[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].]
We make our life purpose choices and then we live them. You may, however, find yourself reluctant to make this effort. Why? Because by naming your life purposes, you set the bar very high. If, say, you assert that your primary life purpose is to do the next right thing, then you have to do the next right thing.
And you must keep at it, next right thing after next right thing, forever. How much work you just made for yourself! Isn’t it easier to keep “seeking” meaning and purpose, even though there is nothing to find? But Kirists know better than to keep seeking. They know to choose and act.
If you say that one of your life purposes is to write fiction in your most passionate and powerful voice, well, then you have to sit there, day in and day out, on the many bad days as well as on the good ones, and struggle to write that powerful fiction.
If you announce that you want to love and be loved, you have to actually love and you actually have to be loveable. This may necessitate a huge personality upgrade and some real movement away from grandiosity, arrogance, and narcissism.
These are not easy things. Making life purpose choices sets us up for real work. You decide to be a parent—and then you have kids. You decide to be an activist—and you put your body on the line. No wonder that we may be reluctant!
We may also feel undermined by some core doubt, a doubt that sounds like the following: “Coming up with my life purposes feels so artificial and so arbitrary. Maybe life really wants something completely different from me! Shouldn’t I keep seeking?”
Or it may sound like the following: “What I want and what I believe in seems to shift all the time. Maybe there really isn’t any such thing as life purposes? Maybe there are only whims, desires, cravings, and nothing more substantial than air! Maybe is nothing ‘really important’.”
Or it may sound like: “Human beings are such disposable, self-centered, trivial creatures—what a lot of silly arrogance to talk about life purposes when most people seem closer to the insect world! Imagine bugs talking about their life purposes!”
Or it may sound like: “I am such a slave to my appetites—what a joke to think about life purposes! I can hardly stop myself from eating peanuts or shopping online day and night. Life purposes! I’m nothing but a walking addiction!”
These doubts take on countless forms. And our inclination to doubt isn’t helped by the fact that the people who promote the idea of a singular life purpose present the picture that “the purpose of life” must be sought out and chased after.
Naturally you may doubt that you know your life purposes if everyone is telling you that they are out there somewhere and that you need to keep seeking them. Find, find, find—that is the life purpose mantra. Life as an Easter egg hunt!
Kiists learn to navigate their way through this language maze and to stand firm in their determination not to seek what doesn’t exist, a singular purpose to life, and instead to name their life purposes and to live their life purposes. They opt for living over seeking.
To learn more about Kirism, please take a look at Lighting the Way, in which Kirism is introduced.
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