Being, Purpose, & Destiny

Whispered in the sounds of silence.

To my readers and subscribers, my tardiness in posting last Sunday’s article is due to a shorten holiday week, second quarter financial reviews and an abundance of current writing projects. Please enjoy today’s offering, share my work and comment as the spirit moves you. As always, paid subscriptions are greatly appreciated.

Who am I is a question of being. Why am I here is a question of purpose.  Where am I going is a question of destiny.

I now have a keen understanding of what my grandparents went through in the 70s and 80s. Their hierarchical world of God, family, occupation and politics was entirely upset by the young rebels listening to rock'n'roll music, smoking dope and ignoring the church. They shook their head in disgust with the sensation that the country they knew and loved was going to the damnation bow-wows. Though the children of the 70s and 80s were a generation that fell away from the church, they didn't necessarily upset the hierarchy. God and family remained toward the top and jobs, politics were still relegated toward the bottom of their grandchildren’s priorities. In fact, trust in government was at the bottom of the heap.

As I approach my 60s, I sense the same apprehension regarding today's youth as my grandparents. I witness another generation falling further away from God. But unlike the apathy of Generation X, today's Gen. Z seems all too willing to invert the hierarchy. Government has replaced God as the highest good followed by occupation, family and finally, if they can admit that there is a being higher than themselves, God is granted a toehold at the bottom.

This understanding comes from watching a generation petition government to solve all their problems and insist that their jobs must provide them with not only their physical needs, but their metaphysical needs as well. The work younger generations seek must have purpose. Not the kind of purpose that gains skills and advances careers, but a political purpose like slaying the dragon known as climate change. On top of that weighty expectation, Gen Z's employers must nail the most nebulous, subjective and impossible notion to define, “work-life balance” or young employee will simply "quiet-quit" while searching for the next company that offers them something that is truly impossible to behold.

When Thomas Jefferson penned the Declaration of Independence he inserted, “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness." For many years, I pondered what “pursuit of happiness” meant? Life and liberty we're easy to comprehend. But how could a government guarantee every citizen's pursuit of happiness? It can't unless one properly translates pursuit of happiness to mean “individuality.” Thomas Jefferson wrote that a Just government must secure, at its pinnacle, the ontological notions of life, liberty and individuality. More importantly, a Just government must protect these rights because it is God's intent.

The Declaration of Independence of the United States of America was founded on the notion that, above all else, government must protect and secure every individual's sense of being, purpose and destiny. Who am I is a question of life. Why am I here is a question of liberty. Where am I going is a question of individual pursuit. We need to hold these truths as self-evident or a nefarious government will interpret them on our behalf. Up to the founding of the United States, all governments answered my three basic questions thus:

Who am I was a question of subjugation to which state.

Why am I here was a question of collectiveness purpose for that state.

Where am I going was the question of “none of your business peasant!”

Whereas prior governments use tyrannical force to subdue such metaphysical ponderings as destiny, our current governments are deploying the soft tyranny of lowered expectations combined with the tribal notion of collective salvation to render those questions as superfluous under "Constitutional" rule as they once were under kings and queens.

And just like living a truly happy life follows the hierarchical positioning of:

God

Family

Occupation

Government

So too does it follow that my three questions must progress in logical order. Until we get a sense of our being, we have no chance and understanding our purpose and destiny. What ill-intentioned governments do is sidestep those first two important questions and offer its unsuspecting citizens the answer to the third question. Is there a greater example of this bleak reality then the abortion argument? Pro-choice governments are all too happy to promote abortion as the be-all answer the question of destiny, all the while entirely ignoring the first two essential questions of being and purpose. In fact, virtually every state manufactured "right" follows that same formula. Whether it be civil rights, sexual identity rights or any of what seams to be an endless supply of government issued "rights," the premise of the decreed event is that government has best determined the individuals' destiny, thus saving them from the difficult work of discovering their own sense of being and purpose.

Think I am being overly dramatic? What is the driving force behind social media platforms. Is it not the same motivation as government? The very premise of posting on social media is to project one's perceived destiny while spending no time first discovering their individual sense of being or purpose. People shell out thousands of dollars to nab a selfie at a Taylor Swift concert just for photographic evidence of their projected destiny. Countless people posting social media photos of themselves in various states of dress (or undress) further illustrate their desire to place destiny prior to being and purpose. If one truly had a notion of their own being, they would not have the unimaginable desire to post 90% of the self-aggrandizing pics filling their Twitter feeds.

Add to the list of institutions putting the destiny cart before the being and purpose horse are universities. How else could universities get unsuspecting students to mortgage their future in debt if not for selling the picture of their destiny without touching either being or purpose? In fact, on the modern college campus, it is near forbidden to teach metaphysics, at least from the perspective of an individual self. Universities are long on teaching students about their destiny of being on the right side if history but fall incredibly short on teaching what it means to one's consciousness to sell their soul to the devil of collective salvation. If universities did their job of teaching profound liberal arts, graduates would not feel the need to continue their feckless college activism beyond their ivy-covered walls and into corporate boardrooms.

Want to get our government right? Return to self-discovery of answering, who am I, why am I here, and where am I going? For that will lead to a government that has no choice but to fulfill its mission of protecting Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. The political will to do so will never happen as long as people are subdued by governments, employers and institutions taking that God-giving right to question existence away from the unsuspecting population while spoon-feeding prepackaged destiny as its new opium of the masses.

In my youthful time, Simon and Garfunkel's song, "The Sounds of Silence," spoke to a generation throwing off the yoke of institutional complacency. It is, however, more apropos that Gen Z adopts Desturbed's updated version, "The Sound of Silence."  I believe his intensity better captures the gravity our younger generations face in the uphill battle against institutions hell-bent on removing their God-given right to seek, who are they, why are they here and where are they going?

And the people bowed and prayed

To the (neocon) they made

And the sign flashed out its warning

In the words that it was forming

Then the sign said, "The words on the prophets are written on the (FaceBook) walls

In (ivory) halls"

And whispered in the sound of silence