Sense of purpose

This is something I've been thinking about, kind of below the surface, through all this.

One thing I sometimes do when I'm getting dressed for the day (which is faster now because I take less time on my hair, and don't put on hose, and do stripped-down make up if I do make up at all) is the BBC 4 "Prayer for the Day" which has a variety of different perspectives, not exclusively Christian

Today's (which you can hear here) comes from a Christian arts charity worker.

And it caught me. I stopped what I was doing and listened through it, and teared up a little.

Because she was talking about purpose and productivity. And the central question, being, "What is our purpose in all this?"

And yes - the lack of structure she speaks of is hard for me. I realize I have really bought into the idea that my "meaning" comes from "what I am doing" particularly "what am I doing that 'counts' with other people"

In part, I blame the way academia works, that you have to document and "prove" the worth of everything you do.

And that's in tension and contradiction with what she reminds us is the Christian meaning of "purpose" - she cites the Two Great Commandments and I admit, having less contact with my "neighbors" (my colleagues, my students, my friends at church) means I can't DO the things I normally do that is a form of loving them - well, still, I can do those things in some way. (I have been trying to reassure anxious students over e-mail, though that's hard when you are anxious about what's going on yourself).

And I realize: why is this so hard for ME? Why do *I* have to do something, I think, to justify my existence? I think of a conversation I had online with someone - this was someone with some health challenges (some of them developmental/emotional) and they commented something along the lines that if we let certain "medical ethicists" run the world, they would never have been born, as they fell into a category that arguably would be "does not have good quality of life" and I'm also reminded of the slight pressure my brother and sister-in-law felt, when expecting their daughter, because my sister-in-law was an "older" first-time mother - and how one of the OBs apparently asked her "and what are you going to do if this testing shows the fetus has Down syndrome?" and she assumed that the suggestion was to say "terminate the pregnancy" but my sister-in-law's response was "then we will learn what a child with Down syndrome needs to thrive, and do that"

And yes. I am a pretty firm believer in the idea that people with Down syndrome - or whatever issue - have the right to exist. And perhaps they teach the rest of us something important.

And my online friend and I had similar discussions about the aged, because another thing this so-called ethicist was implying was that older people should be okay with the fact that they might get sick and die of the virus, in favor of "reopening" (Well, joke's on them: my mom has what she needs to continue to stay home, for months if that's what it takes, and she is retired with enough funds that she wouldn't have to go out and work. Though of course not all elders enjoy this privilege)

Then why am I so gosh-darned focused on having to do "enough" to justify my own existence? Why do I set "laxer standards" for other people's "purpose" than my own?

And I have to work on this idea, given that it might be as short as a decade (or even less, considering on events) until I retire, and yes, yes, in more "normal" times, in retirement you can go out and do volunteer work and I'm actually beginning to think that taking a more-active role in the Native Plant Society than I have to this point - especially with the publications they put out - might be a good thing (I once swore I'd never serve as a volunteer journal editor)

But I think that's a hard lesson for a lot of us right now. And I intentionally referred to a lot of the stuff you see online as "productivity porn" - because it is that, it is something weirdly gratifying and yet also false and is not real for real life.

I think a related issue with this a throwaway comment I saw on Twitter, about "why are people bothering to bake bread? Stores and even bakeries are open and their bread is better" and there are a couple problems with that for me.

I mean, the most "duh" and banal reason - though that individual might not consider it - is that a lot of us DON'T have dedicated bakeries near us, and while you can get *tolerable* bread at the grocery store - well, here in down there isn't a grocery whose in-store bakery makes very good bread. So even my imperfect homemade attempts are better than most grocery-store bread.

But also: for one thing, baking bread takes TIME. You have to mix it up and knead it and wait while it rises and then punch it down and then either let it rise again or shape it and let it rise again, and then bake it. And while some of that time is wait-time while you can do other things, still - if you're home all day long, it does give you something to get up and work on periodically.

I think though, for a lot of people - it gives a sense of control over a tiny corner of your world. You can point to the bread you made and say "I did this." And there is a certain satisfaction in cutting into it, and eating a slice, and saying "this is good. This is good and I made this" and maybe for a lot of people, that's not something they get in their careers, the chance to look at a tangible thing and said "I made this and it is good"

And maybe that does give a person a bit of a sense of purpose. I've been cooking more in this - I've made beans, and I've made various dishes with whatever meat I can get (I got some ground beef in my Imperfect Foods box, so chili will be a thing tomorrow). I baked a wacky cake, and I almost never bother to bake.

It's a *different* purpose. It's different from going out and trying to change the world or make a lot of money* or any of the reasons we go out to work


(*Heh. I remember a comment my dad made, years and years ago, when my sister-in-law completed her doctoral degree - all of us but my brother had one - and at that time my brother was working in a fairly good job at State Farm - and the joke was "There are going to be four people in this family with Ph.D.s and one who makes a lot of money" but then my brother burned out on State Farm and my sister-in-law had a pretty good job as a forensic chemist, so she proposed he quit his job and do something he really wanted, which was to get a Master's of Divinity, and now he is a mostly-stay-at-home dad who does a little teaching on the side and preaches the occasional sermon and does stained-glass work....)

But also, really, knitting is like that too. Yes, knitted items have their practicality, just as home-baked bread does. But you can buy a sweater cheaper at the store (though made under what conditions? And made of what materials?) than you can buy one, and knitting a sweater can take *months* to do.

I spent some time last night knitting on the shawl I started a couple weeks back. And it felt right again, it felt like "I want to do more of this." So maybe I'm beginning to learn to relax back to a slower rhythm, and to be a little bit less consumed by the need to produce - reports, or articles, or teaching, or things that are all for other people or are to "prove" to other people that my life has meaning. Because really? It has meaning because it IS, and I need to remind myself of that.