As one thinks of life’s purpose, many a time the screaming sounds and the sparkling flashlights blur the very essence of nature. 
A common current trend of focusing on life’s materialism leaves us living a life where our biggest task becomes the transference of wants into needs.
With such an endless yet futile pathway, we become prisoners to cravings: for wealth, for substances, for power…the list is endless.
Is this the sole purpose of human life?
If it were so, then humanity is but a reduction, that renders our lives unnecessarily burdensome and largely meaningless. Was it not better than to just be a cow, care no less than responding to instincts as we await the human-driven fate of converting us into a meal?
If reductionism were all that mattered, why were we endowed with memory, logical thinking, and even with moral reasoning? Such are the questions that point to deeper thinking and to the conclusion that humans must have a different pathway worth pursuing.
How about this:
An embrace of humility: a humble submission to God’s Will and purpose.
While I do not purport to be a preacher, a religious, or even a spiritual guide, I advocate for a life of humility.
Humility entails one’s ability to recognize one’s limitations. I am as alive as my next single breath; or rather, I am sure of my being alive, in as much as I shall release the breath that I have just taken in.
As I collapse, medics can have all manners of explanations and justifications, stating that it was heart failure, or stroke, or…. religious and spiritual leaders may call it God’s Will.
Cultural spiritualists may attach the lifelessness to being bewitched, or to any other cause. The ignorant as well as those who are a little too tired or even lazy to think shall but acclaim, “I do not know what happened”.
All the diverse statements emanating from thoughts that are wrapped in feelings of loss or even good riddance shall be stating one thing; his/her life has come to an end. He/she can no longer take in a breath and get it out; the heart can no more do its miraculous pumping of the blood; the cells can no more have life.
In a nutshell, the beacon shall be; let us think of the fastest ways to dispose of the rotting body, and get on with the lives of the living; he/she is no more one of us.
Such reflections, remind me to lower the shoulders that I had raised in pride thinking that I was on top of the world.
Such thoughts, remind me to walk and talk in humility, aware that all is grace, and all that I boast of, vanity.
Such statements, shake my mind to wake up to the reality that each person that I come across is as important as I am; all of us are equal beneficiaries of the gift of life, which is packaged in small pockets of breath, and in cans of health.
I cannot be but humble and grateful to grace.
A partaker and champion of unity in oneness: It is not so much that the human person desires to be united, but rather nature requires that we be united.
Together, we are able to ensure that the human generation does not become extinct and obsolete, for it is only in pairs that procreation can happen.
I guess some are about to correct me when they think of spam banks (allow me to reserve that discussion for another write-up). When we are together, we can better compete for resources and subdue the rest of creation.
As one focuses on health, the other has eyes on security, another on transport… the list can go on and on as long as there is a profession and competency, that is yet to be accommodated. It is not futile then that it was uttered that, “unity is strength”. Also, in another saying, “If you want to go fast, go alone; if you want to go far, go together”.
From an economic perspective, riches do not convert into wealth, until they surpass a generation.
Do we then have a choice but to be champions of unity? How come then that oftentimes, this reality is inversely observed when we nurture racism, and negative ethnicity, amidst other divisive acts?
Where have our wild competitions come from and where are they leading us; so much so that we are ready to even eliminate to win?
How come we are so wild at inculcating competition in our children in their entire life of schooling, so much so that examination “As” takes precedence over the knowledge and values acquired?
Are we then surprised that people will go all the way into cheating and immense corruption in order to, apparently be at the top?
Intrinsically, the feminine species appears to have more instinct towards cooperation, though this appears to be in the process of gradual disintegration following intense and strong patriarchal waves.
On the contrary, the masculine is geared more towards competition. One can almost pick this dichotomy when watching young children play. Cutthroat competitions and the have to win at all costs, is a tangent that is gradually choking the world. Unfortunately, it is so well wrapped, that it appears such a gem.
Parents are even shrewdly teaching it to their children in the name of value, power, and success. As mentioned previously, schools have also embraced it with teachers, going out of their way to inculcate that “value” in the name of examinations and subsequent “A” grades.
What was started by parents, the first teachers, is well and shrewdly cemented in the over 16 years of formal schooling, and then the graduates are released into the world of adulthood.
In this arena, the race for jobs becomes a death race, fit for the fittest, arrived at through how well one is known and akin to the one at the top, and through how much one can offer as a bribe.
While it is important to watch and deal with complacency, which communism and at times our African socialism, can easily nurture, it is equally if not more important to deal with unhealthy competition.
Life has more to it than mere competition for resources. Human life is not all about tags of failures versus successful persons in life. A society whose all is about winning, has its individuals easily going for under-belt jabs, to be at the top at all costs. Through this, the world sacrifices her integral best.
Let us inculcate integral value, teamwork, family cooperation, and space for each to realize their full potential.
Together we can realize synergy, that surpasses individual outshining.
Commitment to mission: Humanity calls upon individuals to be family. Within this microcosmic unit, sharing is meant to happen, life propagated, and security realized.
A step further up embraces the bigger community of the extended family, workmates, and even neighbours. In this bigger circle, health for each individual and all permits us to better generate and take care of each and all.
Education in this bigger circle propels exploration of wider circles and so the awareness and subsequent exploitation of available resources. However, it also renders us stewards to what we have received from earlier generations, and so we too become keepers for the sake of those in coming generations.
For there to be the sustainability of each, we are implored to work, generate and create wealth. This is the manner through which we become co-creators and in so doing, life begets value and meaning. This is our mission.
The presence of wealth calls for equitable sharing, or at least justifiable rewards linked to work and production.
Such sharing then generates morality and ethics, where the human being gets value for who he/she is.
Governments are created to take care of the population and the amicable rights and duties of each. Social life begets meaning as we then have schools, hospitals, and even churches.
For the success of each, every individual is called to mission; to ensure that I do to others that which I would rather they do to me. And by extension, I am called to be my brother and sister’s keeper, as they also watch my back. I am also meant to take sustainable charge of the environment, for it and I (we are) part of nature. I am but a steward.
As an offshoot of the commitment to the mission, I am invited to advocate for justice.
If I were to be granted ownership of all that the world has, and all others were rendered lifeless, life would immediately cease to have meaning. Are we so quick to forget the fairy story of the King who had a golden touch; and all that he touched became gold?
The happiness was temporal as he thought he was the richest, until he could not eat for the food had become gold, and he could not embrace his daughter, who too had become gold. It is for this reason that we have to give space to the other. This is justice.
Justice entails honesty, truthfulness, and equity in the distribution of resources. Are we not all equal?: irrespective of what we possess as individuals, each of us was born by parents to whom he/she had not requested; each was taken care of by midwives that he/she had not educated; each was attended in a hospital that he/she had not built, went to a school, and perhaps is working and getting clients from people that she/he had nothing to do with their upbringing.
The world and those in it, who then had a little more power than us, did justice for us to be where we are today. Ultimately, each of us at a time to come, shall be rendered lifeless. The remnant shall either be interred or placed in an inferno, as a logical yet healthy disposal mode.
Each is part of a larger society within which individual life begets meaning. Needless to point out again, I am because we are; Ubuntu.
Amicable interactions can only be possible if there is justice. It is all right to have institutions of justice to keep watch. However, each is invited to inculcate in themselves a sense of individual justice. This is the bare minimum within which human life gets meaning.
There is inner satisfaction, in being just, truthful, and honest. It is not news how lack of justice breads corruption, poverty, violence, and anger, amidst other vices that not only corrupt the human mind, but eat into the moral fiber of society, rendering it rot. The vice of injustice brings ultimate suffering, temporarily to the individual victims, then in the long run, to the larger community and in the very end, to the initial instigator.
“When you are blessed, live as per the blessings”, these were the words of a certain preacher addressing mourning congregants. While many of us count blessings as per the amount of wealth owned, this write-up desires to look at wealth as per the graces that the Divine has bestowed upon each. Since not all are best in the same way, each is mandated to have some degree of charity to the other.
This means that rather than proudly looking at the self as wealthier than the other, or looking at the other as lazy and hence poor, addressing individual as well as social justice, the gaps shall be minimized.
In addition, some form of charity will ensure that the other does not sink into abject poverty, and eventually also pull me and us down. No one is too poor to give, and no one is too rich not to need something from the other.
A short reminder is that we are all part of the team that is called humanity.
Each is just but an intended team player. Any look at the self as otherwise, is a jeopardy to the very gift that has been given. At some point, each shall need the other. It is only fair that he/she that appears endowed in a certain angle, can extend a hand to the brother or sister. Such is justice; such is by extension charity.
I am yet to hear of one that has been rendered poor due to charity.
Yet in giving we receive, and abundantly is the reception. However, check be kept that the same charity does not target self-glory, while on the part of the receiver, increasing self-hate and bitterness. Together with charity, goes kindness and benevolence. In addition, with the two, also is the important adage of teaching the recipient how to fish, so that he/she is not perpetually extending a hand, in order to receive.
This is the duty of the giver, and this is sustainable. Charity must be sustainable, for it to have a lasting impact.
This reflection has indicatively looked at the human person as being supreme to other creations. Indeed, the human being is a co-creator, and that gives sense to the rational, memory, as well as moral reasoning that elevates each above the rest of fauna and flora.
Based on this understanding, it, therefore, becomes a little illogical to operate at a reduced capacity, of living true to the statement, survival for the fittest. In this capacity, the individual operates at the level of the Id, where the unconscious psychic energy only works to satisfy basic individual urges, needs, and desires.
This is the platform upon which the immature mind of a child operates. Surely, the human being in adulthood is meant to operate above that.
It is only then that the individual shall value the intense faculties within the self, through self-awareness. It is also then that the individual will value relationships, where the focus goes beyond individual profit, to that of the community and society. It is only then that the individual will derive meaning in relating with the Supreme Being, and in being benevolent for value, morality, and ethics, take center stage.
One will do good for good’s sake and derive inner satisfaction and happiness. The suggested components: humility, unity, commitment, justice as well as charity, contribute towards a view of life that is beyond the Id.
For it is in engaging at that level, that life’s meaning is understood and appropriate social transformation is nurtured.
