Purposes.

The purpose of life. The purpose of reincarnation. The purpose of remembering. Is there any purpose at all? Is there any purpose in flowers to blossom and die, apart from giving the plant the possibility of reproduction? Is there any purpose in the sun rising on the East and setting on the West? Thinking it’s for keeping us human beings warm is a too anthropocentric point of view for my liking… It seems we can’t stop searching the purpose behind everything, but who says there is indeed a purpose?

Lessons to be learned… Experiences to be lived… Many say that’s the purpose of reincarnation, but what for? So much suffering, so much toil, so much dragging through the days… and then you can sum up that lesson in a few words. Compassion. Wealth won’t make you happy. You can’t impose your way of thinking through violence. Forgive those that did you wrong. Isn’t there an easier way to learn?

I’ve never been good finding out my lessons. Maybe I haven’t wondered enough (or I didn’t ask). Or maybe I haven’t learned anything. I’m amazed at the wisdom some people show when they talk about their past lives and they seem to know exactly the purposes of those lives. I haven’t reached that point yet. I don’t even know why I remember. Supposedly the purpose was to get better, to know why I was afflicted by depression and anxiety, to get to know the root of the problems so that I can pull at it and eliminate it from my life, so that I can go on and be happy… or at least less sad. It worked… but only partially. And now I do want to go on with my life, but it seems there’s an evil God up there doing all he can to prevent that from happening. Hmm… putting the blame on gods? No, it seems I haven’t learned anything…

All seems so wonderful and enlightening, so… “spiritual”, but the truth is that when you remember how shitty your past lives have been, you start to wonder “Why should this one be different?” Is it all a matter of choice? Of doing things right? Did it end nice when I made good decisions? No, it just ends when it ends… We’re not here to find happiness, that’s something I discovered quite early on my journey, but that idea is so ingrained in our minds, it’s really hard to assimilate we’ll never be happy. We’ll just live the best we can, or the worst we can, that doesn’t matter really, while we spend the time we have been given and our body gets old. They say life is what you make of it, the problem is that sometimes you want to make it a way you’re not allowed to, or you don’t have the means to do it, so we just have to accept what we have.

We sleep better at night if we think there’s a purpose, but I suspect people who don’t worry about it, just like animals and plants, are a lot happier than me. I suspect that, just like that flower, the only purpose of life is to be alive. To struggle to be alive... because we won't need to fight anymore when we're dead. 

No, I’m not too optimistic today…