Plutarch tells us that one day Pyrrhus was devising projects of conquest. ‘We are going to subjugate Greece first,’ he was saying. ‘And after that?’ said Cineas. ‘We will vanquish Africa.’ – ‘After Africa?’ – ‘We will go on to Asia, we will conquer Asia Minor, Arabia.’ – ‘And after that?’ – ‘We will go on as far as India.’ – ‘After India?’ – ‘Ah!’ said Pyrrhus, ‘I will rest.’ – ‘Why not rest right away?’ said Cineas.
What Is Existentialism? Simone de Beauvoir
Cineas seems wise. What’s the use of leaving if it is to return home? What’s the use of starting if you must stop? And yet, if I don’t first decide to stop, it seems to me to be even more pointless to leave.
What is the point? This is probably a question many of us have thought of in our lives. What is the point of life? What is the point of living when you’re only going to die one day. What is the point of doing anything? What is the end and if everything else is a means to that end, then what is the point realizing the means?
What is the point of conquering Greece and Africa and Asia and then Australia if you’re only doing it to lie down and rest after that. Why not just rest now? What is ambition born of?
You’re working hard today so you can be happy tomorrow, but why not just be happy today? What is it that you don’t have today that can make you happy if you get it tomorrow? And will it make you happy? Or will it just check a box off your list? These are the questions you have when you’re awake at night after a long day and your brain thinks that this is a fit time to have an existential crisis!
“Isn’t Pyrrhus absurd to leave in order to return home? Isn’t the tennis player absurd to hit a ball in order for someone to send it back to him and the skier absurd to climb a slope in order to immediately come back down? Not only does the goal conceal itself, but the successive goals contradict each other, and the undertaking is completed only in destroying itself.”
What Is Existentialism? Simone de Beauvoir
It’s exactly like one of those times in the middle of the night when your brain decides that this might just be the perfect time to have a complete identity makeover and master atleast three languages and four really cool but otherwise random skills during the course of the rest of your life.
You forget all about it by morning, of course, but it’s a nice thought.
The essential thing about us as a species which makes us so prone to confusion and conflict and crisis is our constant, unwavering fascination with everything and anything—the curiosity to know it better. The desire to unravel every fibre, every strand of whatever we can’t yet see but will, soon enough.
Our fascination and our curiosity for the future, for unmet potential, for possibilities that don’t take much to grow into realities.
We are so very curious and so unbelievably determined to see through the veil of uncertainty. We are always wondering, looking, reading, experiencing. And this is what makes life worth it. This is the purpose of being. To realise potential and nurture possibilities into reality.
Sometimes, however, the pressure of being perfect and doing the right thing settles invisibly on our shoulders. We are burdened by questions like ‘Is this worth it?’ and ‘Am I doing the right thing?’ and ‘Am I just wasting my time?’ amd ‘What is the point of this?’
It is times like this, when you’re confused and doubtful, that you must learn to appreciate life for it is and realise the real purpose, the real point.
The actual point of life is to live
There are those who believe that life is suffering. There are those who believe that all reality is but an illusion, and all of the world is a puppet in the hands of the Ultimate Reality (God). There are those who believe that there is no God and no afterlife and no morality. There are those who think that nothing exists beyond the now and the real and there are those who aim to dissolve, atlast, into the illimitable vastness of the spiritual, the unknown.
There are all kinds of beliefs and all kinds of practices and all kinds of rules you’ll find on how to live. On how to conduct yourself.
But after all is said and done, after learning how to live, you have to realise what you have to live for. What is there to live for, after all? Is it some great purpose, some unknown destiny. Is it something that you have to fulfil that makes you live. Do you have to conquer Greece and Asia and America? Do you want what comes after? Can you live without even trying?
Do you want to help the homeless, or feed the poor, or plant some seeds while there’s still hope left? Do you want to do it for the satisfaction, the change, the ripple that one tiny deed causes in the infinite order of things?
There are after all, so many people who’ve done so much for this world. Can we not hope to become like them too? Is it not right to want to do great things just as they did? Great and good things.
It would be a lie to deny this.
“Pyrrhus leaves in order to conquer; let him conquer, then. ‘After that?’ After that, he’ll see.”
What Is Existentialism? Simone de Beauvoir
Live. Move. Walk. Run, if you must, even if you come back in a loop.
Even of you end up, at the end of the day, at the same spot. Even if you think you’ve moved in vain, because you’ll always think that if you let yourself think that once. It is still better than not moving at all.
You’ve got to live for the sake of living itself and you’ll find yourself doing things like the ones you read about. The good things. The things that help others and help you.
And remember: If you think of life as a job to complete, a target to achieve, then it won’t take long for it to become just that. A job, a burden, a weight heavy as the world on your shoulders.
But if you live life just for the sake of being alive on this planet with all the people around you and the sky above you and the promise of a ground beneath you, ever ready to catch you if you fall. If you live life believing that whatever may come, the universe will look out for you.
If you live it because you’ve been given this opportunity to live and live and love and be loved, then you’ll find an answer for the question that come haunting in the middle of the night.
What is the point of it all?
To live. To live as beautifully as you can. To burn as brightly as you can before you go and become one with the stars.
What is the end?
It’s death, of course. And life. Two halves of a metaphysical coin.
What happens in between and how you do it is what matters. What matters is that you do it the right way. Want to conquers the world? Start a revolution? Change the society? Go ahead.
But don’t question the point of it all.
The point of it all is there, in the ripples and the smiles. The point is life.
Related post: Learn to be kind to yourself.
