Designing Your Life — Lifeview

Why do I live?

I do not believe in any absolute purpose to life, we are just random chance encounters or experiments in preservation of information. As such meaning is relativistic, or almost meta. Perhaps the meaning of life, is to find meaning in life? Either way, for me at this point in my journey, I would summarise my life motto as ‘Know thyself, be thyself’.

For me this motto is a recognition that our journey in life should allow us to understand ourselves better, That this process is never complete, and that our true natures do change over time. The second half of my motto lends itself to integrity and authenticity. Having learnt about ourselves, we should strive to use this understanding to lead authentic lives.

This extrapolation does not happen in isolation. We only understand ourselves, when we know ourselves in relation to others. And, this lends itself to the roles we adopt in life; partner, son, brother, worker, colleague, friend, coach, student.

In learning about ourselves and living authentically we are better able to find our place in the world. Who are our tribe? Which relationships are important to cultivate, which others, not?

Also, this search to better understand ourselves, also helps us understand others. Both locally in our relationships, but also globally in humanity in general. We are all fallible humans with ‘faulty walnuts’ for brains.

For me there is no God. But that a sense of being part of something larger than oneself is still important. We are all part of this grand narrative called life. What role do I want to play with the time I have available.

Also, if it is important to get the sense of perspective offered by nature, and the universe; ‘the sublime’. I am just a tiny dot in the grand scheme of things. The humility offered by this perspective is important.

I don’t generally ascribe to black or white articulations of good and evil. I do believe we should look to do unto others as you would have them do to you.

However, I also believe that ‘fairness’ is a social construct, a myth. Humans expect fairness, but there is no intrinsic reason as to why life should be fair. And it is often not, but that’s ok.

As such, there is no utopia, we will always suffer, but in overcoming challenge there is intrinsic reward.

Questions to consider:

• Why are we here?
• What is the meaning or purpose to life?
• What is the relationship between the individual and others?
• Where do family, country, and the rest of the world fit in?
• What is good? What is evil?
• Is there a higher power, God, or something transcendent, and if so, what impact does this have on life?
• What is the role of joy, sorrow, justice, injustice, love, peace, and strife in life?