Higher Purpose - Now or Later?

"I’m a firm believer in ensuring one should create a stable and successful position for oneself and one’s family first because it is from there that one is then able to make a greater difference socially (be that for ‘higher purpose or otherwise’)," writes Ben Metcalfe, a former member of Citizen Agency with Tara Hunt and Chris Messina.

I see an interesting conversation about to ensue around higher purpose, calling, and compromising and not compromising art at Tara Hunt's HorsePigCow blog.

"If Al Gore had been interested in the environment from the beginning he probably would have forged a career in politics to become a lowly environmental campaigner. Who knows where he would be now. But I doubt he would have the power and influence to assert his ‘higher purpose’ as he does now given the base he established for himself. Same for Warren Buffet," continues Ben.

I hadn't thought of Buckminster Fuller when I wrote my follow-on comment, but he comes to mind now. I pretty much think of him as one of my own inspirational heroes.

"The minute you begin to do what you really want to do, it's really a different kind of life." - Buckminster Fuller

"In 1927, at the age of 32, Buckminster Fuller stood on the shores of Lake Michigan, prepared to throw himself into the freezing waters. His first child had died. He was bankrupt, discredited and jobless, and he had a wife and new-born daughter. On the verge of suicide, it suddenly struck him that his life belonged, not to himself, but to the universe. He chose at that moment to embark on what he called “an experiment to discover what the little, penniless, unknown individual might be able to do effectively on behalf of all humanity.” - Buckminster Fuller Institute

If you're not familiar with the rest of his experiment, here's a bit more on Bucky Fuller. I also remember reading that he would simply go about his work for a new project, and he trusted that he'd get his funding. And it always worked out - oft times in the 11th hour - but if the vision came, it was conceived.

In my comments in Tara's blog, I start: "Whether what I call what I do ‘higher purpose’ or not, all I know that is my inspirations come from a place that feels greater than myself and my own survival and bigger than just expressing myself. Just feel it can’t be only about me and how I am putting food on the table for myself any longer. Once I had strong inclinations and visions, I couldn’t be sure it was in anyone’s best interests to abort them and pretend them away.

To that end, though, I don’t believe that any sacrifice is in order, and I spent far too long on a renunciate path to know that is misguided as well. As Ben says he “infer[s] that one should sacrifice one’s opportunity to become rich and successful in order to strive for one’s higher purpose.”

I suppose that I don’t really buy into that binary view.

I think being motivated/captivated/enchanted by the higher purpose is in itself the driving force that will get one to wake up in the morning and do everything possible to see it through. It’s hard for me to be motivated by the carrot of future riches and future purpose dangling.

I suppose that I have had this VERY same discussion with a friend of mine that is concerned about me: he says that I should be practical and seek my own stability in wealth, and then I can be a philanthropist later. He doesn’t know me (or believe my stories) from my days when this is PRECISELY what I tried.

I came close enough to being a dot-com millionaire on paper. As luck would have it just about the time the whole house of cards was collapsing that I read Randy Komisar’s book in 2000. Waiting for higher purpose someday later he refers to as the deferred life plan.

This is it folks, you can be hit by a truck or a tsunami any moment.

(BTW, his WONDERFUL book for entrepreneurs is “The Monk and the Riddle,” and Randy is a VC at Kleiner Perkins [interview with Randy at Venture Voice]. He’s one to assert both/and too: values driving success. Just recalled that he is Buddhist [since Ben had mentioned Buddhist philosophy]. Another Buddhist book that is about higher purpose AND wealth that I absolutely loved is “The Diamond Cutter”.)"

p.s. The reason I (and many artists I believe) avoid calling,or higher purpose, hasn't anything really to do with fear around money. That's only the obvious excuse.

image Anthony Ulinski's Still Life with Shadow and Yellow Teapots (for sale)

Update: Should I ever meld together reader comments below (thanks Bruce, A Foolish Guy, and TorAa) and my comments here and over at Tara's blog post on higher purpose and Tara's readers' comments, whew, that'd be one heck of a post.

While running around the high school track I had enough time to get a bit more "out of my head", and remember that after my all-so-serious-and-four-year-long-quest that begain "what is my purpose, or in more plebian terms, why is it I would bother waking up tomorrow?" what I've learned is that the people I know that are living their highest purpose do it so totally, so naturally, so spontaneously that I'm not sure they could even articulate it for me. They act and live in lock-step with their heart - and the heart doesn't explain itself. Anyhow, they don't need to: Art speaks for itself (or in other words, explaining kills art).

"The task is not to find the lovable object, but to find the object before you lovable.” – Soren Kierkegaard, “Works of Love"

Often we discount what we are working this very minute too easily in the search for something that is higher, better, loftier. Later. Bring your best to every task every minute. I don’t advocate stressing about knowing if you have a higher purpose or not. Or worrying if you are doing ‘it’ right or not.

I have spent too much time in past fretting whether I was living my purpose and since I wasn’t quite sure what my purpose was that gave me a lot to stress about - rather than just living that minute, and the next minute, and the next. (It’s not really YOUR higher purpose anyhow.)

In the living of it, the purpose unfolds.

Maybe we might allow ourselves to be ameniable to living out any inspired vision that is already making its way into heart. And I have a feeling it would not be making itself so clearly known if there wouldn't be any foundation coming with it. If nothing is making itself too clear, just trust you are living it and enjoy what you are up to.

When I’m stumped about proceeding (higher purpose or no), I’ve found a little time each day in quiet helps set the tone for the rest of the day:

“The self-conscious mind cannot reach silent knowing, but silent knowing can reach into it at rare moments when the internal talk ceases, allowing other things to be heard. Everyone has these moments, when the world turns quiet and an indefinable calm washes over us.” - John Lamb Lash, "Not in His Image"

It is at these times that the clarity makes the next step more obvious, especially since 'higher purpose' can seem so hugely overwhelming and daunting - so where would you begin?

My housemate's refrigerator magnet may say it all: "Ask your heart what's right, and follow it." Although that's the training wheels version to get practice. It becames our nature, not our second nature, to just follow our heart without asking and without reservations. And so without even being aware of any higher purpose or striving towards higher purpose we end up on purpose totally spontaneously.

Comments

[TorAa]

You are so right, you can be hit by whatever it might be: an icicle from a roof, a brick from an old building, a tree during strong wind, a flowerpot from a balcony, a car, a crazy alpinist, heartattack....

Thoughtful post. Thank you.

=^.^=

[Bruce]

Higher purpose now or later? Hardly a question at all from a certain point of view. After all, "we" are going to do what we do. As long as I think I am "the decider," the vast probablity is that any activity I think I am driving will only delay a clear vision of what might truly help. Tho' I have seen it said that within Samsara, attempts at right action will further: kindness toward strangers, recycling, healthful living, observing others' space. Set your intention fearlessly on the truth, and go on living

[Evelyn Rodriguez]

Thanks TorAa,
Funny! When I went back to the very beach and very bay on Phi Phi Don Island one year later after the tsunami, I was sitting down recalling the disaster as if in a dream (well, nightmare perhaps at that moment) and then a large coconut came straight down crashing from the tree right beside me. Putting it all right back squarely into the present.

Thanks Bruce, I totally with you that we are going to do what we do, yes. I don't advocate stressing about not knowing if you have a higher purpose or not. Or worrying if you are doing 'it' right or not.

I have spent too much time in past fretting whether I was living my purpose and since I wasn't quite sure what my purpose was that gave me a lot to stress about - rather than just living that minute, and the next minute, and the next. (It's not really YOUR higher purpose anyhow.)

In the living of it, the purpose unfolds.

I really am growing fond of the surfing metaphor more and more: Ride the wave.

I just end up doing the next most obvious thing, and then the next. However, I did feel at times as if something wanted to birth through me, and I resisted and resisted and resisted because in the eyes of society it would seem too impractical and imprudent. So that's what I want to challenge in myself. Am I really cooperating with the inevitable, or I being willful and refusing to participate in Life because _______.

In the end, C.'s refrigerator magnet says it all: "Ask your heart what's right, and follow it." Although that's the training wheels version to get practice. It becames our nature, not our second nature, to just follow our heart without asking and without reservations. And so without even being aware of any higher purpose or striving towards higher purpose we end up on purpose totally spontaneously

[Loofa]

Here's how I imagine a more conservative person responding (and there may be some truth to this):

The best way to get to that higher purpose isn't always the direct route. It's not always a straight line. Sometimes it's best to do some prep work and build a foundation to support that higher purpose. It may not be exactly what you want to do, but it's still part of the process of getting there.

The problem is in how easy it is to get sidetracked while setting that foundation. Our path eventually turns to building different foundations -- multiple security blankets, for instance, to soften the failure of the higher purpose that we might never get to.

[Evelyn Rodriguez]

Well, on second thought, considering my own life last few years, I think we can also get sidetracked by the grand search for higher purpose.

Yep, does meander quite a bit. Surfing ain't exactly a straight line. I'm following wherever the wave goes. I feel like NIX'ing everything I said in this post, and just go with the truth of how I really & truly live right now - not six years ago - which the crux of it is in the comment above. And:

"The task is not to find the lovable object, but to find the object before you lovable.” – Soren Kierkegaard, from “Works of Love.”

Often we discount what we are working this very minute too easily in the search for something that is higher, better, loftier. Later. Bring your best to every task every minute.

I think as I suggested in earlier comment we might allow ourselves to be ameniable to living out any inspired vision that is already making its way into heart. I have a feeling it would not be making itself so clearly known if there wouldn't be any foundation coming with it. If nothing is making itself too clear, then just enjoy what you are up to.

When I’m stumped about higher purpose showing up, I’ve found a little time each day in quiet helps set the tone for the rest of the day:

“The self-conscious mind cannot reach silent knowing, but silent knowing can reach into it at rare moments when the internal talk ceases, allowing other things to be heard. Everyone has these moments, when the world turns quiet and an indefinable calm washes over us.” - Not in His Image, by John Lamb Lash

It is at these times that the clarity makes the next step more obvious, especially since higher purpose can seem so hugely overwhelming and daunting - where would you begin?

[V-+a%S(p#E*rsT=`hE..]gra_Te[]

The child inside us wants to think we are waging war in a fairy tale and we just might win.

Then a Higher Purposer comes along with still more auto-suggestological fantasy, and being bored and basically bad, we listen and follow.

Then, in our painful corruption, our depraved senses are wounded by betrayal, opposition, a sliding away from Alleged Higher Purpose.

Higher Purposers sometimes use the Higher Purpose as a way to disguise a Lower Purpose.

The news is full of their stories. I need not repeat the gruesome details here or anywhere.

If enough Higher Purposers dissolve into, to put it politely, Lower Purposers, you begin to shun such gurus and seek the light that only the isolated soul can see.

And arise in infinite compassion for all things, objects, and events.

[V-+a%S(p#E*rsT=`hE..]gra_Te[]

We are Born to Serve, prior to all private existence is the overwhelming obligation to be our sister's keeper, self-sacrificial service duty exists prior to self existing.

[arkieology]

e

thought I'd share this, told you about cosmic coincidence control and Robert Anton Wilson, this is from my section on him in what I'm writing now
the best compendium of Wilson’s ideas is contained in his book “The Illuminati Papers.” The essay “Neuro-Economics” does more to savage the stupidity of traditional economic thinking than any other single essay ever written. “Voluntary associations without alternative currencies are quickly reabsorbed in the Capitalist Milieu. Voluntary associations with alternative currencies quickly run afoul of the law.” “Paper money becomes the bio-survival imprint of capitalist society.” “Poverty makes cowards of us all.” In his essay “The Rich Economy” Wilson notes “Unemployment is not a disease, so it has no cure.” The Rich Economy (Rising Income through Cybernetic Homeostasis) was developed by Wilson and inventor L. Wayne Benner, co-author with Timothy Leary of Terra II. A great admirer of Buckminster Fuller as well, he concludes the essay with this “As Bucky Fuller says, the first thought of people, once they are delivered from wage-slavery, will be “ What was it that I was so interested in as a youth, before I was told I had to earn a living?” The answer to that question, coming from millions and then billions of persons liberated from mechanical toil, will make the Renaissance look like a high school science fair or a Greenwich Village art show.”
If we all would just keep asking the question, our horizons are without limit.
Indeed Evelyn, you are asking all the right questions. You got a few answers as well. Bucky's aunt was Margaret Fuller, confidant and fellow transcentalist with Thoreau and Emerson. Crossroad Dispatches is doing a bit of transcending itself. Dream large. Dream large.

[Evelyn Rodriguez]

Vaspers, I totally understand. Yes, you're absolutely right, beyond good & evil as I wrote the other day, you also go beyond conception of higher & lower, and it is all just allowed to exist. But as I said in Tara's blog, even this desirelessness and detachment, doesn't mean nothing happens at all. What happens then happens THROUGH us, rather than BY us.

Yes, servic, this is what I read about once a week, "Serving the One":
http://www.workingwithoneness.org/article_adyashanti.html

And recommend highly to everyone (less esoteric than above) Eckhart Tolle's 'A New Earth: Awakening to Your Life's Purpose'

[Romy]

“Bring your best to every task every minute. I don’t advocate stressing about knowing if you have a higher purpose or not. Or worrying if you are doing ‘it’ right or not… Often we discount what we are working this very minute too easily in the search for something that is higher, better, loftier.”

Addison Parks talks about losing the source of one’s art by obsessing about finding a career in art.

“Stay close to the source. You find God in nature and in life, not in churches. The same is true of art. You have to stay close to the light. Every second an artist spends worrying or obsessing about their career the farther they get from the light. The world is filled with temptations to take the wrong fork at every turn. We compare, we score, we want more. It may be natural, but it's the wrong fork. It is simple math. You do the work. Without the work you have nothing. With the work you have everything that matters. The rest is crap, and it lures us with promises that are static illusions. Visions of grandeur, visions of glory. False evidence that we matter somehow.”

http://artdealmagazine.blogspot.com/2006/03/fork-in-road-razors-edge.html

The illusory promises of a career can lure away an artist from his art. But so could a higher, loftier purpose. I am thinking of Meister Eckhart who said that even a spiritual path could distract us from God, “Whoever is seeking God by ways is finding ways and losing God”.

Addison Parks had a showing and was being written up at the age of ten. In an interview he says, “I'm over fifty now. I can just let go… I love painting. I get something big out of that moosh of color and mark. I'll always paint. Sunday painter. Has a nice ring, don't you think? About the worst thing you can say about a painter, really. But to me these days it sounds so sweet. Sunny. A nice wide-brimmed straw hat in the garden…I heard John Walker is a little depressed because he's not getting the recognition he deserves. He should consider himself lucky. Just shut up and live, shut up and paint, shut up and find your wide-brimmed hat and your folding chair and get down to the water's edge. The rest is just crap and crap shoot.”

http://homepage.mac.com/addisonparks/artdeal_magazine/Personal19.html

I think it is worthwhile to find a higher purpose and live it with all sincerity but knowing all the while that it is also part of a comforting illusion, and that except for the work “the rest is crap and crap shoot”.

[Evelyn Rodriguez]

Arkielogy, Thanks so much. Yes if we go reignite the innocence and enthusiam and exuberance of a simple childhood dream, then maybe we may avoid the meanderings of our more adult (and, for me, quite stubborn) visions of grandeur that often sway us.

I was just also thinking (and you mention economics and employment) about Muhammed Yunus. He really didn't set out with a grand plan for Grameen Bank at all. It was a very simple following of the thread of inspiration. Wrote comment over at:
http://www.horsepigcow.com/2007/02/05/aside-privilege-and-higher-purpose/#comment-964

And thanks so much for reminder of transcendentalists. My friend Siona reminds it is anniversary of Thomas Carlyle's death today:http://siona.zaadz.com/blog/2007/2/yes

Romy, May be I'm a Sunday blogger. ;-) Yes, I feel too the desire for approval and recognition and credibility and prestige and "what do they think of this painting (or whatever)" compromises much more art before a single stroke is placed on a piece of canvas than ANYTHING else. I was just reading this paper http://www.fwbo.org/articles/creativity2.html
and thinking while we may be producing stuff, what matters to me is if I am coming from the creative mind (spontaneous, aware, independent) rather than the reactive mind (repetitive, re-acting)?

Reactive mind might produce something, yes...but agree with you on the distraction of a higher purpose...it can get one into a reactive and evaluative and so-am-i-doing-it-right-am-I? mind.

The other day I was thinking to myself that art can make a bolder statement when it doesn't come from an intention of making any statement.

[Tara Hunt]

Hey Ev,

Thanks for this wonderful, thoughtful post.

I'm kind of taking the time to reflect on all of this. Some of the conversation around this has left me shaken. People, who I've never met, coming around and taking issue with me discussing this (I suppose I should be thankful that they found it significant enough to gather around). Right now, I'm afraid I'm reacting too emotionally and too personally.

I'd love, when I get my head around this...to sit over tea and discuss this further...as well as all of the other things we have been talking about. Life gets in the way of my HP everyday. ;)