Doing The Job
Earlier today I banged my head. I was just leaning up against the wall and then WHAM, I misjudged where the wall was when resting my head back. I reached out to sense the pain I was feeling, the sensation on the back of my head, when I noticed that actually there wasn’t much at all. The pressure of the blow spread all across the back of my head, protecting me (and especially my brain) from damage, and I smiled and was I thankful. My skull knew what it was doing. My skull did its job.
This showed me a simplicity that I rarely consider. Everything has a purpose, a job to do, a function, and for the most part, things perform their functions perfectly. A screwdriver unscrews screws, a hammer hammers in nails, a knife cuts. These are man-made tools, but things that have not been made or shaped by man also have their own jobs and functions to perform, from the cells and organs and bones of our bodies, to rivers and plants and clouds. It is easy to talk about a tree’s function: taking in carbon dioxide and giving out oxygen for people and animals to breathe, producing nuts and seeds and fruits for people and animals to eat. They produce shade, they can give wood for burning and making things with. Leaves can be eaten, or made into medicines. They act as home for ants and other small creatures, as roosts and nests for birds… the list goes on. But what of our function? As a human, what is our job?
In a way, this is what we are all seeking to find out. We want to know what to do with our lives, what sort of people we should be, what professions we should have. We want to know our purpose, because knowing our purpose we will have found meaning in our lives.
We ask this question of ourselves and each other in many ways, asking what we want to do today, or what we want to be when we grow up. But what we often fail to ask (or perhaps we ask but ignore the answer) is this:
What does Life want for me?
Seen in that context, we can see ourselves for what we are, and that is human, one man or woman of one species among a whole world of different animals and plants and rocks and space and stars. And viewed from that context, we can see that we are no different from anything else. We have our job to do, just like a cat does, just like the grass does, just like the river does. It’s life, and our job is to live.
February 17th, 2006 at 11:05 am
Now that’s the start of a beautiful metaphore man. It’s our job to live, excepting those who got fired. I wonder what benefits the unemployed get though.
But it poses some interesting questions all right. If all flora and fauna indeed have their own specific purpose within the system that they seem to perform unwittingly (I doubt a badger has been writing a blog that other badgers read contemplating it’s role) then what has our purpose been, and do we work with it or against it? Do we even have a choice?
Should there be some instinctive sense to do what we have to do?
Sometimes, in more poetic moments I think that the universe created us so we can wonder about what the universe is. We are the thought the universe has about itself, and our purpose is to be conscious.
Of course, the reality is more like that we’re some deities’ idea of a sitcom =P
February 17th, 2006 at 3:42 pm
I think when talking of the job for us to do, the danger is to think of it as “the meaning of life”… as if the meaning of life is to do this and that and that. As if there is a specific goal. In one sense, there is no way we can’t live when we are living [even in death life goes on, we are still a part of life]. In another sense, we stop living when we start worrying about what to do, and what to be, because those very actions separate us from life.
One might ask, “is all what the tree does the reason it does it, or a by-product?” All the plants and trees work as an ecosystem, as do the animals, but it’s a little short-sighted to limit things to the physical level. It’s dangerous to reduce things to just their functions as well. Before we know it we’re there judging the functions, grouping them into worthwhile and worthless, picking and choosing which things deserve to exist and which don’t, and as a species I think we can see that’s exactly what has happened.
I’m inclined to think of function as an expression of being, it IS a tree, so naturally it does tree things. Animals, they do animal things, eating, hunting, playing. We do as well. I think when it comes to “an instinctive sense of what to do”, that IS there, but only when we see things clearly enough (if we don’t want to do it, we won’t see it, for one). In many ways, this Choice that we put high up on our human pedestal as making us special and free, is overrated. You can hear the anger in it. I don’t HAVE to do that. I can do what *I* want. And how many people has this made happy?
You’re right bud, this HAS raised some interesting questions. And that’s what it’s here for, so I guess I’m doing MY job. hahaha.
February 17th, 2006 at 4:19 pm
hehehe! A job well done, time to kick back and relax =P
A possible crux of the problem of innate expression of being is when you consider the odd situations though. A person comitting suicidal, is he doing that because he, as a suicidal person needs do suicidal things?
Don’t get me wrong, I definitely emphasize with the idea of “To each thing his own”, to have an inner nature which you perform regardless of a system of function. (Much like the Indian tale of the wolf and the scorpion). Especially as it comes with such judgement-free feeling: “It does this because this is what it does”.
But what makes me wonder about it is that it can possibly lead to a circular self-justification in a sense.
- I act unnatural because I am an unnatural being.
- I steal from others because I am a thief.
Again, the judgement-free basis of it is delicious of course, things do as they are, but I would advocate choice as a possibility. (Though truth be told, I’ve never seen a suicidal tree, or a hamster who refuses to do hamster things).
But, as you advocate choice as a non-valid option (Very justly, I could say) I’ll throw something back for the sake of argument: I propose non-expression of being as a possibility. A rock which exists not as an expression of rockness, but purely as a thing. Or perhaps not even a thing, as a concept embedded within a larger scene that has no right of existance apart from that.
Okay, time for cashews. (Bet you never saw that coming, eh?)
February 17th, 2006 at 6:00 pm
Ah, yes, it’s a tricky thing to be sure. You are correct that people would use such things as justification of any kind of action… “I’m a thief, therefore….. ” You’ll also remember Descartes said, “I think, therefore I am”. In the end, it all boils down to what you are talking about when you describe yourself, when you describe the “I”. I would argue that the person may say they are thief, they may *think* they are a thief, but they are not. They are something beyond that. They do not know themselves. The problem with this argument, and indeed most spiritual philosophizing, is that it depends on the viewpoint of the person speaking as to the real meaning behind it. So when I talk about beingness, it goes beyond what you are as a description, because it goes beyond identification with the mind. You might say, “I am angry”, but that is not what you are, it is what you feel. You might say “I am a thief” but that is not what you are, that is a description of the things you do. You might say “I am hateful”, because you have hateful thoughts, but you are not your thoughts, you are something more.
To counter your suicidal person argument, what do you suppose would happen if someone committed suicide, and was then shown their life and all the impact they had in their life, the veritable “facing God” at the end of your life. Do you suppose that person could still hold to “I am a suicidal person” ?? Could they say that is what they ARE?
The irony is, only if you reached full awareness of what you are that you could say for sure whether what you were doing is an expression of that. And how many people can say that? It boils down to that very simple use of language: Whatever is, IS. There is no way it cannot be.
Cashews, no way!?