I have struggled to make sense of existence for so long. What is the purpose of life? Why were we created? Was it just random or is there some design behind our creation? The reason being, I think the human life-cycle is so futile, so meaningless. To think that we were put here to procreate, perpetuate our species, it seems so insipid, so trite, so below our greatest potential.
For men, this means finding a woman with a healthy womb to carry your seed to term, while you provide for the family shelter and food, and keep them safe from physical harm. For women, it’s a matter of sizing up the right mate from the array of suitors she has, then carrying their seed to term, meanwhile keeping house and hearth warm and clean, then nurturing their offspring until they, too, are free to repeat the cycle. I am over-simplifying this, I know. But if you look closely you will agree nothing has changed from the pre-historic times. The man no longer is the sole provider of food, thanks to equal rights and the feminist movement. Women now have careers and can bring home the bacon, so to speak, although they still hold the primary responsibility of nurturing the young.
Those processes we call falling in love, courtship, romance, dating, passion are all the means to this end. Then we have relationships, marital or otherwise, how to manage them, how to keep the passion alive, which is altogether a whole new ball-game quite unlike the initial courtship. This is the Second Act of life. And running parallel to this are the required skills necessary for parenting, teaching our young the right values, while fulfilling our responsibilities of providing for them, paying the bills and juggling our waking hours to achieve the greatest output within the limited resources of time. And we are supposed to find joy and meaning within this framework. In fact, society does not take kindly to those who choose to break free from the confines of this flowchart of life.
Sure, the guys have it a little easier. Go pursue the girls, find a nice one to settle down with, donate a few million sperms and basically you can still continue pursuing your boyish passions like sport, photography, race-cars, travel, remote-controlled airplanes. The woman will be glad you’re doing this because at least you’re not cheating on her. You can hang out with the boys all in the name of networking. The women, we are supposed to be content with making home-cooked meals, trying out new recipes all the time and exchanging them with our co-workers and neighbours, feeding the kids, catching up with the housework, helping the kids with their homework and to pass their exams. We are also expected to be breathtakingly beautiful, possess the body of a super-model, smell like Dior’s latest fragrance, and sweetly inquire whether our husband has eaten the moment he is home from all his “activities” outside the home. And all this on top of holding a day job so that we can make ends meet.
Who has the greater amount of freedom, may I ask? Who gives up their time, their youth, their opportunity for self-growth for the family? And I can assure you nothing ages a woman like pregnancy and parenthood. The man, he looks essentially the same well into his 40s. But after a pregnancy, a woman of 25 can look 40 if she’s not careful and take extra care to preserve herself. And guess who’s the first to stray on the grounds that the mate is no longer attractive? Not the woman, I assure you. She’s too busy breast-feeding (or extracting that precious human milk into bottles to store in the office refridgerator if she’s already back at her desk job) and washing the diapers.
And my point from the preceding paragraphs is this: That it is easier for the man to follow the flowchart of life than it is for a woman. A woman sacrifices more, has more roles to play in society, and still generally outlives her male partner. What is there in all this for us? A smile from a newborn babe, the pleasure of having that bundle of joy suckle our breasts? The exhilaration of watching our first child take his first baby steps? Somehow, something went wrong in my genetic make-up and I’m not hard-wired that way. Children are fine for me, as long as they belong to someone else. You can cuddle them, buy them cute toys, coo over them, then put them down and go back to your own home for peace and quiet at day’s end.
So where is there happiness to be found when so much of society is following this prescribed path? Friends my age are puzzling over their children’s homework, trying out new recipes and uploading them on Facebook for the world to see, posting baby pictures and videos for all to ogle at and praise. And I, who don’t choose this path, wonder where I fit in all this and if I made a horrible mistake somewhere along the line. Perhaps if I’d questioned less and gone the tried and tested way, not obsessed so much about freedom and individuality and how much maternal duties would confine me, I’d share the same happiness of gurgling babies and the joy of having them call me “ma-ma”.
It is not that I don’t crave happiness, I just don’t know how to get there and what it means for me. All other means of happiness like travel, shopping for clothes, even eating are just temporary, and they take a toll on your resources. You’re limited by your financial means and you can only eat so much before your figure goes, your waistline bulges and your health deteriorates. And that is why I keep coming back to the same question over and over again. What is the sole purpose of life? To be happy? What is happiness? How do we seek that?
From early on, I always dreamed I should have a purpose in this life and if I lived by this purpose, I would be happy. I would like to think I was created for a special reason, that I had my own place in the universe. That I could make this world a better place, just by being in it. That I matter, I stand for something, that it has made some difference that I even lived at all. All spiritual texts tend to support this principle of interconnectedness, that every action, every spoken word reverberates into eternity and sets in motion a chain of events that affect the people around you and consequently the world at large. And I am trying to get there by living every day the best I can. By aspiring to higher standards of integrity and moral codes, by setting an example for myself and others so that I can grow better every day. Some spiritual books say the purpose of existence is to evolve, to grow. In that, I think I am moving along the right direction.
But what brings happiness? Isn’t the ultimate goal of every human to be happy and to avoid pain and suffering? The answer, it would seem, lies within ourselves and our minds. Buddhist teachings tell us to meditate, rest our minds and contemplate. It is a path of self-discovery and soul-searching, requiring a measure of solitude and instrospection. Happiness, in this sense, means freedom from the temporary ups and downs of our emotions. It is a sense of inner peace, of contentment. We are not talking about the euphoria of winning the lottery, or the exhilaration involved in buying your dream home. We are talking about a steady state here of calm, serenity, a center where you are always sheltered, always safe, always home. And that, is the place I have always longed to be - my port, my harbor, my docking bay.
And I think we have to reach a place within ourselves where we feel safe, before we are able to reach out with compassion to others. I have had moments of this great calmness and peace, where I seem to be able to transcend the daily trivialities of life’s challenges. In these moments I am more aware of the motivations of others, and struck by the similarities of all human beings. We are basically not out to get each other, we are just here to be happy and to avoid suffering. We take different paths because we have different “stories” in our mind with different versions of happiness, but we all just want to get there, to that same desired place in our hearts where we are free from pain and suffering, where we find our “happy ending”.
When you understand that this is the core motivator that drives all human beings, your animosity and hostility towards others lessens, your sense of self diminishes, and you experience interconnectedness, one-ness and greater compassion. And that, I think, is the beginning of bliss, of happiness and the sense that you are not alone, but part of something greater than yourself. Eventually, the answer will reveal itself. I know I will just have to wait and be patient.
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