Knowledge vs Understanding. Information vs Experience. Sympathy vs Empathy. Survival vs Living. A map vs the territory it encompasses.
Walking on this territory I see a tree. What are the odds of that happening? The map says to first calculate the number of trees on the land and then to… but the territory has already answered: One out of one because it happened. And zero if it did not.
Walking on this territory I want to see something beautiful. The map points me the way and so I go. The territory can do no such thing. Instead, the territory asks me, “What is something beautiful to see?”
Walking on this territory I wonder which is more important. You see the map lets me see so much more than my eyes can. My eyes are bound to the surface, while the map looks from above. And with all these things to see, I can learn so much. I can learn it all. Every crack, cravats, bump and slump to this uneven land. I can know it all.
Walking on this territory I wonder then, why bother? Why bother to be at the territory if I can already know everything about it? Well, the thing is that you can see and learn from the map as long as you want… but you will not understand and feel until you are on the territory. You may know the length of the grass, but you will not feel its texture. You could imagine the color green covering the land, but only a few have the imagination to create the shades of green as every individual plant grows as its own. And no map has ever covered the sound of a stream as the endless flow of water runs downhill forever.
A map is useful, yes. And a territory is beautiful, yes. So why not both?
Look at the map for guidance, but don’t miss the birds flying away. Watch the grass blow to the mercy of the wind, but don’t bend your path as the grass does. They are both choices for a reason. They let you know, understand, learn, experience, sympathize, empathize, survive, and live.
And you want to know what I think is the best? To use the map in order to find the highest point on the territory. The spot with the best view and the most fun arriving there. Once there, put the map in your pocket, because it’s best to have going down as well, and look around. Use those beautiful eyes of yours to see the territory for what is, not what it says it’ll be.
That’s how I see it. It’s not one or the other on how to live your life and learn of the world. It’s using both when fitting and allowing yourself to grow as you want, not how you must.
The three girls
Naturally giggling just as the leaves tend to rustle
They spot the love of their life
Of course never spoken, just felt
Just watch as he scribbles love letters for their wedding day
Oh how handsome
Oh how insightful
Oh how strong
Oh how
The mother with her young daughter
Naturally scared just as a dog hears thunder
She spots a predator
Of course never spoken, just felt
Just watch the way he looks at her, STOP LOOKING AT HER!
Oh how scary
Oh how wrong
Oh how gross
Oh how
The couple
Naturally laughing just as hyenas do without a know in the world
They spot a philosopher
Of course never spoken, just felt
Just watch him stare ahead until the trees around him bleed the truth of the universe
Oh how wise
Oh how intelligent
Oh how motivated
Oh how
And then I wonder, after they are all done looking at me
Did any of them spot a boy?
Just wanting to write
Just wanting to think
Just wanting to see
Oh how nice that would be
Because then more than just the daughter and I would have noticed the butterfly dancing around her head
Life is a complicated mix of consciousness and biological needs and desires, of which we can only begin to understand through a subjective, biased lens. So, before I even begin this post, I would like to state that I do not know the purpose of life. All I present in this post is something that I have found to be very true from my own knowledge and understanding of the world around me. Yet by no means does this have to be the case for you or anyone else.
I, like many people, have spent quite some time debating the answer to this question. Some think about this jokingly over beers, while others write in-depth novels on this perplexing question. It is a question that has been around since the first homo-sapien developed a prefrontal cortex large enough to wonder if there was more to life than finding and consuming food. And this question will probably remain as long as a living thing of at least that intelligence exists within this universe.
My answer to this question is simple. The purpose of one’s life is to experience its life, and more broadly, to experience the universe around it.
This all began when talking to a friend of mine. Feeling a bit down, his philosophy of life took the skeptic route. He questioned and pointed out the flaw in caring about anything.
“Nothing is real,” he said. “Everything is a construct built through evolution and natural selection. The only reason we feel joy is because our brains are programmed to do so when we are experiencing something that will probably extend our meaningless lives in either an abstract or concrete way. So, in other words, there is nothing true about it. Plus, it’s all going to end eventually anyways, so what’s the point”.
I considered taking a few paragraphs in order to unpack what my friend said, yet as I wrote, I found out that it was going to take a lot more than a few paragraphs. Therefore, I decided to write a couple of posts that explain the ideas my friend was talking about in his little rant.
As I talked with my friend, I gave him my usual answers to his statement. I explained how it was about the process, not the end. And that the process is filled with emotions that are true to us, and that is all the truth we need to find a life worth living.
Yet none of those answers felt sufficient. I could still feel the persistence of his skeptic mindset and I felt a bit lost for words. Yet, through that confusion, I found clarity. I sat next to him and asked myself what the purpose of life really could be? What could it all be for?
It was then that he asked once again what the point was. What is the point in living if it is just going to end? And then it hit me. All at once I actually felt love and fulfillment in my heart because it all seemed to make sense.
I told him the purpose of life is to experience it, to experience the universe. The beautiful part about a living creature, especially a conscious one, is that only with this creature can things be seen as beautiful. Earth alone is nothing special. The ocean tides are not themselves majestic as the salty breeze goes through your hair. The peaks of mountains are not themselves gorgeous as the sun slowly begins to rise above the horizon. And this universe is not amazing if there is nothing to find it amazing.
As a living creature, I feel that our job is to live. Our duty, our purpose, is to experience and take in the world around us. Because without our thoughts and emotions that connect with these experiences, it would all be for nothing. The tides will move in without anyone to paint them. The sun would set without anyone to gaze into the bending red light. And the universe would continue to exist without anything to call it home.
And don’t get me wrong, I am not saying our purpose in life is to understand the universe. We don’t need to know the temperature outside to know when it feels warm enough to lay in the grass. We don’t need to know the types of trees to understand that the changing color leaves are beautiful. And put simply, we don’t need to understand what we are experiencing to experience it.
I have found that the purpose of life is to experience it the most you can. I believe that we should attempt to live the most experiences and witness the most beautiful things. We don’t need to conquer this universe, we should just acknowledge it. We should just see it for what it is and feel content that it did not go to waste since we were there to experience it.
This universe is beautiful because we are here to believe that it is. Life’s purpose is to live. Not survive, not to grow and modernize, but to instead live. It is to take in everything around us and smile.
What’s the purpose of life? Well, you’re doing it. You do it every day, but very few have the imagination for reality. So, if you want to pursue the purpose of life, then live some more. Experience new things and see what really lies outside of the little box you have stayed within most of your life. Because if you don’t experience these new things, then their beauty and wonder will be lost forever.
From the time that I was very young it was clear to me that vegetables tasted like shit. I mean you hear it everywhere, your friends don’t like eating vegetables, kids in shows don’t like eating vegetables, and the only reason you’re told to eat them is because they are good for you. Until recently I refused to eat most vegetables, until I realized it would take some conscious effort to get over the mental blockades that I had formed over the years. These blockades we create are often formed by what we experience around us, and for me, that experience was that vegetables were bad.
So there’s no good way to segue into this topic, so let’s just talk about some death. First off let me put it out there, death really fucking sucks, I’m not disputing that, but I think that it may be time to look at death in a different way. Death is tragic in the sense that the person you knew will never have the opportunity to interact with you again, however I believe that death is not all tragedy, on the contrary actually.
When one dies they are relieved of all worldly stresses and duties, of any pain they may have been experiencing, and of the fear of death. Our fear of death is intense, and weighs upon many with great force. Many say that we fear death because we fear the unknown, I don’t think that is true. I think we fear death because all of our lives we are told that death is something that we must fear. We have this feeling of responsibility to be sad after a death, to only speak well of the deceased, and to respect their remains. All of these things makes death a quite scary and unpleasant experience for the living.
What I propose is simple; let’s take death at face value. Let’s acknowledge the pain of someone leaving but also be happy for the relief the death has brought to the ones who are deceased. Let’s not perform funerals in all black, in dark buildings and graveyards for all to see and wallow in. Let’s change our perception of death. Instead let’s celebrate the lives the dead have lived, speak of them truthfully, and acknowledge that death is just another part of life. If we can get over these mental blockades we have about how terrible death is, then maybe one day we can make the end of our lives seem a little less doomed and a little more hopeful.
