So what’s the point?

I don’t know.  But maybe in the grand scheme of things, that’s the only question that matters:  What’s your point… or more appropriately, what is your purpose?

I had a teacher in high school that said something like, “We discover the purpose of things by examining their nature.”  His example–a flower–was broken down into its individual parts: petals, stamen, pollen, fragrance, etc. …and explained explained away that each of these pieces contributes to the flowers purpose: to propagate the species via pollinators.

And I remember thinking, even in my wise-fool year of high school, that’s all well and good… but it doesn’t account for the clover flowers we picked in my Nana’s yard and delivered to her for proud display in a glass Pepsi bottle in her kitchen; it didn’t acknowledge the flowers we lay on her grave when she died; it didn’t consider the meaning of matching the corsage color to the dress of my Homecoming Dance date.  Things aren’t that simple…. and trying to put purpose into a neat little box (even a small clear plastic one that sits in the fridge with an expensive array of baby roses that will ultimately get thrown away after the dance at the local In N Out) doesn’t really work.

Since magnolias and other flowering plants first appeared on the planet millions of years ago in the Mesozoic, they have certainly changed, but slowly: daisies beget daisies, roses make roses, and coreopsises… you get the idea.  But people– people change moment to moment.  Their purpose can’t often be defined by their natures, which are inextricably connected to thousands of daily inputs that can shift our hearts, heads, and guts in profound and immediate ways.

I’ve spent a lot of my life accomplishing, but always considering the roads not taken, the “what ifs” and “why nots.”  I tried to grow myself, I tried to educate myself, I collaborated, I extroverted, I learned to be a leader.  And I look back… now about half-way down the path, and recognize the places I could have done more, worked harder.  Peter Senge says, “The purpose of education is to allow me to become me in the context of the society in which I live so that I may contribute meaningfully to that society.”  And that may be… but in other contexts–those perhaps closer to our nature to survive, to reproduce, to win, to live… that purpose of education or destruction or reproduction takes on a different meaning, a different measurement of legacy.

What’s my purpose?  I can point at a thousand things and at nothing, and all in one sitting.