Human life

Disclaimer: This is by no means an attempt to answer the question of life, the universe and everything. That answer has already been published - it is 42. What we have here is merely a discussion of one man's perception and how it has changed.

But I am only human…” Countless are the times I have used these words to justify my mistakes, my faults to myself and to others. After all, our flaws are the very things that make us human – at least that’s what I thought. But I see now, how that single notion was the defining factor of my perceptions, my actions, my very existence. I was too lazy to change, I knew it and yet I was too lazy to accept to myself the wrong in that. The result was a young man with a very myopic vision, bereft of direction.

Add to that, the fact that I saw myself more through the eyes of others than through my own – I was looking at myself from the outside when I should have been looking outward at the world from within. I concerned myself more with who I was perceived to be than with who I really was. Even when I was being a rebel and a non-conformist, I was trying to be different instead of being myself. The result was constant turmoil within – a tug of war between the person I was/am and the person I was trying to be. As a result, I often did things that caused me much hurt, not to mention the pain inflicted upon to those dearest to me – I was by no means blind to the truth, yet I was somehow powerless to stop myself.

And then suddenly I realized one day that I’d changed and that the world had changed for me. There was a sense of satisfaction and fulfillment that had always been missing from my life before. There had been no epiphany, no lifting of veils, but my life had practically turned itself upside down (rather it had finally up righted itself) – I’d found once again the lost joy of childhood; it was as though I’d come full circle. And when I thought about it, I realized how simple it had been – I’d finally learned to detach my perception from that of others. This had opened my eyes to the truth that happiness is not merely the byproduct of the pursuit and attainment of ones goals but that happiness is itself the goal and everything else but byproducts. I’m sure that every 3 year old knows that. Yet as surely as we grow bigger with age, we lose all the wisdom of childhood.

All my rage, hate and cynicism had been mere symptoms of my lack of perception. With the realization that the pursuit of happiness is really the very purpose of life (at least to me it is) came recognition of the things that give me joy. I live to satisfy my curiosity – to try and solve the mysteries that are so abundant in nature. The moment when the solution to a problem begins to take form in my mind, the moment an idea is born, that moment is what I live for. The pure joy that it gives me leaves no room for any pain or sadness. And it is at such a moment that it hit me – humanity is not in the flaws, it is in the recognition of flaws and in transcending them, even if only for the most fleeting of moments.

I realize finally that my life is really all about "my" "life". Don’t get me wrong. I do not suffer from illusions of grandeur. I recognize fully how trivial my existence is in the context of the universe. In fact, it is my belief that the existence of any individual has no purpose (in the context of the universe). But that does not bother me; I revel in it – life doesn’t need a pre-ordained purpose to be sweet. Life is whatever one makes of it; purpose is whatever one wishes it to be. And to me, the purpose to learn, to experience, to enjoy.