Prologue
What is the purpose of our time on Earth? As I struggled with depression growing up, that question seemed to press ever-deeper with each year that passed. One person would try to explain the world around me, only for the next I encountered to say something entirely different. Everyone, everywhere both rich and poor, educated and not, has been arguing over that topic my entire life, and far long before it. Most violence and sadness across all of humanity for all of time can often be traced back to attempts in answering the question in this paragraph, and convincing masses of its truth. By force, if necessary.
I’ve spent a large portion of my time on Earth thinking on this question as well. I’m not Julius Caesar, and I’m certainly no Aristotle, Socrates, or Confucius. I am an average software engineer, and the following is my best guess on the answer. It comes after reading hundreds of books on every surrounding topic, listening to everyone I possibly can, traveling, and many years of thinking deeply on the full picture that makes up our unbelievably complex fabric of daily reality. I wanted the answer to be simplified enough for my child self to have understood and found peace and direction in.
What’s funny, is most of us are already pursuing this purpose every day, often without realizing it. So many of us feel unfulfilled in what we do every day, because no one ever explained to us the beauty of what we’re taking part in. It didn’t fully click for me until I started building complicated financial software, and saw the clearest picture of what we’re all doing, each and every day. Our pursuit of “money” across all cultures for all of time has been the unconscious driver of the Earthly purpose that is built into us from the very beginning.
Thirty years later, I no longer struggle with depression or anxiety. My place in the big picture makes sense, and I know why I’m doing what I’m doing. All one need do is look back on history and they’ll see it too, clear as day. Once the big picture makes sense. There’s no longer an urge to fight or argue with others, but to listen. You rarely feel anger. I truly believe even the smartest, strongest, and richest that lead our world today can’t fully grasp it, and that’s why there’s still no world peace.
Once understood, it’s the answer that could unite everyone on Earth. We could skip all future wars and potential devastation of our species if everyone would take the time to understand it and accept it. If we had done so long ago, we’d probably be on Mars now. Instead, we’re all still wasting our time, money, and happiness on Earth fighting over the complexity of life. Each day a Chinese rice farmer, South African accountant, and New England teacher wake up to start the day, they’re pursuing the exact same thing.
Without further ado, here’s what I believe that purpose we’ve all pursued, for all of time, is.
Our Purpose on Earth
To Build and Maintain Shared Wealth for Our Generation, and the Next
That sentence is something anyone, anywhere can understand. “Wealth” doesn’t mean “money” in this case. Wealth is everything around us that makes our lives better. Many of us live in homes more comfortable than even the greatest castles the richest kings once lived in. We go to doctors empowered by research that gives us medicine for life-threatening diseases. We’re entertained in ways that would stupify people of the past. Processes that once took months, now take seconds. Food can be produced for more people, faster than ever. Teachers pass knowledge to new generations. Window washers scrub glass on the world’s largest towers.
It’s all the unbelievably complicated, but simple, purpose everyone on Earth shares and pursues each and every day they wake. They’ve done it for all of time, and that’s why we have what we do today. Behind all the blood and violence of the past, was a goodness of heart in everyone that led us here. They just didn’t understand it, much as we still don’t to this day.
Once one fully comprehends it, they find peace. They walk out with pickaxe in hand, and begin chiseling away at yet another road that will be driven by millions over many years. In two hundred years, it won’t look anything like what they originally built. It may not even be there at all. Yet, the swinging of that single pick built and maintained wealth for all of us to live better lives today, and in that future. It goes beyond religion, economic systems, or personal beliefs. It’s the good in all of us that can’t be stopped, no matter how we try and deny it with wars and fighting. It will play out, as it always has. That inherent good in us seems inescapable.
Do I believe we’ll ever be intelligent enough to embrace that good? That we’ll ever truly begin to see everyone around us as an extension of ourselves, regardless of skin color, ethnicity or nationality? Or, that the way will continue to be paved in blood and tears? That I can’t claim to have the answer to. Only time knows that. We’re all climbing the world’s tallest and most difficult mountain, using only our bare hands, while there’s a ladder and an elevator right beside us.
I don’t know how long we have left in this universe, but I do know we’ll pursue that good. Whether it be with bloodied hands, or on the elevator.
Thanks for reading, and I hope this helps others as much as it helped me.
Life Lessons With Scott Diesel 