The Greatest Purpose Principal

I’ve previously proposed that there is no need to spend energy wandering through space and time with intentions of self-discovery. Self-discovery is, in my estimation, an aimless pursuit. The “self,” if there is such a thing, lies somewhere between our clothes, haircuts, tattoos, and the environment we are surrounded by. If our ideas of ourselves are almost entirely constructed, but there is, at least I hope, a deeply rooted “self” to be fortified (not discovered), then where is the beloved journey of self-discovery and purposeful pursuit?

            First, we must differentiate between determinism and purpose. While there is a purpose within determinism, you can neither fulfill it (the act of fulfilling requires agency) or obstruct it, it is only actionable through staying alive and requires no agency.  Purpose does not presuppose a deterministic existence, but a deterministic existence requires purpose because each sentient being can be boiled down to their biological (whether it be genetic or environmental) purpose. We know, for example, that each organism in an ecosystem serves many distinct ecological functions in the whole of the ecosystem and tend to act as such with little or no deviation. Because humans have such capacity for environmental alterations, it is challenging to differentiate what is biologically innate and what is societally constructible. It is my observation that we either quantify actions, such as the birthing and nurturing capacity primarily associated with females, as accordant with natural law by default or in accordance with societal construction by default. Of course, defaulting to one or the other discounts any potential agency and responsibility for an outcome as a consequence of agency. Therefore, I contend that humans act both intentionally and deterministically; our actions are a culmination of both biological and societal construction, but only to the point of a heightened-potential for influence on a decision.

As for how our free-will acts on our purpose, we can navigate this question by defining what a secular purpose might look like at its most profound:

            First, shed the conception of purpose as an enigmatic, profound, and impactful individual career purpose. Not every purpose within our human ecosystem, either biological or constructed, will manifest in your career; second, consider what you do now—once again, not as a career, but habitually. Consider your eating, sleeping, hygeinic, exercise, interactive, and intellectual routines as the best observable accounts of who you are and what you do; thirdly, consider everything you do as universal and applicable to everything that you physically perceive and the majority of everything that you cannot perceive. In other words, when you make your bed in the morning, you can physically see that your bed is made. The order that you, through agency, have applied to your life is perceivable to you and whoever else may see your orderly bed, but the psychological ripples created in the process of your willful productivity exponentiate indirectly and universally in ways that may be imperceivable by you.

            Abstaining from the metaphysical, this is the most evident purpose to be uncovered, and it is neglected regularly on many fronts.

            In this sense, we are born with a purpose, our actions affect it, and our actions provide potential outcomes with varying levels of desirability. Whether we positively or negatively impact ourselves and therefore those we interact with is our purpose. Our purpose within our society is as instrumental as each musician’s role in an orchestra. There is an element of freedom to deviate from order, but to deviate too far is to fail at fulfillment of your greatest potential purpose and risk excising yourself from the orchestra. We operate within our human ecosystem to the beat of a metronome, no different than the plants and animals of the forest.

            Consider a stream. It flows only in one direction. Of course, a stream has no agency, but it an be acted upon. If the stream is dammed, for example, its direction dictated by nature, or purpose of greatest value, is altered by a competing act of nature. If it is dammed to the extent that fish can no longer swim to their spawning grounds, it is fulfilling a purpose still, but not its greatest potential purpose as determined by natural law. In the case of the human purpose, our agency can often dam our greatest potential purpose.

            So, to the question of whether we are born with the purpose or we develop into our purpose, the answer is the former, with the caveat that we may fail at fulfilling our greatest potential purpose. We may be born with a biological purpose and forfeit it. This does not mean that we no longer have purpose, it just means that our purpose, or role, is of no value to us and we prefer to enact on another, less meaningful purpose. Therefore, there is a highest potential purpose for the individual within a community and every action or lack of action detracts from fulfillment of the potential; thus, leaving the purpose to be fulfilled by another agent or not at all.  

            As with any philosophical conundrum, whether we are born with a specific purpose or we discover our purpose is a small dilemma with large implications. If, for example, we deny entirely that there is a superior role for individuals to fulfill within a functioning society, we invite all the instruments to solo at once. This is a piece with little listening value. Even in Jazz, there must be an element of conformity in deviations. It is best to construct when and how the deviations will occur to maintain something listenable. So also, is our role within a society. When we trivialize roles that genders, body types, personality types, and innate talents play within society, we risk trivializing values which helped to construct benevolent societies in the first place.

We do not entirely need to alter our innate qualities to create environments without conflict. Conflicting philosophies, theologies, and purposes fulfill a greater purpose, even beyond that of a peaceful society. Recognition of someone’s innate qualities may, whether they like it or not, thrust them into a purpose they did not intend. But our intentions for our own purpose are not all that enact on the purpose we fulfill. If your intention is to be an astronaut but you are born with little intelligence or ability to act competently under pressure, your purpose might be janitorial work at NASA.

As harsh as that sounds, it goes to show how little of our potential is a product of our agency. What we do, what we say, what we value, and who we surround ourselves with, matters immensely. We may be born with a profound purpose, but pursue a lesser purpose.

So, if our greatest potential purpose is inherent and if there is a risk of either fulfilling it or succumbing to a lesser purpose, how can we go about discovering our purpose? Firstly, look at ourselves honestly and stop complaining about what you do not have. If you are not highly intelligent but are large and brutishly strong, do not try to become an outstanding intellectual. This does not mean that you cannot attempt to overcome inherited challenges, it means that you were born with a specific skillset that you can ride to the top of an adjoining hierarchy should you pursue it fervently. It does not mean that your skills and lack of skills define everything you do; it means do not habitually envy what others have and you do not. Striving to overcome challenges and failing or succeeding is the best way to measure what our talents are, but do not be sunken by your lack of inherent value as opposed to another. If everyone was an intellectual, we would have a whole society of ideas and very little of them would come to fruition.

This brings me full-circle: that we do have a purposeful role to fulfill, we do not always attain its end, we spend far too much time seeking or admiring purpose and not enough time fortifying it. What causes talent to manifest within an individual is not a necessary point to reason. Pondering what utopian societal conditions might create equality potentially propels us to attempt to create an environment that births total equal opportunity and equally valuable purpose from person-to-person. This is impossible. Instead, it should be our intention to nurture the good qualities and strengthen the bad within each of us so that we may provide the most useful version of ourselves to ourselves; and with that, value to others; and with that, a profound greatest purpose.