There are certain young people I know who consider life a drag – a slog to an inglorious and inevitable demise. What’s the point? A few pleasures here, a bunch of hassles there, some real pains in the asses over there, so why not end it all? Humans, after all, are destroying the environment and filling the world with their corruption and cynicism. Better that the end of the human race comes sooner rather than later, an end that is assured anyway through our greed and technology. Why prolong the agony?
This essay is an extension of the last, in that we are confronting the fantasy world of boredom that we have created to protect ourselves from the terror of the big, dark unknown. Ours is not a boring world, anything but, but for many young folks today, journeying towards truth is harder than ever, for they often have nothing, no belief or spiritual practice at hand, to serve as a guide into this unknown. Without that guide, the already terrifying becomes hopelessly daunting; in the short run, resignation to death and despair is found to be the better option.
The world, however, and we humans within it, are not designed to resign. Most of us do not really want to die, because that is the one state of being from which not even boredom can protect us. What, then, do we do if our blind fear has created a more comfortable but meaningless world where there is nothing to live for? In such circumstances we are forced to act, to move on. The prime objective for all life is to continue living; and for humans, there is also the need for a reason(s) to live, even beyond the fear of death. This is as planned; we are made for the adventure of discovering meaning, and through spiritual longing are given the drive to satisfy it.
But what if an age group doesn’t even know where to begin? In this, the attitude of these depressed young folks is not entirely their own fault. It is the collective elders who have given them this bleak caveat, arrived at through generations who have gradually dumbed down the ultimate realities of human existence to instead ameliorate the discomforts and fears of material life. For instance, I could tell young folks to go to church to find a reason to be excited about existence, but most church services have become so routinized that they elicit yawns even from the old fogies. We old fogies are the ones who have done that. We have done that because we increasingly do not want to consider the serious cosmological consequences of our thoughts and actions in a world connected by an all-permeating spirit. It’s all too big, too responsible, and too scary; better to isolate and contain the spiritual stuff to a small time and place; better to point out the silly anachronisms of a service or mass so that we can ignore the serious underlying messages: that we all are created for a purpose and that we are expected to fulfill that purpose.
That we are created by an incomprehensible cosmic force for a purpose is frightening, but thank God for that, for a life that does not have its risks and terrors is not worth living. To live in an insular world, as these nihilist young people often do, makes life not only pointless but boring. That we are also expected to fulfill this purpose implies that we must live in a certain way, which is a burden, but it is exactly this that gives us the framework needed to find fulfillment. It is also of utmost importance to know that these messages - that we are created for a purpose and are expected to fulfill it - happen to be true.
Here we find the beginning of the vision, as people of wisdom have known throughout all time and cultures: that we are all on an epic journey towards our ultimate destiny. We people of the Book call that destiny “God.”
The entire nature of this journey is the antithesis of boring. In fact, it is this journey that has underscored all the greatest stories of humankind, from Gilgamesh to Abraham to Luke Skywalker. In our current version of reality (I refer to our contemporary cultural vision), our dragons do not breath fire or have scales, but the obstacles keeping us from God are real enough. The dragons are our inner demons who wish to trap us with vices or certain ways of thought, from gross sensuality to the very plague of these young people, hopeless nihilism and ennui. Sometimes these dragons are more visceral: the horrors of war, gang violence, rape, and all those other timeless evils of humanity. Combined with the natural dangers of disease and accidents, we are set up for one hell of a story. There are also dark dungeons along the way, now mostly made from depression, and the paths that fork, one leading us further on our destiny, the other towards the dead ends of meaningless death or vice, or boredom and despair. This makes of life the ultimate challenge, to say the least.
All that might seem too abstract, even corny, to young folks, so they should understand this: along the destined road are wonders and terrors of a miraculous kind as well. We are built for adventure, so that we might have the courage to begin our journey through the wilderness. We find our courage through proper foundational beliefs, so that we might begin to lose our fear of the unknown, and with this, allow the unknown to live in us. With this, strange coincidences occur; we meet the right strangers at the right time; we find our destined love and our destined work, all of which bring us the excitement of life that compels us to strive further onwards. Even angels might appear in the mist; even existence itself might whisper its meaning if we understand that our destiny is guarded by, is made clear by, our final destination. By following our destiny, nothing is impossible; by keeping in mind the destination, anything is possible.
Sacred purpose gives energetic direction to our entire lives. This is all that young people need. It has always been the older folks’ obligation to instruct the young on finding and achieving that purpose. This is to make of life a gift, not a chore. This has always been, and should always be, a peoples’ greatest gift to the young.
This essay is an extension of the last, in that we are confronting the fantasy world of boredom that we have created to protect ourselves from the terror of the big, dark unknown. Ours is not a boring world, anything but, but for many young folks today, journeying towards truth is harder than ever, for they often have nothing, no belief or spiritual practice at hand, to serve as a guide into this unknown. Without that guide, the already terrifying becomes hopelessly daunting; in the short run, resignation to death and despair is found to be the better option.
The world, however, and we humans within it, are not designed to resign. Most of us do not really want to die, because that is the one state of being from which not even boredom can protect us. What, then, do we do if our blind fear has created a more comfortable but meaningless world where there is nothing to live for? In such circumstances we are forced to act, to move on. The prime objective for all life is to continue living; and for humans, there is also the need for a reason(s) to live, even beyond the fear of death. This is as planned; we are made for the adventure of discovering meaning, and through spiritual longing are given the drive to satisfy it.
But what if an age group doesn’t even know where to begin? In this, the attitude of these depressed young folks is not entirely their own fault. It is the collective elders who have given them this bleak caveat, arrived at through generations who have gradually dumbed down the ultimate realities of human existence to instead ameliorate the discomforts and fears of material life. For instance, I could tell young folks to go to church to find a reason to be excited about existence, but most church services have become so routinized that they elicit yawns even from the old fogies. We old fogies are the ones who have done that. We have done that because we increasingly do not want to consider the serious cosmological consequences of our thoughts and actions in a world connected by an all-permeating spirit. It’s all too big, too responsible, and too scary; better to isolate and contain the spiritual stuff to a small time and place; better to point out the silly anachronisms of a service or mass so that we can ignore the serious underlying messages: that we all are created for a purpose and that we are expected to fulfill that purpose.
That we are created by an incomprehensible cosmic force for a purpose is frightening, but thank God for that, for a life that does not have its risks and terrors is not worth living. To live in an insular world, as these nihilist young people often do, makes life not only pointless but boring. That we are also expected to fulfill this purpose implies that we must live in a certain way, which is a burden, but it is exactly this that gives us the framework needed to find fulfillment. It is also of utmost importance to know that these messages - that we are created for a purpose and are expected to fulfill it - happen to be true.
Here we find the beginning of the vision, as people of wisdom have known throughout all time and cultures: that we are all on an epic journey towards our ultimate destiny. We people of the Book call that destiny “God.”
The entire nature of this journey is the antithesis of boring. In fact, it is this journey that has underscored all the greatest stories of humankind, from Gilgamesh to Abraham to Luke Skywalker. In our current version of reality (I refer to our contemporary cultural vision), our dragons do not breath fire or have scales, but the obstacles keeping us from God are real enough. The dragons are our inner demons who wish to trap us with vices or certain ways of thought, from gross sensuality to the very plague of these young people, hopeless nihilism and ennui. Sometimes these dragons are more visceral: the horrors of war, gang violence, rape, and all those other timeless evils of humanity. Combined with the natural dangers of disease and accidents, we are set up for one hell of a story. There are also dark dungeons along the way, now mostly made from depression, and the paths that fork, one leading us further on our destiny, the other towards the dead ends of meaningless death or vice, or boredom and despair. This makes of life the ultimate challenge, to say the least.
All that might seem too abstract, even corny, to young folks, so they should understand this: along the destined road are wonders and terrors of a miraculous kind as well. We are built for adventure, so that we might have the courage to begin our journey through the wilderness. We find our courage through proper foundational beliefs, so that we might begin to lose our fear of the unknown, and with this, allow the unknown to live in us. With this, strange coincidences occur; we meet the right strangers at the right time; we find our destined love and our destined work, all of which bring us the excitement of life that compels us to strive further onwards. Even angels might appear in the mist; even existence itself might whisper its meaning if we understand that our destiny is guarded by, is made clear by, our final destination. By following our destiny, nothing is impossible; by keeping in mind the destination, anything is possible.
Sacred purpose gives energetic direction to our entire lives. This is all that young people need. It has always been the older folks’ obligation to instruct the young on finding and achieving that purpose. This is to make of life a gift, not a chore. This has always been, and should always be, a peoples’ greatest gift to the young.
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