One Basic Purpose for Living: To Thoroughly Experience & Completely Understand The Mystery of Being Both Alive & Human

One Basic Purpose for Living:
To Thoroughly Experience & Completely Understand
The Mystery of Being Both Alive & Human

In spite of being largely unconscious, and usually based on assumptions, beliefs, feelings and ideas that we absorb from our social environment, everyone’s life is to some degree structured by purposes.  For the top 10 percent of our species, the purpose for living is to accomplish, acquire, and be recognized.  In other words, money, power, pleasure and fame are our primary motivators.  For the vast majority of us, however, we simply want to have enough accomplishment to acquire physical, financial, and emotional security.  As a result, our first purpose is to have a secure job, satisfying mate, a house and cars, and probably children.  Then, we want entertainment and friends.

At the lower end of the social/financial scale, we just want to live with some kind of decent and dignified survival and peace. Wherever on the scale we happen to be, there is no education or social awareness to show us that mastering the ability to thoroughly experience and completely understand human life is necessary to fulfill our potentials, feed our needs, complete our development, and create lasting happiness.

For all our technological advancements the development of self-awareness, and our understanding of the mystery of being both alive and human, is pitifully meager. This observation only means that it is now time, perhaps way past time, to learn about ourselves and life with the purpose of understanding the mystery of being alive and human.

It just so happens that I have spent a lifetime pursuing the answer to one question—”What, if anything, is necessary to make human life satisfying and meaningful?”  First understanding the question, then exploring life and the minds and experiences of other people has been necessary for me to discover that the invisible internal world of human experience is the source for layer upon layer of complex answers to my simple question.

 I first asked my question and defined my purpose at the age of five when my grandmother died. She was my favorite person, and really the only one who actually cared about and nurtured me. Even at the time, I could see my grandmother had had a very difficult life—married to a sphinx of a man with the tenderness of a stone—four children, all girls—hence one source of her interest in me—going thru World War I, the depression, then world War II, and finally, dying in 1950 at age 55 having experienced little joy and no fulfillment, seemed to my young mind an exercise in futility.

My response was to see that I too would go through a lifespan and die. Given my grandmother’s experience, this made me fervently wish I had never been born.

Since it was apparent that I was already alive and there was only one way out—much like being pregnant—I decided to make the most of it and spend my life figuring out precisely what would make this mystery of being alive worth effort and suffering, knowing in advance, the inevitable end to the story is my personal extinction!

In response, I spent my life gathering information about the mystery of being alive and human.  I have read endless biographies to learn how famous people chose to live.  I read literature, and studied the lives of writers.  I also studied music and musicians, painters, sculptors, actors, and other artists to see how artistic people chose to live.

Eventually, I studied scientists, naturalists, artists, businessman, politicians, soldiers, teachers, doctors, psychologists and lawyers, and anyone I met to learn how they responded to life and to what degree they were developed, fulfilled, and truly happy.  First with themselves, then with relationships, and finally, with their careers and professions. I discovered that people were more likely to be happy with their careers, than with themselves and their most important relationships.                                    

Ultimately, I could see that no matter how smart, successful, rich, or famous someone might be, no one knew how to thoroughly experience and completely understand the mystery of being alive. Most were honest and admitted that for them life began and ended a mystery, which meant in part, they never did understand their own internal needs, potentials, and developmental tasks—or how to create emotionally bonded long-term intimate relationships that were satisfying, equal, and reciprocal.

This information helped me see that I needed to clearly define, “thoroughly experience” and “completely understand” in relation to first fulfilling ourselves, and then loving life and other people. In exploring the meaning of thoroughly experience, I learned that we needed to be innocent, curious, and grounded in accurate observations of reality—  rather than be disconnected by vague beliefs, assumptions, and feelings. I also saw we needed to gather the information provided by our senses, and we needed to learn about Nature, how to experience and express love, how to explore life and discover what is worth loving, and how to use every experience and insight to slowly develop wisdom.

During this process, I learned that experiencing love begins with innocence and curiosity, while expressing love requires learning and nurturing. Wisdom, I discovered, comes from using information gathered from our observations, and connections we make using reason and experiments to learn how life works until we completely understand and thoroughly master our internal needs, potentials, and developmental tasks.

I have written down much of what I learned in the seven books currently available on my website, and use all of it in the individual sessions, videos and workshops that I offer. If this blog has awakened some innocent curiosity, consider exploring CMED.

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