What is the Purpose of Life?

I have been thinking about life over the past few days. More than usual.

I am approaching my 50th birthday, and my health is not at its best. Beside that, though, I have pretty much everything that most people seem to be aiming for.

• I have a stable job that pays well and that I enjoy doing
• I have a few close friends who make me laugh, provide a safety net for me, and who I care for and about.
• My weight is really the only health problem I have, with most of my other issues (which are admittedly minor) stemming from it. My vision is good, my hearing passes, and I have full mobility.
• I have a home that needs work, but successfully keeps my family and I warm and dry. More than this, it is actually unusually large property for the area. Finally it is my grandfather's home.
• I have important books overflowing my bookshelves, music that would fill days to listen to, and enough access to information and entertainment to fill several lifetimes.
• MOST importantly, I have a partner, wife, best friend who walks alongside, and frequently supports me. My children are wonderful people in their own right, my brothers both talk to me, and I get along very well with my in-laws. Family is great.

So what is my problem? Having all of these things in my life, how can I not be satisfied? How can I not be happy?

That is just it. I am satisfied! I am very happy! I am grateful on a daily basis, and I take the time to express my love and gratitude to all who need to hear it.

But I still wonder... what of it. It won't last, it will change. I know that, and I accept it. I know that death is real, and close and personal, and so I prepare myself for it as best I can. But I don't fear it. There would be no point.

The old Roman cry of "Eat, drink and be merry! For tomorrow we die!" rings hollow in my ears. True, we die, but we also live. And while we are alive... we must LIVE.

So. That is the question. What IS the purpose/aim/goal/meaning of life?

I plan to continue exploring this question in the following blog posts.

Neo-stoic

this is a description of what i believe that i recently posted in a new yahoo group that sandra and dave put together.

i am a neo-stoic in training, attempting to learn and adopt a pre-xian faith system that worked for kings and paupers alike.

i think i have found the name for the pervasive, immanent deity, that i personally resonate to. it is encapsulated in the greek work 'phusis'. think of it as life, nature, the way things grow and improve. phusis is what makes it right for an acorn to become an oak. it is evolution.

this 'phusis' is at work everywhere. it is like a soul, or a life-force, running through all matter like the soul or life of a person runs through all of their limbs. it is the soul of the world. it is the law of nature. it is the great chain of causation by which all events occur. it shapes things towards their ends. it is the natural law, but it is natural law which is alive, it is life itself. it is indistiguishable from a purpose, the purpose of the great world-process. it is like a fore-seeing, fore-knowing power.

as such it can be regarded as god(dess), nevertheless it is not ephemeral, it is material. but it is the finest material there is. it is made of fire, not ordinary fire, but intellectual fire. it is the fire that is present in living things, but not there when they are dead. a fire which has conciousness and life and does not decay. this fire, phusis, god(dess) is therefore in all life, and is what gives everything it's life.

this fire within each of us, this knowing life-force, this will of the gods, this concicous purpose, is why we feel that there must be a purpose to life, a reason for it all. this is why we feel that some lives are wasted, while others are fulfilled, regardless of how long they have been lived. when we really live, deliberately choose to live, in accordance and alignment with this universal purpose to grow and improve and acheive something lasting, that we are fulfilling the will of god(dess), meeting our purpose, filling our life.