A Conversation of the Meaning of Life

You know those impromptu deep chats that come up without anticipation or even desire? Well I live for those. Sometimes with my training clients, sometimes with friends, sometimes right before I close my eyes.

Today’s was “what is the whole point of it then?”. I (31) asked this with a 21 and 55 year old sitting at my table. We had briefly discussed how quickly the summer was passing already and how as we age time goes by faster, seemingly every decade or so. The 21 year old, intelligent beyond their years said they noticed time passing quicker around turning 20. This also coincides when they were finished school. The 55 year old said they really noticed it more when they turned 50, more than other years/decades.

My theory (albeit based on reading this somewhere) is that time can slow down as you are learning new skills. It takes forever for your birthday to roll around when you’re like 3-10 or so because you’re just learning so much. “What colour is grass?” “Why?” “What is addition?” “What is kissing?” “Why do I need to know division without a calculator?” Wait till you have to figure out about human division kid..

Things would go by quicker as you finish school because there is no objective end. No more school year. Less scheduled learning, just the on the job kind likely. And, about yourself beyond what people have just told you to think up to this point. It could happen later in life because all those lovely typical traditions are done, like marriage and kids, and you’re very proficient in your job and you’re just ‘being’ now. Your work is almost effortless because you have mastered a system that works.

This brings me to the dreaded question. “So what’s the point of all this?”. “Wow that got dark”. was the reply. “I’m not suicidal”, I responded. I went on, explaining something to the extent of we are just in our jobs, we are likely not going to change the world like rare few humans have, our great grandchildren will likely not even remember our names, so what are we doing? Some ideas that were thrown out were that we are working to pass down happiness and value. This could be money, wisdom, and is quite subjective. So then I suppose if we want to pass down something meaningful, we would have to ask what IS meaningful to those we are trying to pass down to?

Of course in most of these conversations, there is never enough time. Can there be? Essentially, we would all have different answers. Then do we focus on the objective truth, like religion, Christianity? But then people fight over that too. Israelites and Palestinians for example. And before we try and deep dive something that could be debated by each ‘side’ of that, we have to realize one thing. Each side, in their mind ‘knows’ they are right. They have heard a story from birth, it is all they know, and the kids across the line have heard the exact same story but opposite, since birth. Essentially everyone COULD stop fighting and they could all live happily. Fairytale, right? This will ‘never’ happen, only because as long as history has existed or at the very least the ‘A.D’ times fighting has occurred.

So much to discuss, to ponder, to find. Have you thought about YOUR purpose? Have you thought about what you want to leave behind one day? To who? Could they pass that on? Would they want to? Feel free to find me on Instagram and send me what your purpose is. And has it changed?