Why do you exist?
We all exist, our senses tell us this much. There are objects all around us, some created by the intellect of man, some created by the mother we call “nature”. We know why almost every one of these things exists, we know why the sea is salty, we know why televisions are around and we know what our shoes are for. Everything has a purpose and a place in the world. On an individual level however, most people don’t have a clear view of purpose, they just know that they want their life to mean something, yet all too often accept that it never will. Why is this? What have we lost? Here’s my perspective.
In modern society, huge emphasis is placed upon the need for institutional education and continued conventional employment. This isn’t because society needs people to be very well educated and perform a job that they will find joy in. Rather, this is because, in order for a national economy to remain steady, there needs to be a certain amount of professionals and non-professionals helping to grow business at any given time. The finance of a nation will always come before the requirements of its inhabitants. Of course, a collapsible economy is something that none of us want to endure when we rely on industry performing well so that we can maintain employment. This is somewhat of a paradox to me. In order for us to eat, drink and enjoy the luxury of a roof (and it is a luxury), we must perform tasks which the vast majority of us do not enjoy. This means that most of our waking hours are spent doing something that we would rather not be doing. The alternative to this, is suffering. In my view, this is fairly close to the definition of slavery.
Are you one of those people? Someone who works extremely hard, only for someone a little higher up the chain to benefit? You have mouths to feed and bills to pay, right? Do you ever question this arrangement? Do you want to?
The planet owes somewhere in the region of $440 trillion in debt. Who do we owe it to? Pluto? When we start to think about the fact that there is always considerably more debt than money, it begs yet another question. How can we ever repay the debt we owe as people and as nations? The truth is, we never will. The full background to this set up is well documented and far too complex to go into here but the general idea is this. We are not supposed to be able to pay off our debts, because money isn’t real. It’s made of paper and has no real value in the physical world. Of course this is an obvious statement but have you ever really thought about it properly before?
Do you walk past homeless people on a daily basis? Do you consider those people to be as valuable as you are? Then why walk past? If that person is still there tomorrow then it only means one thing. Nobody helped them yesterday, not really. They only helped themselves by throwing down a few coins to take away their guilt for a few hours. On that note, why do we do that?.. Why do we throw our money at these people? How often do you see someone kneel down and give this human being their money? Would you throw your money at your friends or would you hand it to them. Isn’t this concept in itself a way of asserting dominance? Are we talking about financial dominance? Why are we so psychologically inclined to keep what we have to ourselves, or at least as much of it as we can morally get away with?
A gentleman named R. Buckminster Fuller summed things up well when he said “it is now highly feasible to take care of everybody on Earth at a higher standard of living than any have ever known. It no longer has to be you or me. Selfishness is unnecessary. War is obsolete. It is a matter of converting the high technology from weaponry to livingry.” And I completely agree with him. Trouble is, one person can’t really do anything about the injustices that unfold before our eyes every day. Together, we can achieve absolutely anything. So I ask you, why not now, in this time?
There have been an awful lot of questions in this article I know. I don’t proclaim to have the answers or know how to achieve the correct results in society, I can only present the things that I, as an individual, question. I do however passionately believe in the collective wisdom of humanity.
One final question,
Why do you exist?
Post your thoughts and “answers” in the comments section below and please share to encourage your friends and family to join in.
Peace.
Written by John Murdoch of www.collectivelyconscious.net
This article (Why Do You Exist?) is free and open source. You have permission to republish this article under a Creative Commons license with attribution to John Murdoch and www.collectivelyconscious.net.
