Friday, January 30, 2009

Purpose of Life

I have been going very deep through these thoughts after hearing the following questions: what is our purpose? as human being? are we so worthless that we were born, grow up, marry with the one we want, have children, getting old, then die?? what is our purpose in life? why do we live in the first place if we just go through this cycle and then vanish from the face of earth?

The discussion was mainly about normal people, excluding those genies people and brilliant minds of scientists, poets, artists...etc The interesting question: do we need to be like Da Venci or Einstein in order to be considered valuable and accountable for being one those set mainlines for the purpose of life?

The question that I considered broad, in fact most interesting: what would we do to keep a legacy? there are many who don't know what their grandfathers and grand grandfathers look like, not even know what are their achievements. This is not fair to us and to them at the same time. What lessons can we learn from their experience and how would we know if we resemble our mother side or father side of the family? or is it not worth it? Would knowing the chain of my family help me in any way to determine who I am and what I am and that for sure would impact my own personality and the way I behave / react towards things? and that include the choices I make in my life? I am confident that knowing about forefathers would impact us, there are many who changed their course of life when they discovered an old fact or received information on their family.

Some years ago I met a young guy, very intelligent to the level that sometimes you almost believe that this guy is suffering from some sort of Schizophrenia. Through time I came to the conclusion that that guy like to play different personalities (each time with different social, religious, and even political point of views), because he is suffering from the essence of being part of a certain group. This has something to do with his childhood, with a neglected boy by the always-busy-at-work-papa and mama who focused on the sisters instead. I didn't see that guy for years, but I heard that he finally found the group where he could settle down in and make an extension to his purpose of life. Well, I wonder if he did find his own purpose of life, with such turbulence through his childhood and adulthood until this very moment.

During that discussion, there are who became frustrated because "if we don't know what is the purpose of each us in this life, what is the difference then between us, humans, with animals, who just eat, mate, drink and die.

I thought of what have been said, but everytime I think more, I always come to the same conclusion: each of us must be proud of him/herself, because each of us is unique, but is that enough to give each of us purpose to live in this life?


Image by dchui

4 comments:

Ali said...

Mix Mode!

Very interesting topic indeed. From my humble perspective, God has given us minds, souls and instincts, unlike angels who only got souls and minds, and unlike animals who got souls and instints. Knowing this fact will help us outline our route in life. We have to use our mind to reach a goal which God has set for us. God hasn't created us for a useless cause. There is a bigger cause. We don't need to be like Da Venci...ect to be valuable. We can be valuable within ourselves. We see those people valuable, and I agree with u and nobody doubt about this fact, but the question is "Does God consider them valuable?" They served the humanity through their outstanding knowledge, but their knowledge couldn't serve them in the processing of discovering who God is. Many scholars have said "there is some power beyond our knowledge" that runs the universe, but "could they find out who or what that power is?"
As far as achievement, I don't think knowing our ancestors have anything to do with our creativity. Yes, we may model after them in terms of behavior...if positive, but that shouldn't decide who we are. This is actually a wide-range topic to discuss. I know genes may play a big role in deciding how smart or dumb we are. But God has given us mind and ordered us to seek knowledge. Humanity shouldn't all be like Da Vinci or Einstein to be valuable. Humanity needs truck drivers, mechanics, janitors,,,ect. If all the world would be like Einstein, who would take over flying people from one side of the world into another? Who would clean our streets? Who would take our children to school by bus? Eistein wouldn't be a captain, or a cleanup worker or a bus driver!!! God has created us with such a variety of knowledge and abilities, to have us depend on each other and keep the spin of life, and keep it balanced. It isn't the matter of how valuable we are in the eyes of others, but rather how valuable we are within ourselves because knowing this would help us assess everything we say and everything we do, which will in turn, help us act responsibly, wisely, fairly...etc. (The difference between us and the animals, is responsibility). Da Vinci couldn't save himself from death, nor could Einstein. It is what will come after death will decide who is/was valuable. Life is all like a transit period but unlike a flight in which we only seek survival to reach our destination, no matter what we do, if we don't crash, everybody will reach his/her destination safely and will be happy. In life, however, we have to stick to certain things, behaviors, and maintain our grades as if we are in an exam, and then the next step will be results. Here, we have to behave well, be fair, maitain our connection with God, in order to reach our destination safely and end up in happiness. Unlike a regular trip, if we don't act fairly, wisely...etc, we will still reach the destination, but end up in misery!

Sorry for having detailed my comment, but ur question requires a whole book to answer!

Note: this is only a humble opinion. It is said: "Opinions are like heads, everybody has one".

MixMax said...

Hi Allawy, you can't imagine my happines while reading your comment and I appreciate your time spent writing it. I agree with every word you said, that's why I always believe that we were made each of us made unique, we first have to value ourselves and from this we can value others and other things. Again, I agree with every word you said. I like your simplicity in putting out your point of view.

I am sure I will come back to this question, it is very interesting aspect about each of us. Very important, indeed, and you are write, it would require a book to have a full and worthy of the subject discussion, that's why I am sure I am going to talk / post something about this subject again on my blog.

Anonymous said...

Thank you for your nice comment on my page.
You're obviously a very deep thinker and my opinion may be quite basic but you mention the greats such as Da Vinci etc... Who touched their lives to enable them to become who they became? You may be exceptional at something that is important to some but not to others but did a "none entity" help them to gain the confidence in themselves or offer the drugs that brought out the art? Everyone is touched by somebody at some point in their lives and I hope that I may have touched somebodies life too in a positive way.
I believe every person has an important purpose even if you don't see it as a valuable purpose. I might not be great but I've been touched by alot of people and hopefully it enabled me to touch somebody else, what if that touch amongst others helped to create somebody else's greater good, maybe without that snowball effect a great gift is lost to somebody somewhere?

I hope I haven't rambled too much there but it's quite difficult to voice so many thoughts. :D

MixMax said...

Welcome Seledas, your words are as valuable as your thoughts. I know it is not a simple subject that can be summarized in 10 lines or 15 but the perspective of having a chain in the impact (positive or negative ) that human can make on each other is more than interesting to be regarded as the one of the main factors for our purpose of life.

Thanks you very much for your input, it is very valuable.