Purpose

So. I am to write a page on my interpretation of purpose. Well, if I knew what it was I wouldn’t be taking courses and reading books about it. I’m reading a book now that appears to reframe “purpose” as “vocation”, and that seems to make a little more sense to me. Vocation is what feeds my spirit when I do it, what feels right to be doing, and what is of benefit I to someone else. That last part is a little sketchy because I don’t want to presume that what I do is what benefits someone else. I suppose I hope that it does, and doesn’t cause harm, but I’m not sure of what benefit I might add to anyone’s experience.

So, for all that being said, purpose gets me reflecting on why I am here, why I came here. That all sounds a bit lofty, but I guess it points to what gifts we have. That’s really hard for me because I don’t generally conceive of myself as having “gifts”, but that’s more than likely just a self-esteem issue. I get hung up on whether I’m the best at anything, exemplary, stellar, award-winning calibre. I suppose I do feel that I’m a pretty good writer, and must note that even writing that sentence was a hilarious endeavor in word choice – I went from good, to guess I’m good, to decent, and toyed around with “OK”. When I was in high school, I placed 3rd in a state-wide competition, and up until that point I really thought I was “educably retarded” in the literal sense of the term used at that time (so yes, I did really mean to use that term).

My purpose seems to be about what keeps coming back to me, or what I rotate around throughout my life. I believe I’ve always been a truth teller, a keeper of history, a repository of memories and I usually need to write about that. I need to write about what’s bouncing around inside my head, how I feel about things, how I react to things, and what I think about them. Writing and story telling have always been a part of that, although I have resisted that over the years. When I went to college, I wanted to be a geneticist, a scientist. I was not very good at that, and in order to graduate I had to change my major to English. I didn’t need to think about that work. It came naturally to me, even without much advance preparation. One of my professors said there reallly wasn’t anything he could actually teach me. That stroked my ego but I didn’t understand the implications.

So yes, I think at least part of my purpose is to tell the truth, and communicate that to other people in a way they can understand and be prompted to reflect or think further on the content. I’m not all that interested in writing content specifically to sell products or even ideology, but more to stimulate the “what if” discussions. It would never occur to me that I could actually convince or influence someone to change their conviction about something, but I guess I sometimes hope for that. Ultimately, though, it’s about postulating and expressing my bizarre thoughts so other folks can either relate or just contemplate to whatever I have expressed.