Do ALL our lives have a purpose?
DEAR BEL
I HAVE three questions and I hope you answer honestly. 1. Does every life matter/have a purpose? 2. How does one deal with/come to terms with the realisation that you will never have the life you have yearned for? 3. How does one deal with the inevitable pain/loss that lies ahead? Thank you for taking the time to read this. I enclose a postcard of two lambs; may the image bring you warmth and hope in difficult times. SARA
This handwritten note (with lovely postcard — thank you!) is one of the shortest, but perhaps most profound, i’ve received. Questions two and three lie at the fractured heart of so many letters to this column, while question one raises the existential issue of what we are here on this earth for. Which has been examined by philosophers for centuries.
A few years ago, i’d have scoured my library for quotations, because the wisdom of others can help. But now i won’t duck personal answers to questions that puzzle greater minds than mine.
First: i do think that every life matters, at the point at which it breathes. Of course that includes animals, too. if the ‘purpose’ of animals is to reproduce, i believe the purpose of humans is to live good lives, treating others as you would wish to be treated — in other words, behaving ethically and with empathy.
But when people fall seriously short . . . then i do not think all people have equal value. in that sense i am not egalitarian, for it’s surely common sense that some people behave with honour, some have a great capacity for love and some great souls are better than others.
Does a good man ‘matter’ more than a murderer? Well, yes. But the sinner also matters in that we must cling to a belief in the possibility of change, of redemption. The fact that you know the worst of human nature doesn’t stop you acknowledging the very best.
Your second question is easier. in America once, i bought a framed quotation by the writer henry David Thoreau: ‘ Live the life you’ve imagined.’ Later it went to a charity shop — because i don’t believe it. it’s one thing to have hopes, wishes, ambitions; quite another to consider yourself a failure if you do not achieve them.
it’s noble to aspire, but not to reduce yourself to a disappointed dreg because you didn’t manage to make it. i started life as a journalist, but dreamed of becoming a feted novelist.
After six novels i realised that wouldn’t happen and now i truly love (and value) the life i have — as a journalist.
i look back at all my mistakes and instead of beating myself up about them, i reflect on what they’ve taught me. Yearning takes too much energy; i counsel living in the moment.
My third answer follows on from that. Let me be very personal. When i gave birth to a stillborn son in November 1975, my life was rocked — because i had to deal with real pain, not for the first time, but at a level that was transformative.
All my assumptions were put to the test — and lost. The precious gift taken from me, i realised there is no divine right to good fortune, and that bad fortune must be borne in such a way that you extract every lesson from it.
it’s one of Buddhism’s noble truths that ‘all life is suffering’. But if that sounds too depressing, think of it in another way — that pain is inevitable, from the moment we fall over as a toddler and skin a knee. The sting and the tears have to be accepted. No choice. But you have to allow the healing, too. Love inevitably involves loss, and the price is always — yes
always — worth paying. surely there is something infinitely glorious, supremely beautiful, and quietly joyous, in living, minute by minute, the one precious life you have, just as well as you can. Living with energy, duty and love, until the very last breath.
Perhaps you must learn to deal with these problems by accepting there are no easy answers, but rejoicing in the human quest to find meaning. The fact that you posed these questions shows you are on the way — and i wish you warmth and hope right back.