Futility and Passion

Yet again I read something about how to live a fulfilled, happy human life by finding something larger, something more important that oneself to pursue (latest was in the New York Times this past Sunday).

To me, it's not that I can't decide which is most important, rather that all of them seem pretty equally unimportant.

I've been told a few times to "just pick one", but that eliminates precisely the sense of purpose and passion that seems part and parcel of the whole notion.

It's far from clear to me that anything any of us do is of any consequence in the scheme of the long unfolding of the universe. Humans are relative upstarts on planet Earth, and will one day be no more (possibly sooner rather than later given our current proclivities to foul our living space).

Eventually the Earth itself, then our sun will be gone; and (if current physics has it more or less right) ultimately all matter in the universe will disappear into a steadily cooling fog of subatomic particles.

True, this outcome (if accurate) remains billions of years in the future, and it's a fair question of why that should matter to my individual life or be a consideration of the current sweep of human history/existence; but I also ask why shouldn't it?

They say that operating within the context of awareness of one's own mortality can be a great motivator, but everyone dies; species become extinct; eventually the Earth will become uninhabitable in some fashion, and even stars burn out or explode.

The prospect of my Death holds no great terror for me, in fact there's some appeal, it's the opportunity to leave behind all this foolishness and to find out what actually happens (I suspect nothingness).

So why does anything anybody does matter?

I feel compassion for those who proceed in ignorance of -- and hold a certain admiration for those I see around me who feel compelled to do something anyway, in spite of -- this Truth.

That admiration that doesn't affect my own feelings of demotivation to put out any great effort toward any temporary purpose; and it appears to me, in human terms, all purposes are temporary, in the more or less short-term, and assuredly in the long-term.

So, why am I still hanging around on Planet Earth? You may well ask.

I don't have a good answer for you, there was a time I postponed doing anything about it because I'd committed myself to certain people, and I didn't want to abandon them or cause the distress that my leaving would produce.

That's particular people, particular commitments, not the sort of grand purpose that's supposed to underlie a worthwhile life.

I feel stuck. Like I'm just marking time and "Just waiting on the pier til Charon comes." as Klaatu put it in "A Routine Day".

My main motivator is avoidance of discomfort, mixed with some hedonic search for minor pleasures (food, knowledge, intellectual challenge, love, sex, dreams).

I search for something that inspires true passion in me and come up empty-handed.

Can I turn this problem on its head and make my it my passion to search for something that's really worth being passionate about?

What are the candidates for that? More later.