What is the meaning of life? What is your life purpose?
Before I started this blog post, I googled the topic and the entire first page of google was given over to search results of would be shamans and gurus trying to sell me a program on how to find the meaning of life.
I tend not to put much faith in self proclaimed gurus or shamans. I tend to be the "finding my own path" kind of person. If you've found your life purpose, brilliant, but I'm not going to pay you to find out what your life purpose is. Different people. Different paths.
Of course, I can't help but wonder what their programs would teach me, but I'm not curious enough to pay for the program. I did find the "Meaning of Life" blog post by the School of Life on the second page of google search. It's actually a pretty good read.
I've spent plenty of existential crisis time trying to figure out my life meaning. My Monkey Mind screeches and jumps and fidgets. It likes doing things. It likes checking accomplishments off of lists. It gets a sense of satisfaction and purpose from making things which keeps me often doing more than being.
I enjoy making art. The process is meditative and focused. All my worries and anxieties fall away when it's just me and my mouse. I feel good when I've finished an art piece. My Monkey Mind loves that I've done something and can check off the boxes.
Still, a part of me wonders if that is the point of it all. I work out stress with art. I share my art which makes me happy when it resonates with others. Is that my purpose?
In a recent dream, I floated in a warm infinite ocean. I could hear the whales singing.
What were they singing? What did the song mean? Was it the answer I'd been looking for? Could the song tell me the meaning of life? Would the secrets of the Universe unfold if I could just understand what the whales were singing?
Somehow I was able to ask a nearby humpback what the song meant. "What is the meaning of life? What is my purpose?"
The whale sang and I finally understood: "The purpose of life is to live."
My dream mind felt blown. So simple and yet it resonated.
If I can turn off the chatter of my Monkey Mind and just be still, if I can just float on the calm soothing sea of my own essence, I do feel calm. I do feel at peace.
My physical presence may be dictated by the basics of my monkey DNA, but I am more than my DNA. I am more than a meat suit. I am more than what I do and I produce.
I am. I need to remember that that is enough.
(My long suffering partner sighed since I've starting putting on whale song to help me drift off to sleep. They've long indulged my sleep music, from shamanic drumming to monks' chanting Om, and now they're accepting the singing of the whales. Thank you, my beloved partner, for your patience through all my quirks and impulse weirdness.)
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