I’m not sure whether this piece of writing is going to turn out to be anything worthwhile, or just end up a bunch of mental/emotional diarrhea of scattered thoughts all over the place. Perhaps the yin-yang thang’ll be in effect again… some gold in the shit, some shit in the gold. Either way, you’ve been warned. Ha!
So… ”purpose.”
The concept sorta kinda almost (like many others) has gotten commodified in the overlapping worlds of personal & professional development, “spirituality,” hustle-culture, etc - put up on a pedestal, as though ‘it’ is something we all ‘should’ strive to gain clarity on and pursue. And while I’m not here to shit on anybody’s parade, there’s a lot of my writing that seems to wanna speak counterperspectives… so pardon if my cynicism towards this dogmatic idea of “purpose” comes across as at all offensive to belief systems any of y’all might be plugged into;
Maybe it has to do with my entering the “midlife crisis” point of life, yet the whole idea of “purpose” seems to be falling apart at the seams for me.
Yeah, i get it, obviously. I spent my twenties exploring every inch of the self-help and entrepreneurial realms, so there probably ain’t no guru that can tell me something i don’t already know - no matter how many “coaches” would be eager & willing to take my money to squeeze me through their “process” designed to “clarify” my “purpose” as though it’s all just a mechanical operation duplicable with routine formulas (or some “meditation” promising “downloads” of this alleged “purpose” from a more “spiritual” perspective rather than logical). Yet - maybe it’s part of this “deconditioning process” as per the Human Design lens - whereby my awareness seems to be deconstructing all these different programmed conceptions of what “purpose” is or ‘should’ be.
Like, i sorta seem to be arriving at this point of realization where trying to follow these conventional approaches to “purpose” would merely end up being self-gaslighting in one form of another. That might seem far out for alot of people, but think about it… all these approaches to “purpose,” merely appeasing the need for people to fill some gap with something… so the mind jumps in and decides to impose its ideas, creating a story to define oneself by about what’s important according to its conditioning & programming, as though it’s merely a homework assignment where you need to fill in some appropriate-sounding answers to get the passing grade of approval from the ego craving its itch for meaning to be scratched. (And of course, this is not meant to be an overgeneralized statement - surely there are people who do ‘have’ a clear sense of “purpose” that comes deep from a heart/soul/spirit level, and none of this is to discount that. Though considering the vast amount of personal development-ish content out there catering to people “seeking purpose,” those folk are probably not a majority).
But let’s get a bit more tangible rather than theoretical…
I’m nearing 40. Do I have any idea what “my purpose” is? Ha. Sure, I could attempt giving reigns to the mind so it can ramble off some beliefs and regurgitate fragments of concepts heard elsewhere, trying to fit others’ ideas of what “purpose” is to my own situation in order to cloak the honest uncertainty. But, no.
So am I gonna just follow some 25 year-old “life coach’s” dogmatic “system” and attempt to lie to myself with something that sounds good? No. I must be doing something right, as have more self-respect than that by now.
And looking back… there were probably alot of different times in my life i thought i “had/knew” “my purpose.” Some big ego-appeasing shit, like “changing the game” creatively of “making a difference in the world.” Ya know, the kind of rhetoric fit for the bullshit that would come out a politician’s mouth, but in the spotlight at a $10,000 Tony Robbins’ seminar. Yet it’s alot clearer now how much I was just bullshitting myself with all that. “Ooooohh, so impressive. So ‘important.’ Oprah would be so proud.” Trying to prove myself with some grand vision that blurs the line between overcompensation for insecurities and narcissistic fervour to be light years “better” than “normal.”
And what’d any of it amount to? Perhaps merely just a catastrophic fall from the grace of self-indulgent fantasy. Momentary highs of elated self-importance preceding the crash & burn into the reality check that I was surely valuing alot of the wrong things and chasing elusive dreams rather than building much of lasting substance that’d be of any value to others as a worthwhile legacy. (Yes, this may be a bit extremist/dramatic as surely isn’t all horrible… but you were warned there might be some emotional diarrhea splashed in here.)
And sure, then comes more of the “purpose” rhetoric creeping in in response… ‘well, use your failures as a springboard, refine your “purpose” from the lessons learned there,’ etc, blah, blah. As though the mind is any sort of authority to define the path out of the mess it made in the first place, all of a sudden in a position with a few more years of messy results to redeem itself like a “born-again” religious nut under the “inspiration” of a renewed ideological motivation.
(Is this making sense, or the point I’m aiming for still obscured…?)
Sometimes it feels like maturity and wisdom to be growing more conscious of just how much of life is lived from/through mindfuckery. Like, this increasing clarity on just how prevalent cultural belief systems influence our entire worldview & sense of self seems to be some indication of “growth.” Like, with this topic of “purpose,” there’s this higher vantage point from which i can see the neural maze made out of all these pieces of different programs and ideas picked up here & there - and how weak the human mind actually is as it still stays trapped in that maze after seeing the futility of consenting to all these external authorities’ implants. Yet at least in being able to observe it now, there’s at least some sense of “progress” beyond the lower dimensions where the larger context wasn’t visible.
But then… the comparison kicks in again.
Like, ’wtf is wrong with me while all these other people seem/claim to have it all figured out. Why does all that shit work for others and not me. Are they actually the ones still living in self-delusion, or is my independent streak so stubborn that I’ve manifested the experience that what works for them never will work for me and I’d rather perpetuate my own suffering by overcomplexifying everything rather than living in simplistic 2D beliefs where i could just write out a “purpose statement” and let that half-assed output of the limited mind dictate my life direction?”
It’s like i could run through the simulation of every damn “purpose” the mind could come up with… ’to learn, love, experience, create, serve, etc, etc, etc…’ and there’s no way i can collapse myself down back from the higher awareness that it’d just be the mind and its cognitive biases attempting to craft its own boundaries for some sense of control rather than face the discomfort of uncertainty as embracing dimensions of immense unknowns it never can fully comprehend or process.
(That last sentence might be worth re-reading.)
I’ve passed the point of being able to pretend “my purpose” could be boiled down to any sort of succinct ‘mission statement.’ Or that IF there even actually is some “higher purpose” that is well-beyond the capacity of the mind to summarize, that the mind could even comprehend the vast multi-dimensionality of what “it” was/is.
In some ways, life was alot easier when the mind had free reign to buy into all sorts of bullshit beliefs. There was comfort in its illusions. There was elation in hope of all this awesome experience to be had prior to the shattering of manufactured realities, after which there’s been a much more blunt, authentic embrace of actual limitations in life.
No matter which way my mind may attempt travelling through that neural maze of conditioned ideas and cultural programs, there’s no more blinding myself to the sheer fuckery of it anymore. Yet there’s also the (sometimes painful) humbling that even while observing the play from above, there’s still that part of me I can’t control… that the higher up consciousness rises to see more & more of the picture, the more apparent it becomes how little control we actually do have. And that to think we are actually in control of defining our own purpose… (insert the roaring laughter of halls of Gods here).
Sure, I could “choose” some arbitrary “purpose” from here… i.e. “to xyz with/through writing…” but would it not just be fooling myself to buy into this random abstraction of the mind’s dictation based on whatever it’s self-serving agenda is? Is it not just setting myself up for “failure” when life goes in a different direction and it turns out my plans get thwarted because the universal order of things didn’t give a fuck about the mind’s little games? Or if I am to serve some purpose with writing, is it even necessary to run myself through the ringer of logical meaning-making to appease some programmed sense that i “should” rather than simply surrendering to the process and allowing whatever wants/needs to flow through do so without the ego trying to stamp its signature of control on the process?
Or for all the sense of “purpose” I could project onto my relationship with music… what has any of it really served aside from taking it from playful to serious and letting the mind interfere with what used to be a blissfully-enjoyable thing prior to its infection with these belief structures…?
No matter what angle i try look at it from, i fail to see where this concept of “purpose” holds the same merit it used to. And again, this is not to discount anyone else’s experience - as surely there are people who are “driven by” a sense of “purpose,” and it works for them. If you were born with a knowing you were meant to do something very specific that’d you’d interpret as “purpose,” by all means, go for it. Or if it is of value to get yourself in the mindset every morning that everything you do is for the “purpose” of ‘providing for your family’ or making some particular improvement in the world you feel called to, great.
Though that’s not all of us.
Nor are there one-size-fits-all strategies for happy, healthy, effective living… such as this whole commodified “purpose” outlook many of us have been sold by dudes and chicks trying to sell motivational books and shit.
And holding myself up in contrast to those who are still plugged into it, there’s the temptation to diagnose what’s “wrong” with all this perspective of mine and bendin considering “maybe I need a purpose” or some shit. The same could be said about several other concepts propagated by societies & cultures that are held as a norm/standard. And maybe it’s time i start giving less/no fucks that they aren’t working for me anymore, and i stop (energetically) apologize for speaking “my Truth” that many of these concepts people have taken on as dogma are due for upgrading and/or expiration for some of us.
I dunno if this’ll end up making sense to anybody. Nor can i pretend to really know what the “purpose” of this writing is.
A therapeutic vent? Trying to prove a point? Seek validation from even one person so that i know I’m not alone and there’s nothing wrong with me cuz i can’t swallow self-help cult koolaid anymore? Simply blowing off steam through these rambles? Why does there even fucking need to be a “purpose?” Can’t we just do shit without need for overanalysis and the mind having a sense of certainty over the “why” all the fucking time?
Maybe life would be alot more enjoyable letting go of all that. If just abandoning the seriousness and mindfuckery that complicates things with “purpose” in exchange for the “living in the moment” approach, complete with an acceptance that we don’t know shit and might even experience life with more peace, surprise, success, and satisfaction once surrendering the mind/ego’s desire for “purpose” in exchange for the space through which life can be lived through us without belief systems’ turds cluttering our consciousness and cognitive biases’ blinders leaving us tripping all over them and keeping us locked out of richness of experience only accessible once totally shifting out of linguistic & mental models where concepts like “purpose” are some holy necessity.
Or some shit. What do I know.
Enough with the words. Here’s one of the music ideas from the vault. I dunno if there was any “purpose” when i made it. I dunno if there’s any “purpose” in sharing it - other than putting it out now for someone to enjoy it. And somehow, it’d feel like that end result might “manifest” alot quicker & easier without having to ever think about them “purpose” in the first place.
Hope there was a seed in all my cynicism here somewhere that’ll take root in at least one mind and strangle the life outta some weeds implanted from outdated cultural programs in a way that serves.
Enjoy the tune… 😜
