Being alone, is one thing. Finding purpose in those inevitable moments of solitude of the soul, is another. Finding how best to live that purpose, once revealed, can seem impossible.
Yet that is, I suspect, a universal, and most particularly intense American experience.
We are so material in our orientation, so selfish.
Asked what motivates acts of charity, of perceived "selflessness" -- our proffered tokens of time, wealth, and feelings toward another human being or cause -- and many, if honest, admit: "It makes me feel better about myself."
If that is it, then fine; who am I to judge? Been there, done that. Such benevolent actions, donations, and affection given do, at least, show another suffering human that someone or something "cares" for their plight, and perhaps even them personally.
Still, does the purpose revealed still essentially come down to a sort of self-affirmation that we are "good?" We deigned to stoop, to sacrifice a tithe of our lives and resources to someone in need, after all.
Or, maybe they are not in need, but a professional cardboard sign holder at an intersection. "Homeless, hungry, anything helps, God bless," they declare -- yet an enterprising reporter may spot them later exiting a middle class home, their rags exchanged for cleaner, newer garb as they pop into a late-model SUV for a night out.
You see it happen regularly on TV news. Confronted, there is no shame. "I've done nothing illegal. People want to give. It makes them feel better. So, I give them the chance," they say and drive off.
Certainly, there is no 100 percent effective way to know the difference between the fraud and real need. And to many, it ultimately doesn't matter.
We want to do good, however marginal the effort may be, and welcome an easy way to do so. Roll down a window, hand a buck or two to the cardboard sign set, get a "God bless" and you can smile and feel good all the way to the next intersection.
Even if you suspect you've just been conned, it's easy to suppress that feeling. We are very good at that, we Americans.
We embrace black-and-white logical fallacies all the time, if you think about it: Trump/Pelosi are either evil or righteous, completely, with no shadows of gray; war is absolutely wrong -- but killing life in the womb is undeniably justified as the end means of a reproductive "right"; morality itself can be individually defined as we wish, and if you believe there are indeed things and actions that are inherently good or evil by nature if not whim, you are a bigot or (choose your flavor)-phobic.
And yet, down deep, there is that desire to do . . . something, something we know is right, however confused our conception of "rightness" is.
C.S. Lewis opined that the very fact that this primordial moral sense exists -- something he called "Tao" in his book, "The Abolition of Man" -- is a worthy starting point for arguing for eternal and objective Truth, natural law, and yes, Nature's God.
So, when our former "purpose," in my case a career as a writer, editor, and journalist, comes to an end, then what?
We are, painfully and mercifully both, left to finally embrace that which we for so long avoided, that Truth we may have partially acknowledged but still held, through delusion and token practice, at arm's length.
That Truth is that our "purpose" has never really been ours; rather, we find true meaning, the kind that transcends, in seeing ourselves as part of the Purpose. Finally, we surrender to what we knew all along, deep down. . . that we were created for this, and not for that.
As atheist-turned-believer Lewis wrote:
"An open mind, in questions that are not ultimate, is useful. But an open mind about the ultimate foundations either of Theoretical or of Practical Reason is idiocy. If a man's mind is open on these things, let his mouth at least be shut. He can say nothing to the purpose. Outside the Tao there is no ground for criticizing either the Tao or anything else."
