My pal Greg sent me a provocative excerpt from a writer/philosopher named Andrew Cohen, who I'd never read before:
"A Greater Purpose
I don't believe the purpose of life is to just be happy. Why would God take fourteen billion years to produce highly evolved sentient life-forms that would ultimately develop the extraordinary capacity for self-reflective awareness, simply in order for them to be able to experience happiness? It's my conviction that we are here for a reason, that there is a grand and great purpose to our presence in this universe, and that none of us are going to truly find what we are looking for unless we get over our misguided pursuit of personal happiness and connect with that greater sense of purpose—that ultimate reason for being."
It was before 8 this morning, but couple of thoughts sprang to mind after reading this: first, that two beings as different as Freud and Buddha both believed that the quest for "happiness" was deluded
- in the first instance, because it's unrealistic, and in the second, because it's a distraction (no claim to great scholarship here; these are warmed -over reductionist statements at best, but you get my point).
However, if we play with the word and the concept a little, and instead define it as as being at peace and in balance with the world/universe, then I think both Beard-guy and Smiling Fat Man would say, that's more like it....
No comments:
Post a Comment