general purpose
There’s a song I’ve been listening to a lot lately. The lines in the second verse especially: “[We’re] just trying to find a place / find our way through a fourth-dimensional space / and our reward for this / is not knowing why we exist.” While I realize the ideas expressed in these lyrics aren’t new or particularly profound (the question of why we exist has likely been asked since the beginning of man) the lyrics from this punk song have genuinely resonated with me. What I take away from them is a somewhat sarcastic, almost hopeless assessment of the human condition. Thoughtful and well-intentioned enough, though. It is frustrating not knowing the answers - as a human obviously I can relate. Just as the question “Why?” has kept philosophers awake since the beginning of man, I guess it sits pretty heavily on this dude’s mind. In return, this song has kept me awake while my eyelids sit pretty heavily on the drive to work.
Portal has also been keeping me awake. Only at night, though. I beat the game last week, years after everyone else. Portal was the first video game in a long time I’ve played all the way through without a single hint or walkthrough. Usually if I’m stuck in a video game I either give up or go to IGN to cheat my heart out. With Portal though, it never crossed my mind to get hints. It is not a game to be played with a set of instructions, at least not from outside of the game. It is a series of ‘mind-bending puzzles.’ If I did consult a walkthrough, playing the game would just become a pointless set of tasks. If someone gave me the answers and I immediately understood why all the objects within a level of Portal existed, the game would cease to be fun or meaningful.
A few mornings after I beat Portal, I was driving to work and listening to the aforementioned album. The same lyrics came on, but this time I could not help but feel slightly annoyed by them. What would it feel like waking up every morning knowing why we exist? More importantly, what would the world be like if everyone knew for certain what this was all about? What an ingrate, I thought. Maybe cosmic uncertainty really is our gift for navigating this existence. Perhaps the Universe did us all a huge favor by not giving us an absolute purpose. Rakes have purposes and they don’t seem very happy. They rake leaves and slowly rust. That’s it. Having a reason why we exist, our lives would become the effort or shadow of maintaining this purpose. We would become slaves to our purpose in the universe. This is part of the reason I can’t accept organized religion as an answer for anything. Without attempting to figure out things on our own, life is like playing Portal with a walkthrough: boring and pointless.
The absurdity of not knowing “Why” is part of our humanity. It makes us cry and it makes us laugh. I contend with complete sincerity that our reward in life truly is “not knowing why we exist.” If we understood why we were here as a species, we’d eventually stop asking the “little” questions. We would stop pushing and exploring ourselves. Our souls and minds would have monotonous full-time jobs with no room for growth. We would be the janitors and accountants of the universe. Instead of a defined purpose, humans have a sense of humor. We have empathy and misery. We have dozens of fields of science and math. We have poetry and prose. We have Punk Rock and Hip-Hop. We have ecstasy and love. All ultimately helping us deal with the eternal question of “Why?” and the hardships we face in that uncertainty. Life doesn’t have to have a specific answer; the magnificence of living resides in the mystery.
Portal has also been keeping me awake. Only at night, though. I beat the game last week, years after everyone else. Portal was the first video game in a long time I’ve played all the way through without a single hint or walkthrough. Usually if I’m stuck in a video game I either give up or go to IGN to cheat my heart out. With Portal though, it never crossed my mind to get hints. It is not a game to be played with a set of instructions, at least not from outside of the game. It is a series of ‘mind-bending puzzles.’ If I did consult a walkthrough, playing the game would just become a pointless set of tasks. If someone gave me the answers and I immediately understood why all the objects within a level of Portal existed, the game would cease to be fun or meaningful.
A few mornings after I beat Portal, I was driving to work and listening to the aforementioned album. The same lyrics came on, but this time I could not help but feel slightly annoyed by them. What would it feel like waking up every morning knowing why we exist? More importantly, what would the world be like if everyone knew for certain what this was all about? What an ingrate, I thought. Maybe cosmic uncertainty really is our gift for navigating this existence. Perhaps the Universe did us all a huge favor by not giving us an absolute purpose. Rakes have purposes and they don’t seem very happy. They rake leaves and slowly rust. That’s it. Having a reason why we exist, our lives would become the effort or shadow of maintaining this purpose. We would become slaves to our purpose in the universe. This is part of the reason I can’t accept organized religion as an answer for anything. Without attempting to figure out things on our own, life is like playing Portal with a walkthrough: boring and pointless.
The absurdity of not knowing “Why” is part of our humanity. It makes us cry and it makes us laugh. I contend with complete sincerity that our reward in life truly is “not knowing why we exist.” If we understood why we were here as a species, we’d eventually stop asking the “little” questions. We would stop pushing and exploring ourselves. Our souls and minds would have monotonous full-time jobs with no room for growth. We would be the janitors and accountants of the universe. Instead of a defined purpose, humans have a sense of humor. We have empathy and misery. We have dozens of fields of science and math. We have poetry and prose. We have Punk Rock and Hip-Hop. We have ecstasy and love. All ultimately helping us deal with the eternal question of “Why?” and the hardships we face in that uncertainty. Life doesn’t have to have a specific answer; the magnificence of living resides in the mystery.