a reason

Sunday, January 06, 2008 T: 14 58

There was this one guy who used to be the world’s richest man, the one before Gates I think, whose name I do not know, who gave a one word answer when asked how much money is enough. His answer was ‘more’. My pastors use this example to illustrate the greed of man. But I can’t help but think it might be something more. What if earning more, possessing more is all that’s left of giving his life a meaning, a sense of purpose?

Is contentment a key to happiness? I used to think so. But our scientific progress and technological advances are made possible because of a lack of it. If you read all my entries before this, you can find all that emphasis on being happy of what you have. That’s what I told myself. I’ll grow up, find a job that gives me a pay about 3k, and live the rest of my life maintaining the same state. I tried to peer into the future with this kind of lifestyle, and all I see is lifelessness, a life so void and empty that I wonder if it’s worth living. A life without any goals and purpose is very, very bleak.

Whether for religion, for material, for people, for wealth, it really doesn’t matter. We all need a reason to live. Maybe this is why we are inclined to seek more. It can be more money, more possessions, and more knowledge, more of God.

Maybe philosophically speaking, the reason why people turn to religion, to God is because death takes away the meaning of pursuing anything else. We humans unlike animals can reflect, can see a little of our future. In this future that we see, there is one day when we will all die. It’s inevitable, inescapable. If organisms including us have survival instinct, any willingness to live, that will be almost removed when they realized they will die anyway. For the people chasing after cars and clothes, the acceptance of this reality takes away their reason for living. For them maybe, they won’t want to face it. Religion, on the other hand, promises us extensions of life, allowing us to have a sense of purpose once more.

For me, when I read Dawkin’s The Selfish Gene and The God Delusion, I realize his books threaten to take away not just the existence of God, not just religion and faith, but also the purpose of living in many thousands individuals. There are people who dedicate almost their entire lives to God, and now, they meet a theory, a logical explanation which they cannot argue against except cursing and swearing at the man who started it. I went to the forums of reviews of this book. Disappointedly, I see how people who claim to be Christians not only failing to reject his arguments logically hurling profanities at him, sentencing him to hell in the name of God. In a way, I could understand why, but I can’t help but think that those who do that only succeeded in making him feel triumphant and right.

In the same way, I could understand why people commit suicide. In the past I couldn’t. In my childishness, I thought there was nothing in this world worse than dying. Without a purpose and reason, there’s no point in living at all.

For a rich free-thinker who sees a family only eyeing his wealth, his career and his bank account could all be what’s left for him, of him.

What is then my own purpose in life? In my selfishness, my sinfulness, I suppose I’m trying to seek independence. What’s there after that? God?

When I was half drunk, I remember asking my army friends all that. What’s your purpose in life? What’s happiness? Some of them laughed it off. There are many who are free-thinkers, Buddhists whose teaching of reincarnation is not much difference from death anyway.

I talked to old people now and then. Some of which are people I watched soccer with. One of them can realistically tell me he’s just waiting for death. I guess he has come to a point of time when it’s so near, yet so far. When I am in his shoe one day, will I have any regrets? Will I consider my life to be one filled with happiness?