Today marks exactly 12 months since I started cycling from Musina to Cape Town.
It is 15:32, 03 April as I write, and by this time of the day I was baking in the Limpopo heat and my legs were screaming for me to stop. Eventually, I stopped at a cafe, lay on my back, put my legs on a pillar and wondered what stupidity I had gotten myself into.
Another revealing moment was when I stopped under a tree for a short break from the droning sun. I recall commenting that, “now, this is luxury.” That seemingly trivial comment has since become the lens through which I see much of the world today – in response to the question, what is the purpose of life?
Nihilism
You should watch the movie Everything Everywhere All at Once. Without spoiling it, it is a portrait of a philosophical idea called nihilism. Although I cannot say for sure, Nihilism found traction in the late 1800s from thinkers like Friedrick Nietzsche. Nietzsche, who was bedridden and suffering from a debilitating neurological disorder, and realising that he did not have much time to live, wrote dense books that not only stunned academia but gave birth to new ways of thinking. Among others, people like Hitler are said to have been inspired by the works of Nietzsche.
Nietzsche is most famous for saying, “God is dead, and we have killed him.” He was reflecting on the spirit of the times, noting a transition among ordinary people from believing in God to believing in science. This was significant because faith in God meant that there was one place from which people drew their morality (a sense of right and wrong). However, the rise of science, which was predicated on the idea that we, rational human beings, can use reason to solve all our problems, meant that God became a sideshow. He became a spiritual butler – someone we praise to when we needed something done in the spiritual realm. But with God dead how, then, could we determine right and wrong?
Nietzsche grapples with this question and prophesied that having lost a central well from which to drink the waters of morality, people would make up their morality and we would descend into chaos because there would be no consistent sense of right and wrong. With no morality, there would be no purpose (or at least some of the virtues that bring purpose to life would be trivialised). To his credit, his prophecy became somewhat true when looking back at the 20th Century and the chaos that ensued from the two Great Wars and other human catastrophes.
Purpose
I bring up Nihilism because it is thought to be a negative thing. What is a man without purpose if not a bird without wings, one might say?
However, I disagree that purpose is an intrinsic part of human motivation. For starters, most people find their purpose by accident or it is nurtured. For example, old Kings, whose purpose was supposedly divine, were schooled their whole lives to act like royalty. For many of us, if a child dies of cancer, let’s say, and suddenly we become cancer activists. If we grow up in poverty, we find meaning in building businesses and creating wealth. If a child is born or if we get married our purpose changes. Of course, finding purpose does not always unfold this way. However, my point is that Purpose is a product of circumstance and is not a birthright or God-given.
Going back to that moment under the tree when I said, “Now, this is luxury,” I realised that for the next two months, at least, my purpose was different. A few months before that day, I would not have regarded standing under a tree as a luxury because I spent most days sitting in an air-conditioned office. I had a driver on call and could summon a luxury bus anytime. My purpose at the time was to build large businesses and make lots of money. However, that all changed at some point and cycling from Musina to Cape Town to raise funds for 10,000 school shoes became the purpose. This shows that when we are in the spirit of a purpose, so to speak, we forget that it is fungible – that it is not permanent.
One might argue that I am using fickle examples like building a business or cycling from Musina to Cape Town. What about existential purposes – I don’t know – like changing the world in one way or another? One can think about Martin Luther King and his dream, Nelson Mandela and his long walk to freedom, or Steve Biko and his black consciousness. What about a purpose to which people dedicate their lives? I maintain that purpose is a product of circumstances and that if one holds on to a purpose even when circumstances have changed then misalignment will follow. For instance, it is thoroughly documented and accepted that freedom fighters do not make great governors i.e. the purpose of fighting for freedom requires different competencies from that of governing and many fighters fail to make the transition.
What about the will to live? Isn’t that – living itself – the ultimate purpose? Even a man who hangs himself does not go gently into the midnight, one could say. Therefore the will to live is baked into our DNA.
This cannot be true. Suppose we stripped away all your facilities to reason and experience the world. Suppose we placed you in a permanent coma, let’s say, where you would not die if left unattended, but you would not experience anything either. In that state, would you still argue that living is itself purposeful? I doubt. It seems that purpose is reserved for those who can not only experience but also contend with the world i.e. act in the world such that circumstances might change in favour of an ideal. This is to say, purpose is reserved for moral agents i.e. people who can tell right from wrong and be held accountable for their actions.this suggests that purpose is man made and is informed by other things, including our biological needs.
Without Purpose
At this point, you might think I am deep in the dungeon of nihilism – devoid of meaning as Nietzsche feared. However, I want to address three issues:
Suppose we had a box called Purpose and we opened it to look inside. We would find that Purpose serves us in three distinct ways. There is a moral aspect of purpose i.e. I am doing something because it is right, and not doing it is wrong. Then there’s the psychological aspect of Purpose i.e. I am doing this because it is rewarding or it will be rewarding in future. There is also the social (or coordinating) aspect of Purpose i.e. telling people what I believe in attracts supporters and importantly, separates me from nonbelievers. All of the above are bundled in the word Purpose and it is no wonder that Purpose is powerful.
While preparing to cycle from Musina to Cape Town, most people asked me the big WHY question. When I arrived in Cape Town, the question seemed more pressing, be it on radio stations or people I came across, the question was always WHY. The truth is I did not have a big why. All I knew was that I wanted to do it and I did it. For me, this was not a big existential issue that warranted speeches. Hence, I struggle to say something profound that will probably inspire someone else to follow suit.
Also, the issue regarding school shoes was less profound and more of a practical decision. A friend convinced me to use the initiative to benefit others. I agreed. Initially, I wanted to cycle to raise money for potholes in Joburg. Then I saw a video of Mr Beast donating school shoes in Cape Town. I called the foundation they used and we shook hands within two days. I also ran a school in Limpopo and was aware of the difference that school shoes make, having seen many kids walk to school. You see? The story is hardly inspiring and that is why I never told it.
However, I hope you can also see that Purpose does not matter in the final analysis. Yes, we console ourselves for having tried and for having had good intentions. We love stories that inspire and leave us in awe. These all play into our psychological thirst; the need to feel like we are doing something important. However, contrary to what Simon Sinek preached, the WHY does not really matter. What matters is getting the job done and getting it done properly.
I also believe that people fall in love with progress and are distressed by having goals they cannot achieve. In other words, even individuals at work gravitate towards winning companies and teams. The feeling of accomplishment – rather than vision boards and words on a wall – creates a need for more accomplishment. The pursuit of more accomplishment is ultimately the coordinating factor that people need. Taken back to the hunter-gatherer days, I imagine a cohort of hunters that caught animals was attracted – not because of a grand purpose, but because they were competent and got the job done.
Lastly, there is the moral aspect of purpose. I am currently studying moral philosophy. Therefore, I may have a bit too much to say about this topic. Nevertheless, there are various moral theories (theories of what makes right and wrong). Some theories are based on outcomes, as I have been preaching in this newsletter. They state that how and why you do something does not matter; what matters is doing it. Other theories preach character virtues i.e. one is a good person if one’s character is developed. In other words, if one’s intentions are good then the outcomes can be justified or at least be exonerated from blame. Other theories preach the doctrine of doing unto others as you would have them do unto you. But what if I am a psychopath? As you can see, the moral aspect of Purpose is also a dodgy.
My view, therefore, is that purpose is overrated. As my mom preached, what matters is how the kitchen looks. Whether it was cleaned with tears or willingly, it must be clean.
Positivity In Nihilism
Even without purpose, one can still find joy in the ordinary life. For instance, I find joy in playing the piano, writing and debating philosophical ideas. There is no grand purpose attached to any of these activities. I become better and better at them, not because of purpose, but because I practice every day. I do not practice because of purpose, I practice because I enjoy the process. I am not attached to the outcome of these activities except that they bring joy when I am doing them.
Contrary to the view that Nihilism leads to inevitable despair, I think the opposite is true. Having purpose and therefore getting attached to a certain aspect of the world brings suffering. Incidentally, the Buddha saw this and it became part of the Four Noble Truths, which he preached to his disciples. He said (and I will share only three of the 4 truths):
- Life is suffering
- Attachments cause suffering
- The end of suffering comes with an end to attachments
The fourth truth is prescriptive; it is a doctrine on how to end suffering, which is the foundation of Buddhism. I left it out because this is not about Buddhism, except to point out that Purpose, although dressed up as the one thing that everybody must have in the West, was seen as the source of suffering in the East.
This is the biggest change in me since I cycled from Musina to Cape Town. I am detached from Purpose. Knowing that most people are fueled by it, I can also wield purpose (or the language of purpose) to get things done or to inspire. But ultimately, I am increasingly concerned with outcomes and less so with the means by which those outcomes are attained. Of course, there are potential problems with this view, especially of a moral kind.
Nevertheless, the day I stopped under a tree and realised that it too was luxury, a subtle change began. I realised that anything can be a luxury if we detach ourselves from grandiosity and enjoy the tiny moments in our midst.
This brings me to the future of this newsletter. I will no longer write every Sunday. I write when I have something to say. Sometimes, I will write during the week and sometimes I will take several weeks off. My initial plan was to grow this newsletter and gain subscriptions. That meant adopting several disciplines like writing consistently at a certain time and publishing every week and doing research and writing from the audience’s perspective – the list is long. But that Purpose has since dissolved. I will write for the joy of it. If the newsletter grows then so be it. If it does not, then that is also fine.
I can only hope that you find and share in the joy of thinking and writing.
Until next time.
Vusi Sindane
