Purpose

"I tell you, we are here on Earth to fart around, and don't let anybody tell you different."
~ Kurt Vonnegut

This may be a dangerous idea, but I don't think I am here for any great purpose. To be more inclusive, I don't think any of us are. And I'm not limiting this to humans alone. Humans, horses, centipedes, saguaro, jellyfish, bacteria, mushrooms. None of us.

It is of no greater or lesser importance to the universe whether I - or anyone - spends a life in writing, or learning Russian, or how to play the baroque sopranino, or in making pottery, or graffiti, or in eating peanut butter by the spoonful. It all has about equal weight. That weight being roughly nothing.

But before I get to sounding depressed, or desperate, I should explain by analogy.

Leonardo da Vinci, for all his brilliance in art, anatomy, and architecture, didn't get to live any longer than 67 years. Marcus Aurelius - poet, philosopher, caesar - got to 59. Mozart to 35. Jimi Hendrix to 27.

Now let's compare humans to molluscs. Quahog clams can live to be 400 years old. Some oysters can get close to that. Geoduck clams can live for 200 - a fact that would be easier to remember if they didn't look so much like horse penises. None of these seem to be bothered that in all their centuries they have written no poems, made no art, found neither medicine nor God. For them it's water in, water out; filtering the ocean by milliliter, day after day. I would like to ask an objective observer - someone who has stake in neither humans nor oysters; say, a bactrian camel - which has made the greater impact? What has been the greater contribution? Literature or clean water?

So, I think it's a load of hokum to think that human life holds greater sway in the consideration of the cosmos.

That may appear contradictory for a God-believer. How can I believe that there is no great worth - or purpose - to life and still maintain faith? I once explained that I don't believe in divine forgiveness, people aren't any more special than bacteria, and that I believe in neither heaven nor hell. When I die, I'm not going anywhere. The Earth has been enough for me. Here is where I will stay.

"So how is this not atheism?" I was then asked.

Because my God doesn't have a flowing beard or speak English? Because there is no good or evil to choose between? Because my deity is neither a He nor a She? (I'm aware of no divine genitalia) Well, because I believe things will work out. The Earth has a violent creative history, and though some think that after the 6th day all the making was done, it's still going on. The process didn't stop. And all shall be well, and all manner of things shall be well.

The making and the unmaking will continue. We've been around for so little time. Individually, we get so little time. And of all the life there has ever been - whales, redwoods, jaguars, dinosaurs - nearly 99% of it is gone.

I could be a pessimist, but it's all just too gorgeous. So what if at best I'm going to be around for 80 years? (though the track record for dreamers is significantly less) I get to be on a planet with sunsets, and mangoes, and guitars, and ships that sail the sea, and at no other time in the history of the planet could it have been otherwise. Isn't that all the more reason to sit outside of coffee shops, watch beautiful people, and eat Italian pastries?

I may be no more important than an oyster - maybe not even as important. The oyster at least makes a conscious effort to improve the planet. Most of my decisions on that subject have been about what I will not do. But I'm the one with the wedge of lemon. I've got the hot sauce. I'm on the winning end of the fork. And that is cause for gratitude, not guilt, nor depression.

So what if I don't have a purpose? I get to live as though I do. And that is my choice, not my destiny.