[Kirism is a contemporary philosophy of life that I’ve developed over the last several decades. It is psychological, philosophical, and existential and takes into account human nature, the human predicament, our contemporary understanding of the world, and our pressing individual and species-wide challenges. I hope that you’ll enjoy learning more about it. In the first four posts of the series, we looked at the idea of absurd rebellion. In these four posts, we look at the issue of individuality, an idea that matters to Kirists. This is the first of those four posts. To learn more about Kirism, please take a look at Lighting the Way, in which Kirism is introduced. To be in touch with me about Kirism, please drop me an email to [email protected].]
Our emotional health depends on us standing up for the idea of personally-designated life purpose choices; and accepting the results of the actual choices that we make, all subsequent shifting and all subsequent misadventures notwithstanding.
Maybe you’re still inclined to reject this whole project. Your reasoning might go something like this: “If all I’m doing is nominating this and that as my life purposes, how valid or important is that? That’s just me playing a pointless game.”
“All I’m doing,” you bitterly think, “is saying that nothing really matters and trying to plug a leak in a sea of genuine nothingness. This is a game that I can see right through and I want no part of it. Better to be lazy or mean or anything than to play this childish game!”
And so, you conclude: “No, who cares about my life purposes—me included. Why bother with these phony life purposes that I’ve elevated to some high-and-mighty place? Life is too hard, intractable and pointless for that and acting like I have purpose is pathetic.”
There are many variations on this theme of rejection. Some are angrier, some more despairing, some more anxious, some more ironic. We understand their power, logic, and, looked at one way, their validity. Kirists understand what is going on here.
Each variation amounts to the person announcing that if “life purpose” is only something that she herself gets to name, something without cosmic significance, just an idle claim that she makes, then it amounts to too little or even nothing at all.
But Kirists recognize that this rejection is a hangover from the belief that life should be meaningful in some other, deeper, more important sense, from the hangover belief that it shouldn’t just occasionally feel meaningful but actually be meaningful.
Life shouldn’t just be organized around some purposes that I get to name, the hangover belief goes, it should have purpose. If it is just this, then it is pathetic. Kirists understand this hangover pull to reject the exact truth of the matter, that we are obliged to decide what’s important.
Kirists learn to watch out for that quite reasonable, quite natural, and quite disturbing feeling, that their life purpose choices are just their life purpose choices and not something more important than that or something cosmically ordained.
Yes, a Kirist will still sometimes see through this operation and remember that it is just he himself who has done the choosing. And yes, he will need strong, practiced rejoinders to the painful realization that life is exactly like this.
You can and must learn to accept that you intend to live a life based on your own calculations and that the universe doesn’t care one way or the other. Likewise, you can and must learn how to respond to the truth that life is exactly like this.
What will your rejoinder be? “I don’t need the cosmos to care. I care!” Or: “I may just be excited matter but I quite enjoy mattering, because I have plenty of good to do!” Or: “Every one of my life purposes makes perfect sense to me!”
Kirists even revel in the enterprise of naming and living their life purposes. Which of my life purposes shall I live today? Ah, what excellent choices! To love, to create, to serve, to right a wrong, to gain some mastery, to explore: what a lovely day!
You reject that pair of impertinent questions, “What is the meaning of life?” and “What is the purpose of life?” and you strive to answer the only really pertinent question, “How do I intend to live?” You shift the paradigm, all by yourself.
You make your list of your life purpose choices and you create your complementary life purpose statement. Then you use them. You hold the intention to live your life purposes and you actually live them on a daily basis. That is Kirist living.
To learn more about Kirism, please take a look at Lighting the Way, in which Kirism is introduced.
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This Post is republished on Medium.
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Photo credit: iStock
