Episode 6: The Tranquility of Overwhelming Purpose

Animals do experience things, even if they don't think about it the way we do.

Jasper

Purpose? The only purpose is to follow the path wherever it leads for each of us. We didn't choose this existence, but here we are, so let's keep an open mind and foster our own curiosity. I believe that those people who you envy as having found some overwhelming purpose, are just as clueless as we all are. They simply found something that gives them pleasure, just like taking electronics apart to see what makes it tick gives you transcendental pleasure. (Wow! Where did those 5 hours go to!) The "purpose" you assign to them is external to them and comes ultimately from your observation of them. We can't assume that just because they make a claim of overwhelming purpose, that must be true. Humans are well known for fooling themselves. No criticism intended, just noting my own thoughts as I listened to your philosophical musings. Love your stuff. Thanks.

Michael S Wilhelm

God bless you especially this Easter Sunday when Jesus Christ died on the cross for Original Sin. You absolutely have value as we all do. I worry sometimes that you are having problems of depression and possibly loneliness I hope this is not the case but I have a deep sense that's a big possibility. We are never alone we are always loved and greatly valued especially by the one that created us. So this is Easter Sunday I say to you, God Bless you and keep you in his hands and watch over you. (((hugs)))

Thanks for your thoughts... and to clarify my view, value is relativistic to the individual. Each of us assigns a value to others and ourselves, and that collective will is the social currency of our society. It does not have to be rational, and it really isn't.

Fran Blanche

Short and sweet. I wonder how many of those with a strong sense of purpose and achievement, with real satisfaction in their lives have considered or even acknowledged the existence of individuals with little or no sense of purpose in their lives. When every day you wake and know all you are going to do today is exist, it is easy to appreciate by mere observation that some folks lives roll easy. Ignorance is bliss but understanding is a blessing. Or a curse. Or both. Where am I going with this? My purpose? World domination baby! It's a pointless pursuit and totally unattainable but it keeps me going and puts a fire in my belly. Come the revolution the official language will be Swedish. It will be mandatory to change underwear half hourly, and underwear will be worn on the outside, so my storm trooper-ettes can check. I am just thankful I am not Bowerick Wowbanger the Infinitely Prolonged. One day it will all be over. In the meantime...

I really enjoyed the Francast. The philosophy of life and existence appears to be important to a lot of people (given the countless religions and whatnot). Every so often I think about my subjective perspective of the world and wonder about "why". Thanks for sharing your perspective and experiences. I look forward to the next one. :)

Austin Heller

Oh, Fran. This 'cast arrived with a powerful spin-kick that hit a big red button I didn't even know I had growing from the center of my chest. So, I ask in advance that you please forgive the following mix of reaction and more considered thought. First, a brief summary of my take-aways from your 'cast: Inherent in the view you share is the presence of comparison. That value accrues only when it is better than something less, or value may be lost when it is worse than something better. What about the act of comparison itself? From whence does it come, how can/should it be done, and what does the result of a comparison "mean"? You also assign purpose to those who are good at what they do, at least in your assessment/appreciation of them. Yet you claim you lack purpose. As an observer of Fran, I see great purpose. Am I wrong or are you? Can we both be correct when we derive different meaning after viewing the same thing? Still, I think I'm right on this one. So, perhaps you are more concerned with one's own sense of "purpose", the having and acting upon, and the self-awareness of same. That's something entirely different. It's about perception, or more clearly, it's about one's own judgments concerning those perceptions. It has little to do with what is actually being done! You also have a tendency toward "reducto ad absurdum". You did that in your "Time" 'cast, and you do it again here. Implicit in which is that the only "truth" that "really" exists is the most fundamental one. Balderdash. That's part semantic sophistry and partly the result of overly-simplistic conceptualization. Let's step back a bit. First, you are traversing many conceptual layers as if they didn't exist, stripping away any sense of context and nuance. Studying each layer can be valuable, seeing it's place in what's above and below, and seeing what characteristics emerge and are relevant within each layer and between layers. It's also about abstraction, and awareness of its many aspects. I ponder the many layers connecting string theory to phenomena that emerge only at the most abstract social layers, such as politics. Yes, it is a continuum, each layer stacked above those below. I ponder the Social Contract, the abstractions derived by philosophers to help explain human society and make it understandable (if not explainable), the place of the individual within it, and the emergent relationships. From strings to emergent fields (that may indeed include time itself), to quarks and bosons, to atomic physics, to thermodynamics, to chemistry, to microbiology and "life", to the many layers and branches of science studying ever increasing complexity, to medicine, psychology, sociology, on to ever higher layers, which for the species homo sapiens sapiens, may well be philosophy itself, our species ability to think of and analyze itself as individuals, as family, as society, and as a species. That brings us to what may be the most difficult level of abstraction to traverse back and forth, the one between our inner selves and the world we find ourselves inhabiting. Both the social and physical worlds. OK, I think I've spewed enough to get to where I'm headed: The notion of Free Will. You explicitly mentioned it in the "Time" 'cast, and you implicitly mention it here. Before delving into this, I want to explicitly mention my primary tool going forward is Occam's Razor. I used to believe it was only applicable when trying to fit theories/hypotheses to data/observations in specific domains, such as science, logic and philosophy. No longer: That initial belief was due to my limited awareness of the applicability of analytical thinking and the Scientific Method. Occam's Razor applies everywhere! One of my favorite examples is: "Do not attribute to malice those things that are more readily attributable to ignorance or negligence." That's pure Occam's Razor right there! And it has wonderful psychological implications. Purpose. Let's not let these 7 letters be limited to merely a single rigid meaning: "Purpose" has multiple meanings, depending on the context within which it is used. Many of these meanings overlap, leading to the word often being followed by the word "of" to explicitly denote the context. So, you discussed many "purpose of" things as if they were similar. What is the "purpose of " an individual member of a species? What is the "purpose of" a species? What is the "purpose of" one's excellence in an endeavor? What is the "purpose of" how excellence is viewed or perceived by one's self and by others? Hopefully I'm not being too scattered here, and you can see where I'm headed. "Purpose" is an attribute we infer (yes, infer: It isn't something that can be directly measured) and assign to observations, specifically to the cause of the effects we are observing. In most of science, it is merely a shorthand used to avoid burdening a light discussion with heavier (and more precise) technical terminology. We even anthropomorphize, saying, for example, that an electron "wants" to follow the gradient of the local EM field. That kind of "purpose" is merely conversational, and not inherently meaningful. Let's focus on the human domain, the level and context of human activity and thought. What is "purpose" here? Well, we often talk of the "purpose" of one's existence, referring as much to "the meaning of life" as to "the meaning of my existence as an individual being". This can lead to the notion of suicide, making a choice and taking an action based on a perceived "lack of purpose" (or, equivalently, "worth"). Many religions exist to provide an external "purpose" for our mundane existence, both as origin stories and as destiny stories, invoking mysterious super-beings as prime movers. "Purpose" in the existential sense. You chose a more restricted domain for your thesis, that of "having" or perceiving a "purpose" in performance or pursuit of an activity (hobby, job, craft, whatever). In this context, "purpose" is nothing more than the inference of some level of "drive" or "pursuit" of that activity. It is our choice to assign purpose: It has no objective existence. It is implicitly a subjective attribute. Which means I'm free to assign "purpose" as I see fit, and I'm free to try convince others that my way of assigning purpose is a good way, perhaps a better way. For my inner self, I choose my own assignment of purpose, even if it is sometimes more aspirational than observed. One of my "purposes" it to fulfill my hopes for myself and my future, even if I'm frequently changing my mind concerning just what those things are. I choose to believe I have immense purpose (without "destiny"), even if others may never assign purpose to what they observe of me. Both of my older brothers died from suicide. Everyone thought I was next. But I was fortunate: I finally got therapy. I fought hard to learn to accept myself, to change how I thought about myself, and then to give myself permission to change myself, and to make life-long plans for those changes. Why do I continue to torture my ukulele when others play the instrument so much better? Does their being "better" at it make me "worse"? Going back to the notion of comparison: I choose to see that as a false comparison! They two are *very* different things, even though the same instrument is involved. Should I compare an apple to an orange, then criticize the apple for having the "wrong" color skin? That would be silly, right? So, how can I compare my playing of the ukulele to, say, Jake Shimabukuro? Clearly there is no "purpose" in such a comparison unless we were in the same domain. We most certainly are not! Does Jake have a "purpose" that I lack? Well, he has a skill I lack, but I would hold my "purpose" in my best skills against his any time, any place. Can Jake create aircraft avionics and nuclear reactor control systems? I can, and I have. Perhaps "pride" or self-acknowledgement comes somewhere into this discussion of purpose. Many of us have expert-level skills in some area that we take for granted, not worthy of notice or praise. Does that negate the presence of "purpose"? Perhaps the perception of having a "lack of purpose" is nothing more than a lack of perception itself. As someone on "the spectrum" you are well aware of some limitations in your perceptions: I'd say this may be another. I used to always rejected praise. If I couldn't perceive my own excellence, well, it simply didn't exist, and others were wrong to praise me. Now I view praise as an opportunity to re-assess myself, to seek to see both my internal self and my skills/talents, and to try to understand why others are praising me in the first place. Sometimes I've accidentally helped someone at a crucial moment for them, resulting in them praising me for something of which I was completely unaware! I learned never to reject praise, simply because it can be important for the giver, and I choose to at least accept it with grace, if only to be polite. I think we agree on that as an action, but perhaps for different motivations. When such praise happens repeatedly, some may think I'm exhibiting "purpose", and I really start to question my self-perception, to seek greater clarity. Which often fails to arrive. In these cases, I choose to simply trust the external assignment of "purpose" and move on. My sister (not my therapist) gave me an ideal way to handle such things: I'm just being useful. No matter if that was my intent or not, or if I was aware of it at the time or not, someone chose to tell me I made a difference for them, meaning I was useful to them. I choose to call that one of my purposes. Doing so makes it easier to accept praise without any ensuing ego inflation or deep introspection. The toughest things to which to assign "purpose" to are "knacks" or innate talents that arise with little or no conscious effort. Such things may be invisible to us internally, yet readily evident to others. That's no reason to think they don't exist or have no worth. Or "purpose". Bottom line? Avoid bad comparisons. Be aware of context. Apply Occam's Razor before making judgments or assessing worth/value/purpose. Allow for the possibility that others may be better observers of you than you are of yourself. (Which, after all, is in the job definition of a therapist: We pay them to observe us!)

BobC