Authentic August – Day 11
(Yesterday it took me 1 hour and 45 minutes to completely publish and post the blog to all the appropriate channels; let’s see if we can shave off 15 minutes today!)
Human beings are the only species on Earth that has the blessing/curse of being self-aware. I know researchers are trying to figure out if certain higher intelligence animals are self-aware, but even if they are, they wouldn’t be on our level. So every other species on Earth gets to do what it was born to do, even the trees, but humans are stuck with the ability to ask existential questions; we have the opportunity to ask why.
Why am I here? Why do I exist? Who am I? What am I even supposed to be doing?
Growing up, the answer to these questions was simple and straightforward. My family is Christian, so the answer was always something like, “You’re here to accept Jesus into your life and to do God’s will.” And that was all fine and dandy for the first couple decades of my life, but after being exposed to new ideas and possibilities in college, I began a deeper search. I began seeking truth. Well… actually even when I was entrenched in the Christian tradition, I was a seeker of truth. Even then I would ask the tough questions and I was dissatisfied whenever someone responded with “God works in mysterious ways.” So I guess it’s in my nature; I’m just a truth-seeker!
My spiritual beliefs now are a hodgepodge of various traditions, including Christianity, and honestly I’m still seeking the truth, and I always will, because I don’t think I’ll ever get to know the Ultimate Truth. I don’t think the human mind is capable of understanding that which is beyond it. But it’s in the seeking that I find meaning. And it’s in the sharing what I’ve learned that I find purpose.
Wow. Those those last two sentences surprised me…
When I woke up today I wondered what I would write about, and at first I wanted to write about my struggle with discovering and doing that which is natural to me. Which is why I opened by talking about the special ability of self-awareness that we humans are blessed/cursed with. All other species do that which is natural to them. They don’t overthink it. They don’t ask themselves, “is this what I’m supposed to be doing?”
So I was going to discuss an analogy that I often use to express what I ultimately want out of life: I want to grow as a tree does; naturally. A tree doesn’t wonder if it should grow in this direction or the other. It doesn’t question if it’s growing too fast or too slow. A tree simply soaks in the sun, gives shade and oxygen to those nearby, and ceaselessly reaches for the heavens, even though she will never reach it. Imprinted in her DNA are the instructions she was meant to carry out. She does that which is in her nature to do.
So the two sentences above are surprising because I started writing just wanting to express that I’m not exactly sure why I’m here. That I didn’t know if I was growing naturally like the tree, even though that’s what I envision for myself. But I guess I do know why I’m here. And perhaps I’ve always known, but simply forgot. After all, isn’t life just a cycle of forgetting and remembering? And when you do remember, doesn’t it feel more profound than any remembering previous?
It’s in the seeking that I find meaning.
It’s in the sharing what I’ve learned that I find purpose.
With LOVE,
Q.
(total time = 95 minutes. Yay! Shaved off 10! Progress over perfection.)