Thoughts on a Saturday Afternoon

For many of us, our inner life is dominated by a schism: a division between seeking and accepting ‘what is.’ The seeking is to discover our destiny. “What is to be my avocation?” we say. “What is the meaning for my having been born?” And “How do I successfully manifest my avocation once found. The acceptance is knowing that the what is is as it should be. Do we carve out a life? Do we apply ourselves? Or do we go with the flow? This is the dichotomy.

The innate urge pricks. It pressures. It demands. It is nearly always there, if not at the forefront of our minds, then just below its surface. “Go do with your life great things! Rise to the heights! Aspire! “But aspire to what? Do what? Rise to what particular heights?

A concrete solution acceptable to our inner selves is needed here. Sure, it’s okay to advance along paths which develop those ancillary skills which can better us; general skills. Ones which are useful no matter what field of endeavor we aspire to. These ancillary skills are useful, indeed essential to have, if one is to seek and reach real Greatness. For example, communicative skills, leadership skills, inter-personal skills, reasoning and creativity.

Even more important than these are the qualities which we value most dearly. We need also to develop and build these in ourselves. For example: selflessness, wisdom, determination, fortitude, courage, persistence, patience and, most important, unconditional love.

Then there are our values. It is here that the questioning of ourselves becomes particularly pertinent. Is our ambition selfish? Is it honourable if we devote it to bettering the Common Weal? Is it neutral? Moreover, without ambition do we simply stagnate? Vegetate? Achieve nothing in the long (or short) rundown to our graves? Is this uneasiness which manifests as desire-to-achieve, heaven sent to the human species alone?

It seems it is. We challenge our imaginations to come up with creative ideas which, when received, we can use to invent, innovate, fabricate, build, turn into concrete goods and services to help or hinder our fellows. It is this desire which moves us to action. It is this, with its accompanying traits of adaptability, etc. which makes the human species so unique.

Where would we all be if we all sat contentedly in the sun and treated ourselves the way a spoiled domestic cat would act? There’d be little production. No one would do anything beyond one’s own very personal needs. The world would quickly run down as far as we homo sapiens are concerned. The rest of Nature would probably applaud. We wouldn’t.

Perhaps it s because of this, that Infinite Intelligence, through Nature, has built into we humans an urge which can never be denied indefinitely. We might get some respite. But it always returns. Has Infinite Intelligence planned -by way of Evolution- this urge for every type of creature primitive or advanced? Do we have a choice? Do dolphins experience this? Or ants? Or it it only we human beings? And will we ever know the answer?