A Good Answer to a Common Question: What is the Purpose of Life?

In which I take no credit for another's excellence.

Martha and I have, of late, gotten into the habit of sending each other Instagram posts. Usually, it’s animal stuff. Kitties and pandas throwing themselves about and bears snuffling through kitchen cabinets. Cutesy, old person stuff. Yesterday, though, she sent me a video posted to the ‘Gram from the British author Kate Forster. I would very much like to simply repost the video but, as an old person, I have no idea how to transpose an Instagram video from there to here. And YES I googled it.

Because I cannot figure out how to do the simplest thing (simple for you people, not for Gampy Michael), I will instead describe it and provide a transcription.

Here is a screen grab of the video. Do NOT click play. It will not play and you will, instead, end up very disappointed. But if you don’t want to read it, perhaps you can go to Ms. Forster’s Instagram feed and watch it yourself.

The video is a recitation of a text written to a friend. The friend has just come through cancer treatment and feels a bit lost. What was the purpose of her survival? What is the purpose of her life?

Ms. Foster provides, what I think, is a very good answer to that familiar question. So good, in fact, that I am going to spend the next many minutes writing it down for you word-for-word:

Purpose in life is bullshit. What if I told you that your purpose right now is to be here? That’s it. All you have to do is show the fuck up. If you wanna paint, paint. If you wanna write, write. If you wanna bake, bake. Do it.

No wonder so many people feel like failures, been told they have to “have a purpose.” Makes them feel like they haven’t hit their personal KPIs (I had to look this up – it means “key performance indicators”) and should have just shoved their head in the oven and be done with it. Put the cake in the oven, not your head, my darling.

Strive instead for a curiosity-filled life. One where you try things and share them with the world, or no one. There are no rules. The next thing you do is to breathe and breathe again.

You have my permission if you need it; stop seeking, just be. Take the dance class. Go to the Galapagos Islands. Eat the snail. Learn the language. Join the choir. Pick up the racquet.

Not everyone’s purpose is their job. That is a lie that is told to us so we keep working eight hours a day. Actually, very few people’s purpose in life is their job. We put too much pressure on our careers. To be everything, and more. And it’s actual fuckery, my friend. And it’s causing more and more depression in the world because people feel shit-ass that their job isn’t making them get up and punch the air with their awesome, awesome life.

What if you pursued creativity instead? Why not pursue this as your purpose in life? And your job is simply to support that. If you think of your job as just funding your creativity curiosity, life is somewhat more palatable, right? Write the poem or the book or throw the clay or do up the car or pick up the paintbrush. That is enough of a reason to be here. We need creative stuff so we don’t feel shit about all the other stuff.

When we spoke, what I read from your voice was the issue of worthiness. Why get cancer? Why survive and then have nothing at the end of it all? What was it all for? Well, you survived because it was for me. And your husband. And your kids. And your family and your friends and your presence in our lives is enough of a purpose. That shows us your worth.

That isn’t to say that those who pass from cancer aren’t worthy enough to stay. They were all worthy. But you survived and survival was your purpose for a long time, and that is enough.

But I’m asking you to understand this: there is no such thing as “fair,” my darling. You are stronger by being vulnerable and saying that you don’t know what’s coming next in your life than you are by pretending that you have everything sorted. No one really has everything sorted.

Your creativity is a tool for you to express yourself and what you feel, so what Your relationships and the love you have given them and receive are your true purpose. It is everyone’s purpose. Love is the purpose.

When my father died, the love was enormous. It was like a huge ball of flowers that became a light and then floated off into the ether, showering us all with scintillas of light and joy and the extreme knowing that this was the meaning of everything.

So shore up the banks of your life with love, baby, and the rest will follow. Say yes to kisses and hugs and hand-picked bunches of flowers. Say yes to patting the cat on your next short walk up the street as you try to get your strength back. Say yes to cups of tea and watching TV and all that stupid shit that will not make you smarter but will stop you overthinking for a while. Say yes to sunsets and clean sheets and hot showers and love because love is truly everything and you are rich in it. You are wealthy. You are a fucking rock star. You’ve just been in rehab for a while.

One’s circumstances will certainly vary from Ms. Forster’s friend, but I suspect the sentiment is familiar to anybody who has ever taken their own head out of their ass long enough to wonder why they are here. We are here, I think, just to be here. We are here because somebody had to be here, so it might as well be you. I don’t know that life has a purpose other than life itself. The crepe myrtle outside my kitchen window seems content to grow and shed leaves and play host to the birds and squirrels. Be like the crepe myrtle. And send your sweetie some corny animal videos.