For centuries, people have tried to figure out how to live their life, tried to make sense of the whole human experience, if only to make their lifes more coherent, more livable. A reason to life, a purpose to it all, is something all of us seek so frantically, grasping at straws and clinging on to whatever shreds of direction and focus we find in the world around us. Whether it is an ideal objective or the existentialist charge to take control of one's life, be it a path or a destination, we all want to know that we are going somewhere, with some purpose, with some confidence. Today, the world around us has matured ( and degraded, some would argue) to the extent that there are several layers of structure around us, implicit and explicit, thus making this search for meaning even more tedious. One not only has to trawl through the plethora of choices the world offered us, but also link them to all the options that society affords us, and unravel the ensuing web of causation, to reach a point, where actual decisions can be made. The most commonly accepted parameter used to define success in life, happiness, often simplifies things for people. No matter what the implications and underlying direction of one's path, if it brings one a reasonable amount of happiness, it is good enough. However, it is my belief that most, if not all people feel this simplistic definition inadequate, Occham's razor, is something that most humans can never come to terms with. A simple answer, just seems redundant....why the question then, why the urge to dig, deeper and deeper...Of course, there is a simple argument for the simplest answer in this case. If reason and meaning in life is so fundamentally human, why then, all humans should be able to see the answer and act towards it, to be human in the first place. On the other hand, if, as some may believe, it is our ultimate purpose, as a population to find the answer to The Question, we have an equally strong argument against the simplicity of that answer, 'It is fundamentally human to search for meaning, because our ultimate purpose is to obtain the answer', our programmed objective, so to speak. Whether we are being zestfully scientific or cattily curious, the search for meaning is a very real phenomenon in the lives of all such individuals.
Then again, we must not ignore that section of the populace that primarily strive to further existence( or think they do, for how much is enough ? What life is a merely subsistent one ?), a more basic and visceral drive than that for purpose. This '99 %' , as is argued, have even more reason to strive, subconsciously, for meaning in life than the others. Of course, which section of the population you are grouped under is also a matter of personal choice, as is the pursuit of money and creature comforts. You may choose a 'purposeful' life ( purposeful in your own paradigm, of course) over one that is considered happy and succesful within the framework of today's society. And all of us do try to find meaning, through our own ethics, our small habits and quirks , our roster of duties , desirables and undesirables, our benchmark for life, fragmented and incoherent though it may be. We all do things using our schemas and mental framework, which is influenced by reason and emotion, advice and prejudice, social pressure and angst, opposing forces that mould our beliefs and ideas in ways we cannot imagine, infusing them with logic and authority. And inevitably, we have conflict. Whether it be at the large scale of religious and economic ideologies clashing on the streets and in the stock exchanges, the middling vegetarian debate, or the more mundane altercations over duty and responsibility that take place every day, everywhere in the world, clashes of perspective and differences of opinion shape our society in a very fundamental way.
Small scale arguments are further compounded by anthropocentric ideas like nationalism and religion , Ideas with the power to pull large chunks of humanity to their banner, making debates into wars for survival, for the very essence of our life and ( so we believe) of us. Even the most rational of us, swept up in the majority and the structure are pushed, by the pure ubiquitiousness of these ideas to join their fold, caught up in a life so complex and rich, that there is scarcely time left over for any independent critical thought.
Whether right or wrong, these processes make conflict resolution all the more difficult, in the same way that they compound the pursuit of purpose. In essence, the only thing to be done is ask 'Why ?' again and again, till stripped of all our divine moral authority, we become children again, rational children, neither right nor wrong, but possessed of reasons and goals, negotiating, not warring. On a global scale, such analyses leave us with reasons and paradigms that form a sizable, but managable set which can be worked with, at some levels at least, and if the inclination persists to examine them further and break them down to , possibly an even smaller set of belief structures. What is required of us, is to stop, smell the roses, and then ask it why it has thorns....
PS: It really works, you should try it .. :D
PPS: I am personally interested in working on a similar project. If people are willing to discuss, or even introspect with a view to isolating their paradigmatic affiliations, whether in a comment here, or a mail to me ( at fox011235@gmail.com) I would be very much obliged and would be glad to provide such people with a tabulated form of all the feedback I receive , anonymous or otherwise, according to the author's decision.
