The purpose of Life

The age old question which had troubled the philosophers, spiritual leaders and enlightened souls for centuries or millennium. Sitting at this juncture same question is presented in front of me and few others who are just into their third or fourth month of job. This age old question is posed in different forms, what should I do, what will make me happy, what my interests are but in the essence it is what is the purpose of life. The difference between the question when it is presented by an enlightened person like a spiritual leader and an unenlightened person like me is, former tries to answer this question from the perspective of whole humanity while the later wants an answer that would he would settle for and it is immaterial if it fits in with broader set. Although after repetitive questioning and having many marathon sessions of brain storming (solitary as well as in group), I have come up with no answer which is understandable, because had I been capable enough for answering this ageless question, I would given Deepak Chopra run for his money. But after repetitive brainstorming, I have got some understanding of the genesis of the question.

I have realized that I have started asking this question for the first time. The question might have come in my mind in different avatars (mentioned above) but was never in its direct and most difficult to answer form. I tried to figure out the conditions which have changed over this period and realized that it is only the change in primary activity which has changed. Earlier the primary activity was studying (I need to mention that primary activity does not mean that it is the primary focus of a person, rather its only the perceived primary activity, i.e. on paper or in societal terms he/she is primarily focused towards the activity) and now it is working. So while one is studying, he/she can engage in lot of secondary activities like sports, singing, acting..... and the list is endless. The reasons for these engagements are justified as passion, fitness, personal development, career prospects etc. The justification is not seeked by conscious but rather by the unconscious mind and we do give this justification but never understand this. The demand for justification reaches a conscious mind when the performance in primary activity is hindered by these secondary activities. (once again performance is as per the perception of society or yourself). Until the justification arguments are strong, things go smoothly, once justification is not strong enough, one of the avatars pops in.

Now coming to the scenario when working is primary activity. Now there are two kind of people, those who have extensively pursued one of those secondary activities and have justified it as passion and the other who might have tried their hands at lot of things for other justifying reasons. When the former person starts working, he keeps wondering whether the purpose of his life was working and was not to engage in the secondary activity that he was pursuing earlier throughout his life, again it is a question moving towards the same old question but is not in direct form. When the second kind of person as described above, starts working he is not able to connect to any thing as strongly as the former was connecting to in the name of passion, result is the big question - what is the purpose of life. Had he aligned himself to any activity than the question would have been re framed as, - was not the purpose of my life was to do xyz activity through out. So this is the genesis of question. And all those whose primary activities had actually remained primary, would be spared from this question for some later time. Or people who have managed to find some other secondary activity(it can even be preparation for some competitive exam), would have also not faced this question.

Another million dollar question, why do philosophers have been intrigued by this question. Well I have to sit down with few of these preachers to give out a theory of mine which could be extended to them.

Well If you have any other reasons for raising this question than please do suggest or else if you have the answer to the question, - what is the purpose of my life, then had you let me know that earlier, I would have been spared from writing this blog