Action Begets Purpose

I initially had a post scheduled that would add to my theology section, but it is out of place in light of the recent assassination.

No one wants to read a chapter about “Getting That Magic Back” in the wake of what will likely become a an inflection point.

Don’t worry. I’m not going to give some high-flying take about “what this means for the soul of the country” or ramble on about political norms or the need for vengeance.

I’ve been clear about my mission, my enemies, and what I aim to bring into the world, and these recent events have done little to sway me.

Instead, I’d like to turn to a more constructive message in this period of frothing emotions: purpose.

Día put you where you are as you are for a reason. This isn’t some hippie, fuzzy-wuzzy sense of “Yea, bro, you really gotta, like, become a programmer and change the world!”

Maybe that is you. Maybe you’ll design the next generation of rockets and kick-start the large-scale mining of Mars. Maybe you’ll be the Arthur that has been waiting in the wings for generations to draw Excalibur and lead the English to greatness once again.

I hope that is you, with some clear daimon that has seized you and will never let you go until your final exhalation, but maybe it’s not. We’re not all gifted so.
America (or wherever you are) needs street-sweepers, welders, high school history teachers, HR managers, and someone running QC for lip gloss.

Maybe your purpose is to die at 18 from Hodgkin lymphoma.

No one said this was easy.

New York City is teeming with rats covered in sores and fleas, devouring left-overs from garbage bins, struggling with intestinal parasites, and enduring sub-zero NY winters. Baby foxes who wander too far from the den are devoured by white-tipped eagles. Zombie fungi infects and murders colonies of ants.

Earth is a dark, unforgiving place, and neither you nor I are exempt from such fates.

Día’s grace is not a get-out-of-jail-free card. He is ruthless and uncaring.

Maybe you have an inkling of what you are destined for or maybe you don’t, but in the far-reaching gaze of Día, nothing is out of place and nothing is accidental. Including you.

The introduction of this idea evokes another idea that has come into vogue: the purpose of Día translates into you having a very specific trajectory your life is intended to follow. You were sent here to start a French-Thai fusion bakery in Santa Monica or carve images of the gods from thrown-away wood.

Your job is to uncover that secret plan that Día has for you and fulfill it to the best of your ability.

Nonsense.

The “finding your purpose” shtick has been in a thing since the 60’s, and I’m suspicious of any idea that doesn’t have a few centuries of history behind it.
Those words hardly ever passed the lips of anyone born before WWII. Not because they lacked an intense and rich interiority but because self-obsession had yet to possess them. Agesilaus, Sigismondo Malatesta, or Patton were greater and more discerning men than nearly everyone who casts a shadow today.

They didn’t go on retreats with drum circles chanting OM to block their trauma and reveal the hidden energies dormant within their psyche. They were men of adventure and derring-do.

Sigismondo Malatesta was thrust into his position by circumstance, leading a mercenary force against besiegers, breaking through the camp, killing the opposing general, and securing his place as a hero among the Italian city-states—at the age of 16. His life followed that course until his defeat and execution.
Sigismondo had his destiny thrust upon him, but many others explored what was available to them and followed a zig-zag trajectory. Whitman was a printer, schoolteacher, journalist, newspaper editor, government clerk, and nurse. Wagner was an artistic, sensitive young man that tried his hand at literature for years before a love of music possessed him.

These men followed their interests, saw what worked, and marched down the pathway as far as it could take them or until it lead them to another junction.

Their model avoids the self-fixation of self-discovery. Purpose emerged from the confluence of inner talents, interests, and instincts with the situation on the ground.

“Finding your purpose” lays all the weight on some independent soul that is destined for a single task and nothing else.

It doesn’t make sense. Had you been transported 200 years back in time, with the same biology you have now, you would never be able to become an aeronautics engineer or a day-trader. Or perhaps you aspire to be an actor (please no!), but your parents are glass blowers and so too must you. You would have lived as a cursed man, trapped in a foreign time and unable to pursue your soul’s true call. That’s obviously false.

But the seekers don’t consider this. Instead, after a few trips to Colombia to learn from Mother Aya and a couple of vipassana retreats, Suzie discovers that her real purpose is to be an ER nurse.
Right.

The seeker types typically live in the throes of their delusions of purpose, with a new grand vision seizing them every couple years that launches them onto yet another adventure under the guise of the universe calling, when really it’s them being restlessness and non-committal.

There is no fixed path—at least that we can discern.

We are in conversation with reality rather than giving it a lecture on how it should be.

The difficulty is that pop-psy influencers have painted the self-discovery process as the fruit of profound introspection. Faithfully journaling. Reflecting on your history. Uncovering how your mother treated you when you were 5 that set the mold to make you into a push-over. Regulated breathing to clear up energy blockages and unleash your true calling.

Most of this is nonsense. We would all be better off watching octopus hentai all night rather than going on a “Discovering the Self through Embodied Expression” workshop at Eselan.

The best way to waste a lot of time and money in marketing is to ask people what they want, which is usually what these workshops amount to. People don’t know what they want. You don’t know what you want.

The best way to reveal preference is selection. The best and fastest way for someone to learn what they want in a partner is to go out there and get one. You will see very quickly what really turns you on and drives you nuts.

Go out there and get shit done.

Wagner discovered his passion through music by writing cringey, try-hard symphonies at 14. He knew that he was bad at it, but he also knew he loved it and wanted to devote his entire life to mastering the craft.

Everyone was clumsy before they made it. Excellence is a product of sticking at something even though you look like an idiot or try-hard for the first 10 years.
There’s no work around.

Build. Struggle. Make things happen. Try out jobs. Fail at jobs. Get fired. Get promoted. Make a lot of money. Lose a lot of money.

Self-reflection and scrutiny, joined with action is critical, but it is useless when you aren’t ruthlessly testing those findings against reality. Again. And again. And again.

Reflection 10%. Do 90%.

If you find yourself sitting on the couch tonight wondering how you should respond to the latest rage-bait, if you find yourself wondering what to do with yourself, moaning about how adrift you feel, how lonely, frustrated, worthless, stupid, unexceptional, outraged, or whatever those nagging dark thoughts that are creeping in from the fringes of your consciousness, the answer isn’t more distractions or rushing to the notebooks to draft a 10-year plan, KPIs, and a vision board to manifest it.

Get out there and start getting shit done. Do something. Start building. Start creating. Start giving form, color, scent, heft to your dreams and aspirations, the aislings that lurk within your heart, the daimon whose voice has been whispering to you in those silent moments and urging you to chase an ineffable end.
Your purpose will build and grow your purpose from writing a short-story collection, cleaning up a beach, completing a few boxing lessons, crafting a website on WordPress, or carving a statue of the gods with just used wood and a fruit knife.

Your purpose will find you. As you lose yourself in the doing, an inner compass creeps up on you, an obsession to do more seizes you, and you are drawn towards an excellence that hovers on the horizon of the possible.

You will find not your purpose but Día’s—at least for a time.

Día grants grace to doers, to builders, to those who shape the world to their vision and will, to the bold, the ambitious, and the energetic.

For the lethargic, it’s not necessary to distinguish between busy-ness and success. Getting them off their butts is success enough.

For the energetic and determined, busy-ness is a seductive distraction. They furiously paddle as they circle in the same patch of water, wondering why they have so little to show for so much effort or mistaking the splashes and movement as inching closer to their objective.

But it is to doers—with that right touch of reflection—that purpose and achievement come.

It is to the doers that the listlessness is shaken off and vigor surges through the chest.

It is to the doers that the Muses deign with their grace.

And it is to the doers that the wreaths are won, that the statues are cast, and whose names will live on on the lips of those who’ve yet to come.