take so seriously in life are a figment of our imagination. We need these imagined realities to run the civilization. Don’t get me wrong. But we must not forget they are not real; they are imagined orders.

We often confuse interesting with important, and they are seldom the same. What we find interesting is often times not important in the big picture at all. Like IPL. You watch IPL because you find it interesting and entertaining, but is it important? It becomes important because millions of people find it interesting. That’s when it starts to impact the economy and the collective mindset of the population. But if we all realized it’s not important, it would have no impact on a large scale.

The real problem is we don’t even know what’s important for us and what’s not. We lie to ourselves that we care about things, but actually we give no shit about them. For example, you think you care about wildlife. But if all the gorillas in the world were to vanish tomorrow, how long do you think it would take you to notice? A very important question that Michael Che asks. Think about it. The simple truth is you don’t care about something or someone unless you do something about them.

So, open your eyes. The game is to see the reality, the truth. But we live most of our lives for the things that are figments of our imagination. That’s what Indian scriptures call “Maya”. The game is to identify the truth in the web of Maya. And here’s the ultimate truth.

(I have plagiarized a lot in this article, and here’s the last one.)

I tried so hard and got so far,

But in the end, it doesn’t even matter.