Purpose

I like having "things".  More is good, new is better and something electronic and complicated is best.  What's more, if one of something is a good idea, two or more is even better.  It seems that the more useless something is, the more appealing it is to me.  I have always been like that.  I have memories as a child of counting things, lining them up and enjoying their existence.  Sometimes I would hesitate to play with them out of fear of damaging them.  I'm sure that some of this is related to my OCD, but that's a story for another day.

Activity in the church seemed to give me a focus, or at least a desire to focus, on things other than "stuff".  Not that I still didn't acquire that "stuff".  I did and a'plenty.  But being involved and busy with church activity meant that at least some of the time, some of my attention was on something other than the acquisition of the things "of this world."

That activity is now gone.  This is a good thing for me.  I no longer have to pretend to believe in a theology that I have always felt to be unbelievable.  I needn't loathe myself because I believe my basic nature displeases some mysterious god somewhere out there.  I'm not compelled to believe that my homosexuality is a disease, like cancer, that I have to bear until I'm taken to a better world where my suffering will be rewarded.  I truly wish I had figured it out earlier, because my life would be so much different today.  But at least I figured it out.

However, I still struggle with the concept that life has no purpose.  Particularly since I am alone and will never have children or a family of my own. At some point, all but the most ignorant of us contemplate our place in the world.  And that can be frightening. So, I'm never critical of those who find comfort in the reassurance that religion provides, even though I believe that reassurance is an illusion.

Perhaps returning to religion would offer me some comfort, but I don't think so.  I've often heard believers say that they don't know how they could live if they didn't believe there is a god.  I'm glad that their belief allows them to live.  But I can't accept something as truth simply because the alternative is intolerable.

I am comfortable, relatively speaking, with who I am.  But in the quiet of the night, or when I'm hiking alone with a cool breeze in my face and the warm sun on my back, I often ponder the meaning and purpose of my existence.  Sometimes I despair when that there is none.  And sometimes I just appreciate that my existence, your existence, the simple majesty of existence, is enough.